Apologies in advance for the long post.
Worked at lovely local cafe, amazing customers, beautiful coffee and great workmates, my bosses also seemed like great human beings to work for.
I believe the boss started to look at firing me after a three hour+ staff meeting we had outside of work hours. We were told it'd be an hour long meeting, she would provide a pizza and some beers for everyone.
The meeting for the new menu took over three hours and we were not compensated for it or paid for our time. The next day I asked them if they were going to pay us for it to which they replied “they had never had a paid meeting in hospo before” which I indicated may of been because the meetings she had under previous employers were during work hours which she agreed was probably correct. However work meetings outside of work hours have to legally be paid and I asked again if she would pay us. She said she would check with the other owner and get back to me.
Long story short, they never got back to me.
In my country we have a thing called a 3 month trial period, basically during 3 months they employer can fire the employee for any reason, guess what happened? I was never given my part time contract. I felt disgusted and used, why would someone I respected so much and who I thought was a genuine person do that to someone else?
Because its a small business, small businesses are not friend and use people just as much as big corporations, if not more, because with a small business its a lot easier to get emotionally invested in the place, especially if you wanted to see it grow and do well. They know they can take advantage of your time and then drop you when you question their unethical business practice.
To make matters worse, I was on the phone to my mum earlier tonight and you know what they thought? “It's fucking arrogant to ask your boss something like that, you should of just donated your time to the business for free because you're a nice person”.
My question for you guys. What is a non arrogant way to ask to get paid rightfully for your time?
TLDR: worked at a lovely cafe, asked by boss about staff getting paid for a 3 hour meeting about the new menu outside of work hours. got fired not long after because I was on my 3 month trial period. coincidence? I bet good money on the one pizza we shared between 6/7+ people (that was our compensation for the 3 our meeting btw) that it's not, but who am I to question a small businesses unethical practices.