For three-and-a-half years, Joey DeFrancesco worked at the Renaissance Providence Downtown Hotel in Providence, RI. DeFrancesco worked in the room services department to pay his living expenses and tuition while attending Rhode Island College, where he graduated summa cum laude last spring.
According to a statement written by DeFrancesco, the working conditions at the hotel were terrible.
"Housekeepers are reprimanded if they fail to clean 16 rooms or more in a nine-hour shift. Anyone who speaks up – especially anyone who is openly pro-union – is disciplined or fired. Managers scream down employees daily," he says.
In August, DeFrancesco decided he was finally going to quit the job. While having lunch with his bandmate, Tal Gur, and former Milwaukeean Jori Ketten, it was decided that DeFrancesco would quit in grand style with the help of his and Gur's 19-piece brass band called WhatCheer? Brigade.
Ketten offered to film the event and the plan was on.
"As long as I've known Joey he's been working at this job and he's not one to complain but it was always clear when it came up that it was a terrible place to work. I'm good friends with everyone in the band, so I was excited to help out," says Ketten.
Shortly thereafter, DeFrancesco walked into the hotel followed by members of his punk rock marching band with tubas, drums and horns in tow. He stood in a hallway with the band until his boss, Jared, appeared at which point he handed him his resignation paper and said, "I quit."
Jared demanded that the group leave the building, which they did, while loudly and jubilantly jamming on their way out the door.
Ketter later put the three-minute-and-19-second video on Facebook and YouTube. Earlier this week, "Joey Quits" had received almost 2,400,000 views on YouTube with more than 18,600 "likes" and fewer than 500 "dislikes."
"I had no idea so many other people would be interested in it. I imagine the timing, with all of the attention on the Occupy movement, has been a factor in its visibility," says Ketten.
Ketten, 31, grew up in Milwaukee and attended Nicolet High School. She does video and photography work and teaches at several non-profits in Providence. She is also employed as Media Lab Director at Community MusicWorks and co-coordinates a street band festival called the Providence Honk Festival.
So was any of the "Joey Quits" video staged? According to Ketten, it was not.
"We had no idea going in how it was going to work out. We only talked about the moment of Joey saying he was quitting and the band playing immediately following. Everything happened very quickly, so I only had one chance to get it captured right," she says.
DeFrancesco became an internet folk hero practically overnight, perhaps because people are frustrated over unemployment, troubled finances and the unknown future. Plus, the video plays into many workers' unfulfilled dream of telling their bosses to shove it.
"This video speaks to the fantasy many people have of standing up for themselves when faced with unjust working conditions. In the current economy, people are afraid their only options are to be treated unfairly or face unemployment. We've received a lot of responses from other hotel workers expressing solidarity with the real issue behind the video," says Ketten.
Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.
Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.
