I am a restaurant worker in an outdoor mall right across from the beach in CA, and like every summer, it’s hot as hell. We are the only store without AC in the whole mall, and this is due to ours being broken for the last 5 years. Every attempt to get it fixed has been shot down for various bullshit reasons like cost, ‘need access to the roof’, difficult to find another unit to replace it, etc.
Our store turns into an oven in the heat, trapping not only heat but humidity. I’ve opened at 5 A.M and I’m sweating by 5:15. At the hottest point of the day, usually 83 F/28 C, the store reaches 94 F/34 C. Mixed with humidity, the constant busyness, and grumpy customers, it feels like actual hell. And the cherry on top is that they refuse to help us despite us being the highest profiting store in the county.
I began by asking our manager if we were working on getting it fixed, to which he responded “probably not.” So I then reach out to HR and they bring us the most pathetic little fan you’ve ever seen and say “problem fixed”. Me and one other coworker are the only ones who care to advocate for ourselves, and HR has since been ignoring both of our’s emails. They told us the only way they are going to communicate with us is in person (most likely so we don’t have a trace of what they say so they can tell us something to somehow make us stop pestering them- just a theory).
So at this point I have to take it into my own hands. I post on my instagram story asking people I know to leave a yelp review for my place of work saying that it’s way too hot and that the employees would benefit from AC. The store received 15 bad reviews all saying the same thing. What came of that? ANOTHER FAN! What we need is AC. I know it might sound like complaining but it really does affect my mental health to dread coming into the place I work at and to worry about sweating through my clothes, all while having to deal with angry tourist customers all day. This really is no longer about AC, it’s about management having basic respect for its workers.
So the point of this is that I’m kind of at a standstill and was looking for any sketchy ways to try and get us AC, since pestering doesn’t work and apparently angry yelp review won’t either. Any advice on how to go about it? I’m willing to get fired over this lmao