Hi everyone, sorry for the super long post!
I’m usually just a lurker, I can’t really
Google my questions so am hoping you guys can give me some advice!
I have been in Australia since 2019 on various visas and soon am going to be applying for a partner visa. This is important as I’m not a resident or citizen.
I have been working at my current job since January 2021 as a full time employee, it is a small restaurant and I’m a waitress. I am paid as a level 3 food and beverage attendant.
The owner, my boss is only a couple years older than me, we get on well, she will often send me tiktoks outside of work etc and I kind of fell into the trap that we are “friends” making it difficult to bring up any issues. This is her first time owning a business, they opened in December 2020.
My issues are, I feel like my boss takes advantage of my kindness and I have a hard time saying no. I work Tuesday – Saturday every week open until close and unless it is a busy time, I will often be working FOH completely alone. So will be taking orders, making drinks, packing Ubers, taking food to tables, answering phones and just generally dealing with everything alone. I have never really thought this is fair as it can get busy and stressful sometimes. The owner just tells me to turn off Uber orders and basically get on with it if it’s super busy. She has also said I’m not a manager as I don’t do any stock ordering or do the roster etc, fair enough. But I am expected to deal with customer complaints and tell junior employees what to do.
My boss doesn’t pay me for my annual leave unless I ask, my annual leave hours do not go down, but she also doesn’t pay me for my days off. The one time I did ask for my day off to be taken as PTO she said “so you want me to pay you for having a day off?” …. Yes?
Now this is where I’m not sure what to do. I have never taken a sick day at this job, until last week when I got COVID. This unfortunately also came the same week my boss had a baby. I was supposed to cover her shifts whilst she is away looking after her newborn, when I told her I was sick (testing negative at this point) she told me to take some vitamins and basically get on with it because “the shop couldn’t do without me”. When I tested positive a few days later, I felt like her attitude completely changed towards me (I get she is probably stressed dealing with a newborn too). She was kind of suggesting I should go into work despite being positive, but I didn’t. This ended in the shop having to close for 1 day because none of the other staff could cover my shift.
I got my payslip today, and hadn’t been paid sick leave, which I was kind of anticipating. I messaged her and questioned it and she said “you can get the Covid payment?” I said I can’t because I’m not a casual employee. She then said “ok I’ll add it next pay”. An hour later she messaged again and said “Mary has Covid, so you will be working alone tomorrow night” Mary usually works the Tuesday night shift with me. An hour later she messages again “I’ll need a dr certificate for your Covid so I can claim loss of business from the gov”. I’m not sure what to respond to this? Can I get a backdated medical certificate? Why didn’t she ask for this whilst I was sick? The business doesn’t have any policy with regards to sick leave so I wasn’t aware I needed a certificate. I’m just feeling very stressed about the whole situation. I can’t just quit because I’m scared I won’t find another job and if I do what if they don’t give me a lot of hours? But at the same time I don’t feel like I should feel so stressed because I took a few days off work because I had COVID!
Just looking for some advice or how others would deal with this situation. Thank you!