I have worked at a certain math tutoring center for a year now. as a tutor there, my responsibilities are to instructor 1-4 students at a time. I go above that (since i have been in consideration for a promotion) and do administrative work and manage some aspects of curriculum.
This summer, we gotten a new manager since our old manager moved locations. The new manager really does nothing (to my knowledge) besides repeatedly reorganize bookshelves and the storage closet. They have put a temporary ban on anyone besides them and our assistant manager doing any administrative work. this has lead to us being EXTREMELY behind in those tasks.
Many of my coworkers have left since this is seen as an “inbetween” job of sorts. most of my coworkers are students/minors. There was in the past issues following child labor laws (ie, too many hours, no breaks). One girl comes back for holidays/summer after she left for college and is considered a “seasonal” employee.
At our last company, management announced they don’t do seasonal employees anymore. With a silly goofy tone they literally said, “we no longer do seasonal employees sooooooooooo if you leave for school and are only here for summer you don’t have a job oops sowwery.” That was when the girl (the ONLY person affected by this) learned about the new policy. She was a great worker, been there longer than anyone; however one of the assistant manager at the time didn’t like her. After the meeting, they asked her to write a letter of resignation. She didn’t write the letter and instead wrote a complaint.
Another issue is scheduling conflicts since a) most of us aren’t able to get to work due to the time we get out of classes b) schedule has been posted less than 24 hours before we are susposed to be there and c) requests off have been ignored. We are EXTREMELY understaffed. Most of my requests to not be scheduled are denied making me scramble to figure something out. I requested off a month in advance for a birthday and it was denied. I found out it was denied the day before and had to find someone to cover within that day. Management promised at the meeting that schedule would be posted 2-3 weeks in advance.
Recently, we is had a lot of students unenroll due to homework being sent out wrong. We typically handle 4 students at a time and are expected to be able to (in handbook) but it’s impossible to help 4 kids (who don’t know what they are doing) learn math and check all homework. We are now required to make each kid an answer key however that leaves us with even less time to do our actual job. If we had more instructors and less students, it would be alot more effective.
Management thinks the issue is that we (the instructors) talk to much to the kids. I very much believe that my first goal is to make a relationship with the child. I have girls who ONLY will do work when with me since they trust me. One of the girls we suspect to have issues at home so this is extra meaningful to me.
Im on management shit list because I tell management the problems and talk to my kids. I can not leave this job since my only other option is retail or fast food since i had to sign a a paper on hire saying i am not allowed to work at any other tutoring place until a year after quitting (stupid to sign, didn’t realize that it would be this bad here). We are underpaid (we make 12-13 an hour on adverage). Most of my coworkers about to quit.
TL/DR: management publicly fired long time employee for no reason that employee could control, overworked and underpaid, dysfunctional, blaming employees for loss of business, legally can’t go to other tutoring job