I like this kitchen job, I like the people, the hours, the freedom I get to do food how I want to as long as it fits the style of what we're doing. It's at a college that uses a huge, global contract company (you're probably thinking of the one) but the folks in management aren't super strict, in fact they're compassionate chill people which is a rarity in management. People left me the fuck alone, I cooked good food and went home.
My last job was in gourmet management and I hated every minute. The going through hoops, moving goal posts, trying to do right by the folks under me and being railroaded by management higher than me at every turn. I wanted to jump off a bridge.
A couple weeks ago I was offered a promotion from a lead line type position to a night supervisor position, I thought I was getting a few more bucks; that got bounced by the higher-higher ups and I got a whooping $1.25 more. Thanks, I'll buy a soda with all that extra cash. Whatever, it's been chill so far.
Wrong.
Suddenly I'm cooking 4x the food are the meal periods, working another 6 hours a week (yup, that's into OT). I have to keep everyone on task, make sure all the prep gets done, solving everyone's problems. On my sixth day of work during the week (covered another person's shift purely because I needed money), I was fucking done. I did some homework and found this company made $19 billion last year, but the value of my hard work is only worth $1.25 more an hour to them.
My boss understood. They took a pay cut during the pandemic that the company still hasn't returned. They're a very sweet person who works hard as hell and goes up to bat for us. They don't deserve that shit. Fuck this company. I want to go back to cooking and being left alone. That was perfect.