Hi everyone. I'm 17F and I work at a regional fast casual restaurant chain. My workplace is pretty chill and somewhat tightknit, managers are all really nice. This is my second job and I have been employed for under a year, employed here for 5 months. I only work once a week, so I'm doing it more for the experience/my resume than the money.
Yesterday my GM called me to his desk and showed me my first quarterly report. He told me he was really happy because he only started working here a month before me and I was his first hire, yet I had one of the highest-scoring reports. Idk how these usually work but it was basically a paper of different behaviors/company values expected from me and I got perfect scores on almost all of them. He gave me a paper to sign saying I got a $0.15 raise – I'm currently paid $13/hr plus tips so it's not much but I felt pretty happy. I genuinely thought I was in trouble cause I can be a bit of a klutz lol. However, right after I signed the paper, he told me (very seriously) that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES am I to discuss my pay with others.
Instantly, sirens went off in my head but I remained calm and just nodded along with what he said. I had a flashback to a reddit post (can't remember from which sub), saying something along the lines of your employer has no right to stop you from discussing your pay from others. I am really conflicted because on one hand, if he hadn't told me that, I would've probably never discussed my pay with anyone other than my parents anyway. On the other hand, it seemed like a really suspicious thing for him to say that he at least has no right to enforce. I talked to my dad about it and he agreed, mom wasn't so sure but she's unemployed. I'm also going to ask my older brother because he's had more retail jobs like mine.
To be honest, I feel like the only reason he asked me to not discuss my pay because there is a variety of workers at the restaurant, some have been employed 2+ years and others shorter than me. I think he might have not given some older workers a raise, and he fears being called out for it if word gets out that one of the youngest, newer employees who works once a week got a raise.