I posted this story in another subreddit last year. I discovered this subreddit quite a while ago and really appreciate and respect the content here. Given a lot of the posts and screenshots I have seen on here I thought you all would appreciate this story which is something that I experienced back in 2012.
I left in the edit for more context.
I live in California, USA and when I was 20 my best friend who we’ll call Jose got me a job working at a car wash with him. I can honestly say this was the worst job I have ever had and would not wish it on anybody.
For context Jose was an illegal immigrant at the time and pretty much every worker there (aside from the horrible manager who we’ll call Tim) was an illegal immigrant as well. I myself am born and raised in the United States. I want to say though that all my co-workers were very nice people (aside from a couple of supervisors), just working hard to provide for their families and put their kids through school.
Being that all the workers there were illegal immigrants they were subjected to a lot of poor treatment (myself too) at the hands of Tim. He is total scum, the type of guy who thinks he’s better than everyone, dismisses things in a condescending way, plays innocent with customers when their cars get damaged somehow, and just outright verbally assaults you when he’s frustrated. Definitely not manager material.
Allow me to first-hand describe what it was like to work there ladies and gentlemen while also sprinkling in some personal encounters with Tim.
We were not paid every hour, instead, we sat on a bench and only when a car came in and we were working on the cars were we paid. The supervisors would have us sit on the bench and “take a break” whenever there were no cars. We were not paid whenever we were “on break.” Instead, they kept a meticulous log for the exact amount of time you spent on your feet doing work and would tally that up at the end of the day and make you sign that you worked that many hours. So ultimately for example, you could be there for 8 hours but only get paid for three hours.
I knew a bit about the labor laws and knew this was illegal, I was going to go to the department of labor about it, but Jose begged me not to because he was scared that if there was an investigation that they would find out he and the others there were illegal immigrants and deport them, so I reluctantly, but understandably, did not pursue. On top of that I didn’t personally document anything myself regretfully, so I didn’t feel like I would have a solid chance at suing them.
To make up for the wages I should have been getting I made sandwiches and burritos and sold them to the workers! If it’s not obvious by my username, I am a passionate chef who loves food. The manager eventually found out from the one drug addict supervisor that we had, this dude was Tim's little cuck pet for every little thing. If we tossed food in the trash when we were cleaning out the cars, he would actually take it out of the trash sometimes and eat it. I wish I was making that up, but meth is a hell of a drug I guess. Anyway Tim confronted me about the food telling me I can’t be doing that, basically saying what if one of the workers gets sick? To which I reply, “I’m doing this to make up for the money that you should legally be paying me every hour.” He didn’t really have much to say to it and just kind of changed the subject.
The health conditions of this place were atrocious to say the least and I would think with everything that I am about to unload on you guys that me selling food would be the least of his concerns.
They would have us use chemicals without gloves even if the chemicals in question said to use gloves and they kept all the vacuum hoses stored in the trash cans at the end of the night after using them for trash, so the hoses would all be covered in gunk 24/7. No equipment at that place was ever cleaned after use, it all just perpetually got dirtier and dirtier as the days would go on.
One of my first days working there I was horrified to see the conditions of the employee bathroom. There was no toilet seat, no hand dryer, no paper towels, no soap or dispenser and the lockers were inside the bathroom as well. I would instead go to the customer restroom at first which was entirely up to par until Tim saw me coming out one day and asked me why I wasn’t using the employee restroom and that I couldn’t use the customer restroom. I explained the condition of it and his genuine response to me was that the employee restroom lacked soap because the employees would steal it and to just go into the room where to drums of car detergent for the automatic car wash is and dip my hands into there and wash my hands with that. Seriously, what kind of managerial response is that!?
I was (and still am) genuinely dumbfounded that this person could possibly be a manager.
I finally got fed up with that cesspool of a work environment after only a couple of months and decided to quit. On the day I quit I'm supposed to start early morning and I decided to show up in the afternoon when it was busiest to make things more difficult for Tim, I walk up and see him scrambling around working on cars in my place, grab his attention and hand him my uniform letting him know that I quit. His response to me was that he hoped I didn’t hate him despite everything. Seriously dude!? How could I not?
I didn’t feel completely better even after quitting, so I decided that I wanted to get even.
A month after I quit, I was in the area shopping at a nearby mall and decided to go back to the car wash because I remember I had left my lock still on my locker and wanted to get it back. I go straight into the employee restroom without anyone noticing me and grab my lock. From there I pull out my phone and start taking pictures of the condition of the restroom and then I leave.
Thankfully with the blessing of Jose I called Cal/OSHA which is basically the department of labor but for health-related things and told them everything I possibly could about the health conditions there and offered my pictures to them. They told me they would send someone out to investigate and I just waited.
I don’t remember how long it took until they went, but Jose told me that someone from the Department of Health showed up unannounced one day and inspected the entire place and Tim was at a loss for words because he knew he was screwed with all the violations they kept finding on the place, it was a citation goldmine for that health inspector. This ended up costing them tens of thousands of dollars in fines and repairs. Mind you this is a small, independent business, so it definitely hurt their bank account.
Thankfully none of the illegal immigrant workers were exposed, but instead given safer and healthier working conditions in the end. Tim is still the manager there unfortunately.
As for me I went on to finish culinary school and get an awesome job as a lead with amazing benefits, pay, and time off. Jose did extremely well for himself too becoming a manager at a car dealership and is living his very best life as a legal US citizen. We're still best friends after 17 years. Life is great and I take satisfaction in knowing Tim will never amount to anything beyond that 1/5 star rated car wash.
Edit 1: I forgot to mention this story took place in January of 2012, some people are under the impression this is fake because they assumed I meant this happened 17 years ago when I had mentioned at the end my best friend and I have known each other for that long (since 2005). Cell phones were pretty common by 2012.
To also add clarity as to why I was working that kind of job if I was able to afford a cell phone. I was a college student for the 2 years prior to this story and was not working during that time. I was trying to find work anywhere I could, but I did not have any luck and that’s when my best friend was able to talk to one of the former supervisors and pull some strings for me. At that point I was not going to be choosy and just wanted to start building experience to make it easier to find better jobs in the future.
My only source of income was through financial aid for college which was used for bus fare, school supplies, and any other school related things, but you’re only given a certain amount of financial aid during each semester and I felt paying a phone bill might be risky in case my financial aid gets cut off or anything along those lines to where I can’t make the payment.
My Dad got me one of the early Samsung android phones as a surprise because he genuinely just always wanted to help me and I wasn’t the type to ask him for anything. He told me he wanted to cover the phone bill for while I was still trying to better establish myself and get on my feet, this also made it easier to do homework and further job search as I could do it straight off my phone or wifi tether my laptop as we did not have internet in the house until towards the end of 2012 sadly.
Hope this helps clear some things up, sorry it’s lengthy!