I live in the UK, so some parts might sound unfamiliar to many of you.
I work in hospitality and I applied to this job with an average pay, I did my trial shift and received an offer the day after. I was happy until I found out that it was a zero-hour contract (which means that there are no minimum hours guaranteed by contract), which is not what I am looking for because I want to find a safe job during the pandemic. Also, it was never mentioned, neither on the job advertisement or the interview or the trial shift… literally found out at the bottom of the contract.
HR assistant tells me to trust him, he assures me that I will get 35h/w no matter what and shows me my future colleagues' timetables to prove that. I don't care, I want something written on paper and I finally get it, even though not directly on the contract.
Now, I start getting like 4-5 hours shifts of “training” (there was no training, I was mainly cleaning). Apparently, I cannot get more because it's just training and I am fine with that. After a week, I finally finish this joke of a training and start to work in the real shop… and I get a freaking 25h in the week.
I am already pissed cause I refused a decent job offer in the meantime and I feel like they are either disorganized (and nobody told the manager that I agreed to work 35h) or they are playing with me. I call the HR assistant and ask him what's going on, he tells me that he'll contact HR manager to fix this. HR manager emails me telling me that she'll find another shift in a second shop and she makes it sounds like she's doing me a favour, when in fact I am just asking them to honour the written conditions of the job offer. The cherry on top is that she gives me only 12h notice and expects me to work next day during my day off. By contract, notice period for shift changes is 24h.
Am I over-reacting or these are red flags?
I've been in between jobs for two months, should I just accept the job and sign the contract?