A student and (former) Kentucky Fried Chicken employee has been let go from her job for licking a large plate of mashed potatoes. Actually, she probably would have gotten away with that, but then she posted photographs of herself licking the potatoes on Facebook. (I guess they were 'potato-licking good'.)

When the photos started to go viral, KFC fired both the potato enthusiast and another employee, the one who actually took the photos. A spokesperson for the fast food chain has assured the public that those particular mashed potatoes were not served to guests. (They don't elaborate on how they know this for sure.)

I think that there are several career lessons to be learned from this incident:

1. If you work in a restaurant, don't mess with the food.
2. If you do work in a restaurant, and you must mess with the food, don't be photographed doing it.
3. If you work in a fast food restaurant, and you are photographed messing with the food, don't post those photos on Facebook.

Fortunately the potato-loving erstwhile KFC employee has not been identified (although her picture is all over the Web). This incident would not only certainly hurt her chances at future food-service employment, but it would also likely reduce the odds of her landing any job requiring common sense.

Remember that the Internet is public, and what you post online can come back to haunt you if you don't proceed with caution.  

Read: Four keys to using social media to land a job

Source: MailOnline - KFC worker fired after posting disturbing photo of herself
(Warning this story contains disturbing photos of even more food abuse by restaurant workers.)

- Peter Harris
Peter Harris on Twitter