Imagine opening your social media feed to find pictures of a kitchen worker picking his nose and wiping it on raw pizza dough or squirting whipped cream from a pastry bag into a co-worker’s mouth. These are not hypotheticals, but real examples of baito tero that recently affected two fast-food chains in Japan.

“Part-time work terrorism” is not new but has recently gone viral on social media platforms, such as X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok, with the unsavoury pranks causing significant reputational and financial damage to affected businesses.