Christopher Cristwell sat down in not much else but what appears to be his green Starbucks barista apron and began a 2 minute 55 second, 85 line rant against all the irritations a Starbucks service employee might encounter during a busy counter shift.

It begins innocently enough:

“Welcome to Starbucks
my name is Chris
I’ll be your barista for the day
Can i make a drink for you miss?”

And then devolves into a spate of slurs and expletives against customer stereo types, like the rich white woman, angry after-hours guy, etc. etc.

Some of the lyrics are catchy and creative, which makes the show a bit hilarious, until you consider that the guy lost his job (months after the video was actually published to Youtube) for slamming his employer before the world.

According to national news interviews (ref. 1, ref. 2) Starbucks Chris wasn’t disgruntled and didn’t mean any harm to the company-he was just making satire meant to crack up his intended audience (co-workers). He even goes on to say that he really loves the customers he works with and hopes he can find a good job after being let go.

Over the last few years we’ve seen this similar scenario play out over the social multi-verse with creative offenders, like Chris, almost always getting fired. It is the exception rather than the rule to walk away from this kind of thing unscathed.

Unfortunately most people have no idea that such “water cooler” talk in the modern world is analogous to spending millions in the old days on a campaign to deface the object of their hostilities, or satirical humors as the case might be here. That constitutes serious breaches on multiple levels, and can easily escalate into litigation if company losses are realized over more serious offenses carried out with maligned desires.

But questions we pose for Starbucks and other businesses out there are:

1) What policy is in place to prevent such embarrassments?

2) If there’s policy in place, are employees agreeing to the terms in writing?

3) Is there a training session to confirm that employees are truly understanding what they’re signing and acknowledging the consequences of their actions?

Social media policy development is crucial for every business operating in this internet “connected” world where millions of people have a ringside view of the egg on your face before you even know anything’s been thrown.