I’m currently a college student not completely sure what I want to do with my life, but in the meantime I work at a small cafe while taking classes. Until the other day, I’d pretty much accepted that minimum wage was the best I’d ever be able to make without a degree, and while my job has its downsides, I usually love it (at least in theory).
About a month ago, we had two people (roughly half the staff), leave. One of said people had been upfront when she started about her plans to leave when she did, and the other person folded under the sometimes high-stress environment we work in. It essentially left just me and one other employee in addition to the two owners and a third person to help out once or twice a week when possible. Operating with this small of a staff would’ve been disastrous: we’d have no days off and be severely understaffed at all operating hours. To make things worse, the owners, who are great and always available to hop in to help when needed, had a trip booked to visit their home country.
This easily could have been terrible, and I was on the verge of quitting myself when I heard the news we’d be so understaffed. To my delighted surprise, my bosses were excellent instead. They gave me a card with $100 saying thank you for everything I do, they cut the hours of the business for the month of April until we’re well-staffed again, and they closed the cafe for half of the days they were out of country (guised to customers as a “spring break”), so that we weren’t too overworked and I had time to study for finals. When they got back, they thanked us again for all of our hard work, and to my complete surprise they gave me a raise.
My job still has its many cons, but it feels so nice to be appreciated. I know that I still probably deserve more (most of us here do, power to the workers!) but I want to celebrate and share the little bit of progress I’ve made personally.