When I turned 18 my friend got me a job washing dishes at a local restaurant and it’s still the worst job experience I’ve ever had, and that’s including the 6 months I spent at Amazon. I got paid $9 an hour to spend whatever time I could spare slaving away in the corner with no breaks for a drunk who couldn’t even be bothered to show up to write my checks half the time. One day as I was putting away some utensils and he suddenly asked me to go to grocery store down the road but he interrupted himself and had me run a catering delivery on the other side of town that was already an hour late. Eventually I had an emotional breakdown in the parking lot and just stopped coming in, and no one even tried reaching out to me after that. They still owe me around a hundred bucks but I’ve never pursued it because it’s not worth dealing with them again. Recently I saw a headline from a local publication that the place was shutting down for good due to “staffing issues” and I certainly believe it with the way I was treated, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if the health code violations and shady business practices I saw had finally caught up to them. I’m willing to bet everything I own that the owner’s constant legal issues played a big role in it too, given that every time I googled his name out of curiosity he had a new DUI arrest.
Long story short, we can all rejoice that another exploitative business is no more.