To preface I live in Saskatchewan, Canada.
I work banquets at a hotel as a porter, I'm the only porter, I easily am doing the work of 2 people for the pay of 1. This would be bad enough right? Hold onto your butts because it gets worse. I was hired with the stipulation that I'd be promoted to a supervisor when a position became available when the need for one arose once business picked back up (I was hired shortly after covid restrictions regarding gathering sizes were lifted in my area). Less than 3 months later they had offered the position to someone else, without my knowledge and again around a month later to someone else. Both declined for different reasons. The person who made the offers doesn't know that I know but when I applied to formally be her number 2 she said I wasn't ready (despite me having similar experience as a supervisor elsewhere) which is fair since it is a step above the job I was promised so my immediate boss/superior was hired.
Recently however things have gotten to the point where I actually blew up at (I yelled at her but not AT her if that makes sense, none of my grievances are with her specifically) my immediate boss (not my “actual” boss but she's essentially in charge of my department) and basically told her that to the rest of the hotel we're an afterthought, they don't give a shit about us. They don't even care if we even have a vacuum that works. They do not care. They just use us to sell rooms, get people into the bar, and do the resturant favors that they never seem to have the time or money to return said favors with. We barely make any money off of catering itself, but we sell a lot of extra rooms because of it. She said she'd talk to her bosses and a few other things I was too upset to properly hear and process. Nothing will change though. I doubt she'll even bring up half of what I mentioned in my outburst.
I have to do nearly all the setup and teardown of events by myself, which would be fine except the pay is crap. I get just above minimum wage, with a flat rate gratuity that doesn't change whether I'm setting a meeting room for 8 people or setting up an entire banquet room for a 180 person wedding. This means that some days I get paid to sit on my ass and play on my phone for over an hour at a time while other days I'm running around setting up extra seating, running food, helping bartend, doing almost all the dishes by myself, clearing, stocking, and 20 other things for the same amount of money.
This brings me to today. I'm so livid right now because in the past few days I've realized how much they take me for granted. They probably intend to never promote me (to her credit my immediate boss was unaware of my situation, or so she claims) so I'll just keep plugging away like a good little worker for less money. They've hired 3 people since I started (5 actually but one quit after 2 days because of all the bullshit and another can only do 1 day a week for 4 hours), 1 of which is my wife who works there about once a week, 1 of them is my immediate boss's friend, and 1 who just went on sick leave before she goes on maternity leave, all 3 of them also dislike many of the same things I dislike about working there. They don't even pay overtime if I work 11 hours in a single day (currently looking into whether this is legal). They can't hire anybody because, much to the surprise of all 3 of the people above me, nobody wants to work downtown, in an area with sketchy people hanging around outside, for crap pay, with a schedule that varies week by week, in an industry known for being stressful.
Believe me I could go on and on about the laundry list of bullshit we, more specifically I put up with, but then we'd be here all night.
So, tomorrow I'm thinking I need to have a little sit down with my boss (immediate) and tell her I need to be paid atleast $2 more per hour, I want overtime after 8 hours, I want the shitty gratuity system overhauled and scaled depending on the amount of work I'm putting in (I've worked elsewhere where similar sized events net me nearly $25/hr and I make less than $18) I want extra pay when I help the resturant out (like we're supposed to be getting, I've been told that we don't get extra pay for helping them out but people who I know who worked there pre Covid all say that's bullshit) and I want resources/equipment that does the job it's supposed to. She cannot afford to lose me, if I quit the entire catering department basically collapses because I'm a one man department (portering) doing the work of 2 people and I'm the only one with open availability. If I quit my wife would also quit, and I could probably convince atleast 1 other person there to not pick up any portering shifts (he's the bartender but does occasionally come in to help set up/teardown).
I'm just tired of being told the supervisor position is still on the table, we're looking for another porter, things will get better. It's been almost a year and I barely make more now that I did then and despite my immediate boss's efforts things haven't improved much at all since both of her bosses are complete headasses about anything banquet related because neither have any prior experience or interest in banquets.