A guy I know bought a DP Dough franchise but had never run a restaurant before and only had one guy working for him, so he offered me a job. The job was as a kitchen manager, which I have loads of experience doing, but the pay was less than what I could make at the golden arches flipping burgers. No disrespect to short-order cooks, just explaining how little he was offering. I took the job because I wanted him to be successful and make his money doing something good – instead of selling hookah, like his other two businesses. I understood that what he was paying me was dog shit and came with no benefits, but the expectation was (because we talked about it) that he would make things right money-wise when he could afford to pay the market rate.
The store he took over was run into the ground by the previous franchise owner and the place needed more work than I could possibly explain. I came in from day one and did my best to raise the standards, hoping that one day I could make the place approach *my* standards. That meant deep cleaning every cooler, deep cleaning every freezer, deep cleaning the walk-in, cleaning and servicing the radiator and condenser on each of the aforementioned, bringing in a whetstone and sharpening the knives (he didn't pay me for that), repairing the drywall and painting between orders (he didn't pay me for that), taking apart, cleaning, and snaking the drains when all four sinks backed up at the same time (he didn't pay me for that), repairing the plumbing (he didn't pay me for that), and a million other things while running the store, training new employees, reprimanding an employee who consistently lied, stole, and didn't show up to work on time – because the boss was too timid to do that himself. I did prep, took orders, took several deliveries on my motorcycle (I never got the tips from those deliveries), handled complaints from customers, handled complaints from employees – including the other kitchen manager, and provided the owner with the accumulated knowledge from all my years working in kitchens. Does that sound like a kitchen manager to you? Because it sure doesn't sound like any other KM job I've ever had. Besides the handyman services he owes me money for and the delivery driver job he owes me money for, the job I was *actually* doing was a full $10/hr more than what I was getting paid for.
To add insult to injury, we've told him that we need him to cover four manager shifts per week until he gets a third manager but he refuses to do so. Instead, he was having the other KM work 9 days in a row and guilting me to work overnight “so he can finally get a day off.” Those were his exact words. He shook my hand and agreed to only have me open because my body doesn't do well with working overnight – in my state, that's a binding agreement. He lied. He was having me cover overnight shifts nearly every week (I got one week where he wasn't in breach of contract and that's why the other guy worked 9 in a row) because he refused to do his part. “But I'm here from open to close every day,” he says. That isn't remotely true – he spends half his day at his other businesses, at home obsessing over his security cameras or taking smoke breaks when he needs to be actually working. I told him multiple times (and so has the other KM) – we don't need him there 7 days a week from open to close, we need him there for four shifts. Even though he has no clue what he's doing and the two managers he's paying have more years of restaurant experience than he has years on this Earth, he refuses to listen.
I didn't get breaks, except to pray. I was too busy most of the time to even sit in a trash can and scarf down a little food (my homies that work in kitchens know what I'm talking about). When I started, I had the option of wearing a shirt that was three sizes too big or two sizes too small because all the shirts that would fit me were safely in the possession of the owner. He always had a clean shirt on and a different shirt every day. After a couple of weeks of wearing the same tiny shirt every day, he finally bought more shirts. I got one shirt that fits. That was it. I worked so hard that I needed to wash that shirt every two days because the salt from all my sweat stained it so badly that you couldn't miss the big white ring on the front and back. I worked like a dog and didn't get so much as a thank you for all my effort or for all the extra work I was doing beyond my job description, particularly the handyman work. He didn't even thank me when all my efforts resulted in the first “A” that store has ever gotten on its health department inspection. The only thing he ever said about any of it was, “I don't fucking care about the drywall. You need to help me.” He was having a hissy-fit because I was doing that work between orders and ONE order came through while he was on the phone. He didn't even have sense enough to write down the order and put it in the queue so I could know what I was making; he was on the phone because the receipt printer needed to be reset and he couldn't manage that without customer support.
Anyway… He hired his nephew, who just moved in from out of the country and doesn't speak a word of English. He doesn't even speak Spanish. So, the other KM and I were expected to train him, while teaching him English. The boss has this kid working from 4 pm until 4 am, 7 days a week. He's 17, so it's actually illegal for him to work past midnight and before 5 am. He's been here more than a week and the boss still hasn't enrolled him in school. DEFINITELY not taking advantage though. We taught him enough words to be able to read the tickets and make the orders, so that's usually what he's doing – although he takes about a dozen smoke breaks a day, so he often just walks off the line without telling anyone. Lately, though, he's been getting ornery. Which makes sense because he's both a teenage boy and overworked. He does shit to annoy people like repeating the same two phrases over and over a thousand times a day – the boss also thinks this is funny and won't say anything about it.
So the other day, I have this kid on my shift and the boss leaves for several hours. This kid walks off to smoke and doesn't say anything. He comes back when he feels like it and then plays with his vape instead of working. Nobody can communicate with him and his uncle isn't around, so he gets away with it. I was working on my daily deep cleaning list when I hear him shouting at the new guy. I approach him and he starts shouting at me. I don't care that he didn't understand my words, but I let him know that he had no right to act like that towards anyone. Later, he tried putting me in my place because I was running the place and not just standing in one spot. That also didn't go over well. It's worth mentioning that when this kid can't communicate what he wants or needs, he grabs everyone by the arm and leads them to where he wants them to go. It's a reasonable adaptation. When he started acting up on the line a third time in two hours, I told him to go take a break. He refused. I told him again. He refused. At that point, the level of insubordination was too much and he was ruining the mood in my kitchen, so I told him to leave. He refused and acted confused. When he continued to not move, I took him my the arm and he withdrew. So I called his uncle, the boss, and told him what happened and that I wanted this kid out of the store. He asked me to hand him my phone, which I did. They talked for two minutes and he handed the phone back. “Tell that fucking new guy he needs to get the fuck out because he's getting hair everywhere. I'll be in soon.” The nephew apparently explained the he had a completely reasonable excuse for being insubordinate – the new guy wasn't given a hairnet or hat, which his employer was required by law to provide him with, so when a single hair landed on the counter, he had to show it to me, refuse to clean the line, and then take out his phone to take a picture that he spent time staging.
The boss came in eventually and stood around while I did expo, took a call for a delivery order, took another call for a customer complaint, and eventually slowed down enough for him to ask me what happened. Then, in front of customers and crew, he told me that he'll kill anyone who even touches his family. I took off my apron, grabbed what things of mine I could remember to take, and clocked out. Even though I wanted to rip out his throat for threatening me, I walked out instead. In the 19 years I've been working, that is the only time I've ever walked off a job. He then had the audacity to follow me to the parking lot where I told him off. He doesn't think that what he was doing to me was taking advantage of me though. He doesn't have any idea.