The Muffin Break Boss Is Sorry About That Whole ‘Entitled Millennials’ Thing, Sort Of

Muffin Break general manager Natalie Brennan has apologised for complaining that millennials no longer wander in to muffin stores to ask for unpaid work, saying that it was all a misunderstanding: she was talking about a different kind of unpaid work, the okay one.

Brennan copped huge backlash over the weekend for her original comments, published in an interview with news.com.au, which argued that young people must have an “inflated view of their self-importance” because “there’s just nobody walking in my door asking for an internship, work experience or unpaid work, nobody.”

Now that quite a few people have pointed out that actually, expecting people to work for free is exploitative and often illegal, Brennan has walked these comments back. In a post on the Muffin Break Facebook page, she argues that her comments to news.com.au have been misunderstood.

“The recent article does not reflect my values or those of Foodco,” Brennan wrote, referring to Muffin Break’s parent company. “Every day for the last 25 years I’ve worked with young people who are motivated, passionate and hard-working. This is as true today as it was when I started my career.”

“I don’t expect anyone to work unpaid and Foodco Group policy is, and has always been, that all employees including interns, employed either directly or through our brands are paid according to relevant awards.”

“The unpaid work I referred to was supervised programs run through schools, TAFEs or universities, which provide valuable gained experience to people before they enter the workforce full-time. I want to apologise for any misunderstanding or upset caused by my comments.”

While it’s pleasing to hear that Muffin Break is planning on following the law, it’s still pretty concerning that its general manager was out here calling an entire generation entitled for failing to cheerfully donate their labour to a large corporation. I’m actually not sure that we millennials are the ones with the self-importance problem, come to think of it.

try to think of something more bleakly depressing than doing free work for fucking muffin break. you can't

— Eleanor Robertson (@marrowing) February 23, 2019