Comcast under fire for literal pie-in-the-face disciplinary policy

This is crazy:

Yes, a Connecticut lawsuit against Comcast alleges that one of its stores was running a carrot-and-stick incentive scheme for their sales force.

• The Stick: the lowest selling consultant was tied to a chair and had a cream pie smashed in their face.

• The Carrot: the highest selling consultant got to do the smashing.

They even kept track on a leader board complete with pie-in-the-face emojis.

Arstechnica reports,

Plaintiff David Figueroa's lawsuit said he was hired as a retail sales consultant on February 2, 2026, and was supervised by store manager Sully Fuentes Peterson. Figueroa alleges that Peterson ‘designed and implemented' the pie-in-face ritual to meet goals related to sales and positive responses in customer surveys.

‘Defendant did not inform the Plaintiff prior to his acceptance of Defendant's offer of employment that the Comcast Store has a policy of subjecting Retail Sales Consultants to public assaults by co-workers — at the direction of Ms. Peterson, the store manager — for the purpose of increasing Defendant's sales and profitability,' the lawsuit said.

Figueroa resigned on February 27 and is suing Comcast for negligence and not having control of its managers.

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Comcast responded with some typical legalese.

‘The Company has zero tolerance for harassment, humiliation, or any behavior that compromises a respectful and safe workplace,' Comcast said in the statement provided to Ars. ‘This matter is in litigation so we will not comment on the specific allegations, other than to say that we disagree with the claims in the complaint and its characterization of the alleged events, and intend to fully respond through the legal process.'

Unfortunately for Comcast, it sounds like the whole thing was videoed every month, so they'll have trouble disputing what happened.

As the case moves forward, the court could be shown video evidence of alleged pie assaults. The lawsuit claims the ‘assaults were videotaped by Ms. Peterson,' that she ‘ordered her staff to participate in these assaults and to video them,' and that Figueroa himself 'witnessed and videotaped a co-worker, Ty, being tied-up and assaulted by a co-worker in the backroom of the Comcast Store.'

‘Ms. Peterson ordered, was present for, and videotaped this assault, as did the Plaintiff and other co-workers,' the lawsuit said. ‘The co-worker who struck Ty in the face while Ty was tied-up had better sales results than Ty and, therefore, Ms. Peterson ordered him to assault his poorer performing co-worker, in front of his peers.'

Though it is kind of odd that the guy traumatized and suing the company got neither the stick nor the carrot here.

Apparently, just seeing someone take a pie to the face was too much for him.

I'll leave this here just for fun: