I’ve been working at this restaurant for 2 months. My manager was terrible (2 weeks ago she threw food at me because she was frustrated and overwhelmed, and honestly I should have walked out then.) I could go on, and on, AND ON, about her inability to manage people and her general shortcomings but I’ll save it.
Anyway, it’s 100 degrees where I live today with 52% humidity. I worked in an extremely small establishment. The kitchen, in my best estimation, was about 12×8 foot. Part of that space was taken up by an oven set at 500 degrees, and during service, the oven is being opened and closed every few minutes. When I started working at the establishment there was no air conditioning whatsoever. A few weeks after I started the owners spent (what I overheard was) $7000 dollars to install air conditioning. However, it wasn’t central air conditioning it was two wall units. One of the units was in the kitchen, and while I appreciated their attempt, installing a wall air conditioning unit 10 feet from a 500 degree oven is nonsensical, what made them think that would make a difference?
On 80 degree days the kitchen thermometer regularly read anywhere from 100-115 degrees. I would walk into work and IMMEDIATELY start sweating PROFUSELY, so I cannot even imagine what the temperature is in there today. (Side note, I’m neurodivergent and I’m prescribed a medication that can, for some people, increase resting body temperature and I fall under that category of “some people”.)
A few other examples, just so people don’t think I’m being a drama queen:
-Some coworkers regularly came in heavily intoxicated. Or, if they weren’t already intoxicated, they would drink on the job and become intoxicated and belligerent.
-The men and boys were cut early each night leaving the few women and female identifying people to clean the entire restaurant and do hours worth of dishes because “women do a better job”.
-Bathroom breaks were nearly unheard of. If you needed to use the bathroom you better be back in moments or the manager, if you can even call her that, would make a comment.
-Forget about a 15 minute break even though all of us were working more than 5 hours at a time. Those were also unheard of.
To make a VERY long story short: I quit my job today through text mostly because I couldn’t fathom working in that type of heat for $15/hr and was worried I’d lose my marbles or have a heatstroke if I did go in. The owner responded to my text by saying that I was extremely unprofessional for not giving them two weeks notice and that I was leaving them high and dry especially because the previous “manager” had just left after putting in her two weeks…