Back in high school, one of my first jobs was at one of those automatic car washes that pushes you through the wash. I was getting paid $10.00 an hour, and I remember when I got a 10¢ raise to $10.10 (because the new year came around), I was ecstatic. I do remember having to tell myself at first that even though it’s only 10 cents, “it all adds up eventually”. Everyone that worked there was also in high school, and the managers were probably 40-50 year olds. One of the managers was very verbally abusive and definitely favored the boys more than the girls, and it was obvious to all of us.
Here are some red flags from this place that I didn’t know at the time. We weren’t allowed to have a chair or even sit down while working in the hot HOT sun, even when our position for the day was literally standing in one place, flipping a sign for the next car that’s about to go into the wash that said “please pull forward” and “STOP”. At one point we found a couple of buckets to use as chairs and they yelled at us over the walkie-talkies and took them away. We weren’t allowed to keep any tips that customers would give us, and we were supposed to put it in this slot in the cash register drawer (that the manager would come take at the end of the shift). At the end of our shifts, we were to take out the trash and empty the recycles that were near all the vacuum slots where you pull in to vacuum your car after the wash. And once a month or so, the managers would take all the recycled bottles we collected, go get the money from the bottle deposits, and divide it between all of us, supposedly including our tips that we would turn into that slot in the cash register. At the end of the shift we would even fight over who gets to empty the big vacuum bag box that was filled with all the days worth of dirt and everything that gets vacuumed up, because SOMETIMES people would accidentally vacuum up some loose change and dollar bills that were hidden under their car seat and sucked it up without knowing.
Here’s where I found an illegal way to make some extra cash, I called it “my side gig”. Let’s say if a customer ever came back around right after coming out of the car wash, and complained that “oh my car is still dirty” “oh there’s still soap on my car” and any type of complaints like that, we were allowed to “comp” the car wash. This meant that we would waive the fee of whatever car wash they paid for beforehand ($8/$10/$12), and we would let them have another car wash for free to make up for whatever went wrong. And all we had to do to comp their wash was press this button on the computer screen of what wash they’re going to have, and fill out a piece of paper with the type of car wash they had, their license plate, and reason for doing the free re-wash. This “comp” wash thing was also something that the managers did too whenever they had a family member or friend come through the wash, they’d get a little free wash and a shitload of free air fresheners. This was the only time those managers would come out of the sweet cold air conditioned office that they sat in ALL day watching us through the cameras for every little thing. At this point, I’ve already started stuffing my dollar tips into my pants very quickly when I was in the blind part of the camera on my way to the cash register. And I don’t remember exactly what hit me or how I came to this, but I started to take the customers cash like normal for the type of wash they wanted, and I would go to the screen, but instead of pressing the normal wash button to charge them and open up the register, I would press the free comp button and keep their cash to myself. And I would just fill out fake license plate numbers any time I did this.
I kept this up for a while and I eventually quit this job when I got an offer for another job for $18 an hour to start. The day I knew I was going to quit, one of the managers (the abusive one) surprisingly offered to take me home when they realized I had no ride home. I had a piece of printer paper in my pocket that was folded up and in big letters I wrote “I QUIT EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY” because I was young, not confrontational, and had never put in a 2 weeks notice before. Everyone had left for the day and I was waiting on the manager to finish up in the office as I stood by the door chatting it up with them. They shut the door behind them and we were on our way out of the building. I was following the manager when I quickly turned around and said “oops I forgot my water bottle” and ran back to the office door and slid that note under the door and caught back up with the manager. We got in their car and they drove me home as I felt amazingly powerful yet shaking in fear the whole way to my house. I got out of the car and they told me goodnight and that they’ll see me tomorrow. I smiled and said “goodnight _____, thank you for everything”. And I shut the car door, walked towards my house as I actively blocked that said manager from being able to call me or text me. I slept in the next morning having the best sleep ever with my phone on Do Not Disturb. And I woke up with missed calls and texts from one of the other managers, I didn’t block this other manager because they had very great rapport with us and was very kind compared to the other managers. They were asking what went wrong and what they could have done better and what to do to make me change my mind. I told them that it was said abusive managers fault, and that if they wanted to offer me more than the other job I got offered $18, I would stay. Nice manager knew that wasn’t an option and felt sorry and said it was nice to get to know me, and that was it.
TL;DR – I gave people free washes and pocketed the money. And quit with no notice after letting the manager take me home.