So, as yall are probably familiar with, late fall/early winter is a terrible time for restaurant business, at least in small towns where not a whole lot is happening in general.
So in November, my hours were drastically cut.
Then I got covid and had to quarantine, but was denied unemployment.
Then my cat had to have all her teeth pulled, so $800 had to be coughed up.
I'm now $6k in debt and unable to pay my basic living expenses because of all the bills I've racked up over the winter. I've basically been surviving off credit cards this whole time.
Restaurants around here during the slow season act like it's completely normal for all their employees to live off $200 a week, and I felt like I didn't have the leverage to question it.
Even though my hourly has gone up, I still bring home about the same or slightly less per year than I did five years ago.
So I got a factory job, which I was planning on taking as a second job and stay part time at the restaurant but now I'm running into the issue that my manager doesn't want to give me lunch shifts, he wants me to work dinner on my days off from the factory.
So I'll be working seven nights a week.
He then told me to take care of myself.
I'm gonna have to work both jobs for a little while to catch up on my debts but I am screaming inside at just how much my own well being has been thrown around in this industry, after five years I'm still in poverty and tired of excuses.
And what makes me specifically put off by my own personal employer is that the cherry on the cake, is I get scheduled to work lunch shifts sometimes and they're always completely dead, and I get sent home after working only three hours because the restaurant isn't making money. They know I can't pay my power bill, and they're still sending me home early because they can't afford to pay me to clean or even get all our prep work done and instead leave it to our other cook to do all by himself. They're so stingy with overtime even though we've been skeleton crew for two years now. I don't think they're ever going to change at this point.