So I've been on here a lot and I figured I'd share my story from working at a hotel in a small town. Spoilers: it was the worst. It's also fairly long so bare with me. I'm bad at summarizing.
I was 19 at the time. I was desperate for work to get out of an abusive situation and every other job in that town was $8/hr or less. I mean my dad was making $12/hr as a bank manager and he had 20 years managing experience and a business degree. So when I saw a nightshift job for $9/hr I was happy to get it!
At first I was a diligent little worker. My tasks were cleaning, cooking breakfast, laundry, checking in guests, checking out guests, calling guests, etc. My usual shifts were night or swing but sometimes mornings.
The shift schedule went something like this:
Morning: 7am-3pm
Swing: 3pm-11pm
Night: 11pm-7am
No breaks, not even lunch, you just found the time and ate.
There was a fatal flaw with scheduling, though. The manager made it OUR JOB to schedule. She made a basic schedule then made the rule that “as long as you can get someone to cover you can take the night off.” However this led to people taking advantage because there was nothing written down about HOW MUCH time they were taking off. This led to a slew of issues. The main one being: I was the only one who would cover any shifts and I was expected to.
See, everyone else had kids or was on disability and could only work so much (I don't blame her, I get it) or they were friends with the manager and could put their foot down and say no without being fired. I, on the other hand, had “no excuse” and thus had to come in all the time. This led to me working 10 days in a row, sometimes with only 8 hours between shifts to sleep and eat and get ready to work again.
One night a girl asked to switch shifts with me. I was scheduled for night shift that night and swing the next day. I had also just worked a night shift the night before. If I took this shift that just meant I'd have to sacrifice my sleep one night sooner which I was fine with. It was not fine when she didn't show up for night shift and I got yelled at. The manager who had approved the swap was now yelling at me to get a replacement. The big boss then calls (coz he was always watching us on the cameras from a state away which was creepy) and he tells me that if I can't find someone to cover that I have to cover it. So at this point I had worked 5 days in a row and still had two more days left and my schedule would look like this:
Night Shift: 11pm-7am (8 hours)
At home time: 7am-3pm (8 hours)
Swing+Night Shift: 3pm-7am (16 hours)
At home time: 7am-3pm (8hours)
Swing Shift: 3pm-11pm (8 hours)
Mind you I also had to take one of my at home times to go out of town and get something (I didn't exactly have a day off to do it) so I hadn't gotten to sleep before this 16 hour shift. I was told to take a nap in one of the rooms if need be blah blah. I told them I wasn't going to do it and demanded the manager fix it since she approved it and it's her fault the schedule isn't looked after properly. I luckily only ended up having to work 11 hours that day rather than 16 but there was no repercussion to the girl who flaked on me. I was the only one who got in trouble for not “just covering the shift”.
The next issue was that I had asked for the first time in 9 months for a day off. After 9 months of covering every shift the manager couldn't get covered otherwise, (and working every holiday coz not having kids means I don't have family now I guess) all I asked was a day off for my cousin's wedding, I told her weeks in advance. Sure enough the date rolls around and I'm called in the middle of my cousin's reception and being asked to cover the shift because, yet again, someone took off.
I broke down, when I got home she was still calling and I finally snapped and said “you can fire me if you want but I'm not doing it. It's not fair that everyone else gets a day off but the one day I needed, I can't get off.” She finally said she couldn't fire me coz I was too good of a worker to fire and covered it herself.
Now for the promotion! Oh boy!
I had worked so hard, been the best I could be and finally it felt like it paid off! They had an assistant manager position that needed filled! I had so many ideas to fix the turn over rate and how the place ran. I had great ideas to help the workers and make it a better work environment and I was excited when they offered it to me. But then I asked what that meant. How much I'd be getting paid etc. The job description?
You get $1 more per hour, but you can never say no if they need you to cover a shift. ESPECIALLY the manager who worked mornings. If the manager wanted a vacation day, who cares if you literally just worked night shift, you're now working morning too right after. FOR $10/HR!!!
I turned them down and a month later I took all the money I saved and left that town and that job and never looked back.
Tl;Dr: I was being forced to work everyone's shift except my managers and they offered me an extra $1 ($10/hr) just so I couldn't say no EVER to the manager if she asked me to cover shifts including her own. It came with no ability to actually improve the business or help the employees, it was just a dollar more so they could take more advantage of me.