Hello! I'm a longtime lurker, posted a couple times I think but wanted to share this as its still unfolding and is having a pretty significant impact on myself my loves ones and my mental health!
I recently started a job as a glorified dishwasher at a cafeteria in a medium-size college on the East Coast US. I was told from the start that 'this is a corporation, you know, things are not at all very mom-and-pop' by Manager told me as I was reading and signing paperwork. “Blah blah blah you aren't a full member of the union until 90 days in, and until then you are an at-will employee”(an employment agreement stating that employment is for an indefinite period of time and may be terminated either by employer or employee) until that happens. Fine, okay I say, and go home to prepare for a relatively difficult relocation just about 2 hours north to where I am working.
Find a place to stay, okay, landlord is a little bit batty, okay, and I start my first day at work!
My boss tells me first day he's 'putting me in the fire' right away, and that I will be basically loading dishes constantly, clearing the slot of plates, cups, bowls, silverware the like, but ALSO all the pots, pans, everything that comes out of the kitchen. Okay! Not like any other place I've done dishes at, what could be so wrong. I notice early on, however, the tension and anger and resentment every single one of my coworkers feels towards either the managers, the head chefs, or just the administration in general. I shrug and move another massive stack of plates and pots and keep my head down. I try not to join in and complain, but if its a valid point and the person is clearly trying to talk to me, I'll join in and have a bit of banter.
Then comes the drama and politics maybe about 2 days through. Different people from different 'orders' within the kitchen keep coming to me complaining about other veteran workers there, telling me I'm supposed to do this or that a certain way. And not to forget just like any food business the managers are all somewhat delusional giving us these pep talks like we are in middle school talking about how we are supposed 'to act' and that we simultaneously have 'ownership' and yet are 'guests' at this place and generally give this impression of a corporate, sterile, Hallmark-card environment where nothing is falling apart and we are all supposed to pitch in on everything, we aren't constantly busting our asses for a portion of their salary. One of the managers even said that if the Hobart breaks equipment, it would come out of any potential raises we get coming forward. A letter of formal complaint was signed by like 20 different people about one specific manager, I still don't know the full reason why besides he said some very very mean things to everyone during a meeting. They have also implemented a kind of 'collective responsibility', and I experienced Socialism as a youth and know it isn't like, that applicable to a corporate food-oriented workplace,, but the way they've implemented collective responsibility specifically is fucking insane. Someone does something bad, AND EVERYBODY GETS PUNISHED. People argue over what music to play? No music. People ate something out of the pantry? Nobody can eat off-break and if they do, immediately in trouble. Obviously it represents a microcosm of a work environment where if you slack off or leave or something, it reminds you that the workload likely gets worse for the people who stay–and god have they day in and day out reminded me of that too.
I'm certain I can cope with the stress of the job itself, but if I'm being honest, it does feel like since a new person has come in, the chefs and everyone feels like they can freely dump the most absolutely destroyed, burnt, ruined pots and pans they possibly can. My supervisor is also a dick about this and has said 'this is just normal', and even when I lightly suggested he say something or do something about how unsafe some of the placement of these heavy pots and pans on our rack are –he just dismissed me so wickedly and said something like 'well, they're just going to keep on doing in, we don't want to make anyone feel worse during the meetings' as if I had not just explained to him that 4-5 heavy things fell on me during the last round. He is also seemingly unable to do any of the work he expects any of us to do, and worst of all, I've seen him just in kitchen fucking hanging out with the chefs and chilling while the whole dishpit is a fucking mess. Of course, there is also an element of new employee-old employee shit going on here, some of my coworkers have been in this place for upwards of 25 years — and I desperately feel horrible for them. The admin is basically keeping them hostage with a low wage, a job they can put down on their tax form or whatever, and an amount of physical work that I see is literally killing them. One of my coworkers is 73 years old. 73 years! I couldn't believe it, that he was buckling under all this weight and literally struggling to pick up a plate and he was basically just at his 9-5 suffering every day so bad. I've told him several times that I think its an indictment against this place they don't let us stand.
I work my hardest at this job. I'm by no means the best they have, but I do the job as well as they would possibly hope me to do, it seems. I make sure the racks are clear, the slot is clear, clean as much of everything, and I get told day in day out that something is wrong, something is bad, something isn't good and that I need to go take care of it. I get it that we 'share the load', but when my load is 1000+ plates, dishes, pots, pans, cups, bowls, and every cooking utensil under the sun and the chefs and servers is just cooking in that one pot and distributing it, in their own area, then not clearing it out and dumping it all on 1-2 dudes, I feel a little sting, because deep down I know everyone here wants to fucking go home and when they do, I'll be here fucking scrubbing their burnt carbon off a pot that barely fed like 30 people. I'm already looking for another job lol
Anyway, sorry had to post this