I started working at this smoothie place a week ago. I’ve been trying to find a job all summer before I leave for college and this is the only thing that came up in time. I plan on working here for 3 more weeks until I go to back to school just for a little bit of cash, but then I’m never stepping foot back in this place ever again for more reasons I’ll explain below.
My boss who is the owner of this smoothie shop wanted me to memorize the recipes for all 25 different smoothies on the menu before I even came in for an interview and gave me only 3 days to do so. I thought this was a little weird because I had never heard of anyone having to do something like this before but I did it anyway because it wasn’t hard and I wasn’t expecting to have to get a perfect score, especially since I have a menu I can just look at that will tell me what to do basically. I ended up passing the “test” he gave me with about a 75 percent. So I have a general gist of what goes into each smoothie but I forgot a couple things here and there.
So I get hired and he trains me on actually making the smoothies and I’m doing everything pretty well. But then he starts randomly asking me what the ingredients are in random smoothies on the menu, all while I’m trying to juggle actually making the smoothies and remembering specific additions the customers wanted. Basically testing me again while I’m making the smoothies.
Im getting a little irritated now because he kinda just put me on the spot, all while im still learning everything and im getting a little overwhelmed. He also nit picks everything I do and tells me to do certain things a different way when Im doing it the exact way I was trained.
I guess I wasn’t getting enough of them right because he said he was gonna test me again on any 3 of the smoothies. He said it was important for me to know all the recipes because customers could be allergic to a couple of the ingredients.
But mind you, the menu literally states every ingredient that is put into the smoothie right underneath the name of it, so if the customer orders something that they are allergic to, that has absolutely nothing to do with me. How am I supposed to know what the customer is allergic to anyway, unless they tell me directly, in which case I can simply just look on the menu and tell them which smoothies contain their allergen and either not put it in or substitute it for another ingredient.
So now he wants me to take time out of MY day, off the clock, and study 25 smoothie recipes until I know them all by heart. For what? I’m not sure. All I know is that I’m not doing that and if he has a problem with it he can just fire me, which he probably isn’t going to do because he is severely short staffed due to his employees leaving. Now I know why.
Another thing I wanted to mention. Was that my coworkers constantly talk shit about our boss for the same reasons I’ve stated before and then some. People say he’s not a good person to do business with because he doesn’t pay his employees on time. Which I found to be true as well. I literally had to text the guy directly and ASK for my paycheck because he didn’t set up my direct deposit even though i filled out the forms. he ended up just cashapping it to me which made me actually lose a little money because cashapp charges you a fee for instant deposit.
He also has me do manager only duties like closing up the entire shop by myself and handling tips when the manager is scheduled to leave before me .
My theory is that he’s forcing me to know everything like a manager would so that he has someone to fall back on when everybody else leaves. He wants me to make the smoothies fast and accurate and not even giving me a “learn as you go” period because all of his old hires are dropping like flies. Not my problem
TLDR: My boss is putting extra pressure on me, a new hire, to learn 25 smoothie recipes so that he can put more work on me just in case all his employees leave due to unprofessionalism.