I work at Whole Foods as a cashier. We make $15/hr which is minimum wage in my state. A few weeks ago, all of the employees in the store were scheduled to come in at 9pm on a weekday for a 1 hour mandatory meeting. I am fortunate enough to have my own car and only live 5 minutes away from the store. A lot of my coworkers drive 40-60 minutes to get here and I also know people who take the train which is a $35 round trip. Imagine having an early morning shift and going home at 3pm, only to come back out again for a single hour. Imagine it’s your day off and instead of spending the night with your family, you have to come to your workplace for a single hour to listen to some bullshit that could have been said over an email.
You know what we did for that 1 hour? All of us gathered in the back of the store and they had this podium thing set up. Couldn't hear shit by the way, the mic was so low. Apparently we have a new store owner and that’s probably what this bullshit meeting was for. They introduced us to him, talked about employee of the month and then told us we’ll have Christmas trees in stock next week. That’s it. It didn’t even take the full hour. When they dismissed us, literally everyone ran for the door. We didn’t even need to clock out because they knew it would be chaos.
Imagine taking a $35 train or driving 60 minutes for this. What frustrates me is that they know we are getting paid minimum wage, that travel/gas is expensive, that many of us work 2 jobs and/or are in school, that we have kids at home, that we value the free time that we have and would rather spend it with family… and they still would make us come all the way out there for 1 hour after the store has already closed to talk about Christmas trees. IDC about the new store owner or who he is. He’s already on my shit list. It’s just crazy how much they don’t care about us
Edit: I have a few coworkers who take the bus to get to work and the bus doesn't even run that late. They had to get rides or borrow a car to get to this stupid ass meeting. It's just so fucked up