Throwaway account, and yes the username checks out.
I started working at a small, growing (supposedly) coffee shop in the peak of Covid times. I was incredibly thankful for the stable job after job-hopping and unemployment for months. I was with friends at a place I'd been a regular at for years, doing one of my favorite jobs I've held my whole career: Barista. I worked for two guys that started the whole thing, one was the majority owner and did all the backend business things and roasted the coffee. The other ran the cafes as the GM. Employed for two years, never called out sick, never played the system, worked my ass off. I still love this company and go almost every day, I love the owner and his family, and I love the people that work there as they are still close friends.
Except one. We'll call him Anthony, the GM.
Anthony is the Co-owner (maybe 10% of the company) and acting GM. Missing shifts he was scheduled for when we were short staffed, showing up hours late to covering shifts for employees who were sick, and borderline illegal business practices (including health code violations they refuse to fix because of financial issues), taking 5 vacations a year are among a few things he frequented. I was close enough to my owner to have conversations about Anthony's poor performances, but was only meant with the excuse that he's been there so long and is integral to the business running. Bull….
I worked myself up to manager at my shop, but never got the pay raise from shift lead. What actually happened when the previous manager left was all the shift leads got delegated manager duties, again with no pay raise for all three of us. One ended up leaving soon after, giving myself and the other remaining “manager” even more duties. Again, no talks of extra compensation from Anthony or the off-hands owner. Months go by and I come to find my co-manager gets the pay raise randomly from Anthony, but failed to mention it to me or any of the employees at all! Now I'm doing half the work of the manager's duties for a lot less pay than the managers role. Ok, whatever. I had some other ambitions in mind.
I did work as a media manager. I ran social media, created long form educational coffee videos, even attempted to launch a wholesale division for roasted coffee. I usual charge $75/hour for this type of work as a freelancer, but agreed to $20/hour because I wanted to see this company flourish in our area and thought I truly have the talent to do so. Maybe even work my way up to a third and get out of the 5a shifts and help launch two new cafes that are (supposedly) opening within the year. I was very open with what I wanted to do in this small business and with even a small bump in pay, I would've been glad to bust ass even more to help this company run well and be profitable.
Months went by doing great work, putting in hours, and pitching ideas to take a two cafe business into a leading coffee shop in our area. Owner and Anthony seem to not care one bit. I was getting confused and unmotivated because I was only told ONCE over two years that I was doing a good job by my bosses.
Here's the third strike, Anthony (with no interview process, no outside opinion, and I'm assuming no thought) names the new manager for the new store opening just blocks from the one I work at. First of all, who decides to open a cafe right down the street from an existing one as a small business. They're literally going to be competitors to each other?? Second, what kind of GM doesn't put effort into choosing a well rounded leader to run a brand new, highly anticipated cafe?? Ok, fine. You really don't care about me or the people who are more than capable of this job and accolade to even consider us. The job hunt starts.
I have 5 years of coffee experience, a bachelors degree in business management, and an absolute infatuation with the coffee/cafe industry. I left it all behind for a sales job that I'm on track to triple my salary my first year. Numerous people have asked me why I didn't get the promotions or recognition with this company, and numerous people didn't even know I wasn't being compensated properly for the duties I was performing. No PTO, no benefits, nothing but tips and hourly wage. It may seem cocky, but utilizing my skill set and compassion for this company, it would be in a much better state than it is today. Myself and plenty of people I have had all these conversations with agree.
There was one benefit to this job however, a music festival that we catered and got a bunch of free tickets to for our involvement. The previous years, they were allocated to employees by the day they wanted to go. The person in charge of them, Anthony, would be tight with them, but everyone usually got at least one day off to enjoy the festival. The festival recently took place, and I thought maybe if there were extra, I can reap these benefits even after leaving the company. Tonight I found out that Anthony gave all the free tickets to his and his fiances friends instead of his employees. Really dude? The one small benefit of working this job is some free tickets to see some popular artists that cost $180 normally and you give them away to your friends!? LOW BLOW bro.
I love these people and this company too much to watch it crash and burn. I want to speak to the owner about this. Since I don't work there anymore, I feel more confident on calling Anthony out on his shit but still feel like it's not my place. Maybe an anonymous email would be better, but I just don't know what to do if anything… Advice welcome, but this post is more of a rant and closure to a dead end job I had for two years. Screw Anthony and the way he treats his employees.