Throwaway because I'm still working the last few shifts I have left here.
I currently work at a LAN center franchise in the United States. I've worked here since early this year. For anyone unfamiliar, a LAN center is essentially an internet cafe specifically tailored for gaming. My role is working reception/the front desk, getting people set up with accounts, selling memberships, cleaning, etc. and I'm almost always the only one on shift.
From the beginning, it was obvious to me that this company is extremely profit-focused without much regard for their employees. For the first 6 months or so of me working here, management was amazing – I've worked under two great managers who were unfortunately overseen by a terrible corporate/owner. The company is set up in a way to keep labor expenses to an absolute minimum: everyone is part time, working minimum wage, and there is almost always one person on shift alone. The app we use to clock in is also designed in that no one can clock in early, and you stop getting paid a mere 5 minutes after the store closes. You are expected to have the entire store closed and cleaned literally with only 5 minutes. This usually requires over an hour of pre-close that is to be done while also being on shift and handling customer interactions. Additionally, we are expecting to cold call and push for membership sales despite no commission, bonuses, or raises associated with this. We run the entire store – reception, maintenance, cleaning, opening, closing, customer service, and sales – and yet are paid the minimum wage with no benefits.
Another part of the job is intense micromanaging. Leaving something out on the counter, even as little as a pen or a sticky note, will get you scolded in the company's messaging app for the entire staff to see. We are given an exact checklist of everything we are expected to do, with it to be filled out as you do them. The checklists are monitored in real time, and in the past we have been warned that if you do them too quickly or too slowly that they can see that and they will assume you aren't actually doing everything.
Despite this, the atmosphere at the job was fine. Due to there being only one person on shift at any time, we usually had almost no direct oversight beyond a checklist (too expensive to have a manager or anything else on shift I guess lol) and we could work at our own pace and sometimes even have downtime to work on things like classwork. It was the ideal job for a college student like myself – until they decided it wasn't.
One day, management changed. The old manager had left – in large part due to dealing with constant overbearing micromanagement and absurd work expectations from working directly under the owner of the store – and in came a new one. He seemed fine at first, but it was obvious he was essentially a corporate robot. He functioned as the owner's lap dog, always enforcing any new policies and going along with all of the owner's ridiculous stipulations. Where our old managers had fought him, he always simply conceded. When management changed initially, I was working 25-30 hours a week, which was enough for me to live off of. I was promised that my hours would stay the same when this happened, tragically it couldn't be further from the truth.
One day while I was travelling over the weekend, I got a notification that my schedule had changed from my scheduling app. When I normally would work around 8 shifts a pay period, you can probably imagine my concern when that randomly dropped to 1. This was less than $100 of pay for the next two weeks, when I normally make about $600 in that same time frame. Obviously confused, I reached out to my manager to ask, and he insisted that the schedule was still in the works and not to worry. Later that day another shift was added to my schedule, but as someone in school and living in an apartment with my partner, this was obviously not near enough. I called my manager to ask what was going on, and after 20 minutes of corporatist beating around the bush and refusing to directly acknowledge the situation he began to imply that my job was not secure. He insisted this wasn't unique to me, and with management changes that all of our jobs are insecure at the moment, however I was the only one having their hours actively slashed. Throughout all of this, it was never made clear why this was happening to me specifically. I had heard only good things from both corporate and my manager, and had no real sense that my job was in danger until this moment. There was no indication of why this was happening, and to this day, there still hasn't been.
Throughout the next few weeks I began my job search. During this time it became clear that the writing was on the wall, and that I would likely not have a job soon. My savings were rapidly depleting and it was clear they were waiting me out. They were refusing to fire me so they could win the unemployment claim, obviously. They wanted me to quit on my own volition and it was very clear they had no intention of actually firing me until they knew I was employed. As I wasn't in any financial position to fight this, I was essentially fucked.
My manager would constantly ask me about how my employment search was going, and how he was completely willing to help me find a job if I needed it. While on the surface it seemed like a nice offering, it was clear he was only awaiting confirmation that I had a new job before permanently taking me off the schedule. Eventually I let it slip that I did likely have a new job lined up. The next day he came in on what would become one of my last shifts, and talked to me about “mutually moving on” from the company. I knew their decision was made. It was pointless fighting it, so when he suggested that I work the remaining shifts on my schedule and then they'd stop scheduling me, I just agreed. The insane extent they went to to prevent me from collecting unemployment was genuinely remarkable. A company that constantly rambled about us being a team, and a family, had literally waited me out like Stalingrad. I wish I could say I was surprised, but profit above all else I guess. I don't really have much of a point with this, just ranting. I've been coming here for years before I worked here and have spent hundreds, if not thousands, playing here. When I worked here, I always did my best to follow every procedure, pick up any shift I could, come in on time and stay late, rarely complained etc. And in return I had my hours slashed with no warning, was pressured to quit, and the whole time I was left completely in the dark as to why it was happening. I guess that's capitalism! Genuinely no regard for employee livelihood, really fucking crazy.