On the In-N-Out Heiress Being the Bigger Person

Knowing that I'm a sucker for any news about In-N-Out Burger, mostly coverage on when locations around Portland are finally going to open, Google News offered me an article that hit me from a different direction: [Fortune] Heiress Lynsi Snyder became President of In-N-Out aged 27. She’s been betrayed by colleagues but refuses to have ’emotional distance’ with her team

The clickbait portion of the article obviously emanates from the word betrayed. That's what caught my eye. After all, scandal remains the most effective dog whistle for readers of "journalism". And the why? Like many others, I've been betrayed at the workplace — it's still pretty fresh for me.

Regardless of whether it is intended as such, "betrayal" is felt very personally, and therefore has the potential to hurt in a very personal way. That's why I continue to be impressed by these stories about Lynsi Snyder. You might have previously read about her going "undercover boss" to start at the beloved fast food chain at the very bottom when she first inherited her responsibilities (and fortune). Or for the finance bros, the long-standing narrative that In-N-Out will never go public, despite what I imagine to be countless capital markets teams salivating at the juicy IPO opportunity. Or Lynsi allegedly single-handedly absorbing most of the cost of California's ill-advised decision to hike fast food worker wages, resulting in In-N-Out increasing prices the least among all chains in the state. Simply put, the Lynsi Snyder era of In-N-Out has already become the stuff of legend as it pertains to corporate leadership. 

Back to the today's passage. Chances are, if you're reading this, and you've ever worked for any significant period of time, you've had a less-than-spectacular work experience. Those work experiences are defined by our relationships — our experiences dealing with colleagues. Betrayal is a strong word, and one I'd assume most people would reserve only for the most unpleasant of work interactions. Just like anyone, there are good folks and bad, those who are kind and those who are not. Occasionally, you might meet someone who is just the worst. Personally, I would reserve the term betrayal for those who first appear to be kind, and later turn out to be the latter thing. Perhaps someone took credit for your work. Maybe they put you down so that they'd snipe the promotion. Maybe they spread some malicious rumor about you. Maybe they did it all while smiling. Whatever the case, this is apparently so universal that even the single, undisputed, billionaire heiress of In-N-Out, at the apex of the organization that she controls absolutely, is victim to it.

The world is full of crouching tigers and hidden dragons — you never know where dangers lurk — and having to come to terms that no one is immune is at once upsetting and reassuring. It makes me feel sad for work culture in general, but the realization of the universality of workplace betrayal oddly makes me feel less alone, less "personally" hurt.

Here I am, six months after choosing to leave my work life behind, in part as a result of workplace betrayals galore, six months after I swore off the toxicity, greed, incompetence, and apathy that marred my decade-long foray into "tech", and I've found this fluff article to be so oddly illuminating. So to be clear, Lynsi Snyder chooses to be the bigger person and not let negative workplace encounters define her, which I think is wonderful. I would be much more inspired, however, to read about someone who did not have the legal and financial resources or hierarchical superiority that she possesses arrive at the same decision. Once bitten, twice shy, as the idiom goes.

Sometimes I wish I could have done the opposite of everything I actually did during my work life. Instead of being open with others, be guarded and careful. Instead of favoring emotional proximity and trying to make friends, be weary of those who get to close. Don't be nice and generous. Don't do favors. Don't stand under anyone else's umbrella for too long, and don't take anyone under your wing. But I do think Snyder is right. And as hard as it is sometimes, what choice do we have but continue to think the best of others?

I think back to the very last things I said or typed to the very people who betrayed me over the course of my work years. Overwhelmingly, I gave them words of encouragement, of positivity, and gratitude. Maybe that's not how I really felt at the time deep down, but among the many emotions that those memories elicit in me, I can be sure that shame isn't one of them.