Long time lurker, but new poster. This story happened about 15 years ago when I was a dipshit high school student. As a disclaimer my current job pays me by the minute so maybe that’s why this chaps my ass now.
I worked at a barista for a large (at the time) midwestern coffee chain that had an animal in the logo.
We were paid .25 over minimum wage, but that was the going rate around the area for 17/18 year old employees.
We were paid hourly but with 15 minute increments, except it would always round down. If you worked 5 hours and 14 minutes you were paid for 5 hours.
On Sundays we had to do a more in depth cleaning on top of the normal closing duties (sweep, mop, clean, empty trash) that would easily add 45 minutes to an hour to your shift. We had to break down the espresso bar, grinders, brewers, and all the coffee pots and soak them in a cleaner to dissolve the built up coffee residue.
When I started working there we soaked them overnight and then the opening shift Monday morning would reassemble everything. When my new manger took over, this became you have to soak them for 30-40 minutes then put everything back together. It was deemed that it “took up too much time on Monday and we don’t want to come in earlier to do have everything ready to open”. Coincidentally who do you think was the Monday opener? You guessed it, the store manager.
So I’m scheduled to close, something like 4-9, but with the extra cleaning we’d be there until 10.
Started noticing my checks were about 1-2 hours off of what my printed time card showed. I asked my store manager about this and was told I wasn’t getting paid for the work done after closing. “We need to perfect out the labor. I’m allotted a certain amount of hours for each week and we can’t exceed that. Besides, you’ll make at least 7 dollars in tips and that will cover the extra work”
I was flabbergasted, but resigned myself to the fact this is just how things work. I asked my parents and they said it probably wasn’t right but it’s just a part time job and that you “don’t want to burn a bridge and it could hurt you getting a career later on”
Reading the stuff y’all post here makes this all seem like small potatoes, but the moral of the story is don’t accept crap like this. You’re worth way more, seek higher paying employment, and unionize. Collectively we’re able to change this.
Anyway. Thanks for reading my rant. And if you’re out there, fuck you Robin. I’m glad you got fired for shtupping the district manager.