I'll start by saying that I'm a pretty busy student, so I had to find a job that would have a schedule compatible with my studies. In my not-so-big town it can be really hard to find something like that so I was kinda desperate – I need money to buy food etc – so I was willing to take pretty much any job that would be ok with me only working weekends and some occasional weekdays.
A friend of a friend told me I can try a smoothie place (part of a chain) in a mall so I did.
Now I don't want to sound too dramatic when I say they made me work for free. Basically, they told me that before I can officially start working, I needed to come in for a trial day to learn everything. I agreed. Turned out the way to learn is a 5min introduction and then just regular work, only “teaching” stuff to me when I ask specifically what to do. I then did 2 more days of unpaid labour like that before I finally “got accepted” and started getting paid.
The pay is a few cents above minimum wage.
Some other things that suck about the job:
– It's surprisingly not the easiest one I've ever had. Can be really exhausting and stressful.
– The expectations are high. It's usual for the place to only have 1 worker at a time. The person has to take orders, make the drinks, handle the money, clean the booth and sitting area around it, wash the dishes, sort and dispose of the waste, keep mini inventory, bring all necessary from the storage room in the beginning of the shift(quite a lot of heavy stuff) etc. There can be a lot of clients to the point where there's an annoyed line waiting for you to wash the dishes so that you can take their orders bc all the dishes get used and the people just keep coming.
– Even though I'm new there and was barely taught anything, apparently the manager and the boss already got mad at me for a really small mistake I made in the computer system. I literally just pressed one wrong button bc no one told me that there's a different button to press in the morning shift vs evening.
– I've never talked to ot even seen my actual boss, only the manager.
– We get no tips.
I think that's about it. Just wanted to share my experience. It's crazy how normalised it is to be treated this way. Every worker deserves better, yet I know that many many other people have it much worse.
I'm getting ready for work right now, actually. I really don't want to and I think I might quit next month If I'm lucky. Right now though, I need money to live and don't really have a better option.