So. This is the new , unpaid labor with promise of a job disguised as “training”

I was hired as a bartender for a job posted online looking for bartenders in the middle of August. I have been a career bartender for well over a decade. I was put through a TON of unnecessary training including washing dishes, server training, a day spent in the kitchen, working with other bartenders then doing the work OF the bartenders on shift(making drinks, serving customers, ringing them out etc etc etc) . I was never paid a cent and spent probably 50 hours there so far not including the tedious scheduling and paycheck apps I had to download and bartender license they wanted me to get. My evenings and weekends and Sunday day. I was told over and over again this would lead to a job and it was all part of the “onboarding”. This training dragged on and on. I got my schedule for next week and finally asked if these were more “training shifts” or actual shifts after an entire day someone got back to me and said they were training shifts, even though I was told I don’t need anymore training shifts there is NO position open for me or the other bartenders and servers they are training. This is a restaurant that has all this “we buy local produce and support our community” bullshit on their website. Although this is going to cause me not to be able to afford some things, I have another job (part time) and I’m not the main financial support in my house but I remember when I was and would have been unable to pay my bills or eat if a company so callously wasted my time for well over a MONTH with NO payment. I don’t want it to happen to anyone else. I went on an interview yesterday which was another disaster that the interviewer was not even able to tell me the pay or hours and it’s just such a demoralizing process that I’m not looking forward to going through again. Please don’t let yourself be free labor like I did. ️ Especially for the holiday season.

FYI standard training for bartenders is a few shifts 2-3 behind the bar, where you don’t get the tips but get a wage. I have trained many bartenders and been trained quite a few times.