Glacier Global Partners' former unpaid interns say they are delighted at being paid real money for fewer than 18 hours of daily labor at their new workplace: McDonalds on Second and 39th
Glacier Global Partners LLP co-founder Yaniv Blumenfeld was in for a surprise when showed up for work on Tuesday, April 19 at 11:30 am. The deteriorating real estate investment firm’s Manhattan satellite office on 801 Second Avenue was completely abandoned.
Finding a Post-It note on the office door, Blumenfeld rode the elevator back up to the first floor and walked south on Second Avenue. Four blocks away he found his entire crew of office workers at a McDonalds restaurant. That morning Blumenfeld’s workers, most of whom are unpaid interns, had all taken new wage-paying McJobs.
McDonald’s restaurants, including the Manhattan location on 701 2nd Avenue (at 39th Street) held a national hiring day April 19 with the goal of filling 50,000 jobs nationwide.
When McDonald’s manager Andy Feldhuhn unwittingly offered Blumenfeld the role of promotional clown Ronald McDonald, Blumenfeld reportedly made such an angry scene that Feldhuhn almost had to call the police.
In an interview this week, Blumenfeld expressed bewilderment. “I understand that, for the unpaid interns, a paying job has appeal. But I can’t believe they’d give up the prestige of working for a third-tier investment firm in a fancy Second Avenue office.”
Especially stunning, Blumenfeld said, was the loss of his paid part-time director of development, Bob Underballs. A student at Manhattan’s Fashion Institute of Technology, Underballs had extensive experience installing art installations at SoHo art galleries. Blumenfeld is now accusing Underballs of taking the development job at Glacier Global in bad faith just weeks ago. “I think he just wanted to work in the Playgirl Building,” Blumenfeld sputtered.
Workers say they were forbidden to make eye contact with Yaniv Blumenfeld
White Plains, New York-based Glacier Global intends to pursue legal action against all of the former employees based on a draconian non-compete agreement they signed. “They explicitly agreed not to share any of our proprietary information with any fast food restaurants or clogged plumbing snakers,” said a spokesman for Yaniv Blumenfeld, Yaniv Blumenfeld. “Technically they were not slaves, so they were in no way covered by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.” Blumenfeld insisted he was not to blame for failing to padlock the office door the previous evening, nor for any of the other catastrophes with which he has been associated.
A former Glacier Global Partners intern, now working the night shift at McDonalds’s, agreed to be interviewed provided she was not named. “At least McDonald’s won’t be a stain on my resume,” she said. Regarding Blumenfeld, “I’ll be happy if I never see that little fudgedrawers again.”
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