In 2021 I was working at popular oil change shop- jiffy lube. It was SUCH a horrible company to work for, both financially and emotionally speaking.
Almost everyone I had met in the 2 years at the store had came and went including 2 managers , one of which had to steal from the register on the basis that he didn’t get paid enough to pay his rent while supporting his family. Anyways, most people had left already including 2 managers , leaving our store with just Me, 2 other employees, & a manager they had just hired from a grocery outlet who didn’t even know how to use the systems in our computers. Jiffy was so lazy about getting us more help while we were understaffed they just gave us unlimited overtime , they even begged us to stay and work as much as we could in the beginning when everyone was about to quit over not getting raises we were all promised. We were able to work literally as much as we wanted which is never an option at a stingy company like this. Usually 40 hours is hard enough to reach. I milked them for everything I could, maxed out open to close every day , 70 hour weeks. I was able to basically be my own boss because the remaining crew and new manager were all so angry with how the company treated them and paid them. We were promised raises for months, and when everyone else had left and we stayed they lied to our faces saying we would get even bigger raises when they finally restaffed the store but never gave the raises out, constantly blaming it on this or that and always saying they needed more time for it to process. Raises don’t take a full summer to process!!!
This is the part that really made it official for me though: I had made a friend while working at jiffy lube, he came to our store to replace our manager who stole from the register. He was with us for a few months before switching back to his store up north. He became one of my closest coworkers and he would always make any day a great one. He was hilarious, and treated me fairly and like his equal despite him being in his mid 40s and being a manager. It had been a while since we talked , he worked far away, come to find out he had just recently passed from a heart attack..
I had worked out a plan to go to his funeral and show my respects but when I requested a day off I was met with rage and furry. still to this day I can’t believe this shit , but after working 3 months straight with no days off I was told that I had to come to work and skip the funeral because “other employees from other Jiffylube stores knew him better than you did and they’re going to his funeral too so we won’t have anyone to cover your shift”.
At this point though I was the veteran of the store with only 1.5 years experience at that point, a 24 year old kid angry at the world for its inability to care about anyone or anything that didn’t have a fat dollar value behind it. I had knowledge that corporate always overlooked our store for everything, Even a leaking roof and break shed for employees that was broken into and stolen out of 100x while also being hit by a customers car. It got so bad I realized I could literally turn away cars for dumb excuses left and right and just barely meet our store standards while kicking back playing on my phone or watching movies in the customer waiting room with crew. If you’ve made it this far, I applaud you and I promise I could go ON AND ON but I don’t have the space and I’m sure you don’t have the time . Long answer brought short though, I worked 30 hours overtime every week,
4×30= 120
120×3=360
Now before anyone gets too jealous it wasn’t like I was making hella bank or anything, I made minimum wage base pay after 1.5 years there. They never gave raises to anyone that wasn’t a girl sleeping with management (yep, saw that 2x). The overtime was the reason I worked so much.
I was making like 20$ an hour for 360 hours that summer doing almost nothing but chilling.
Thanks for reading!
Also, just an extra tidbit for anyone that goes to get their oil changed. — you and your SO will be talked about extremely poorly and in sexual manners constantly by the crew. The amount of times I’ve seen a girl come in with her boyfriend only for the guys in the shop to whisper about how the guy is a pussy and they could fuck his girl and this and that, it’s sadly more often the case than not. This could be you and your SO they’re talking about, and it does happen everywhere , especially the guys under the car doing the oil change that feel safe from you hearing or seeing them. FYJL!