I worked in the kitchen and as a server for a small pizza place in interior British Columbia, owned by a couple who moved here several years ago. When I started and heard them using the classic line of “we're a family here”, I rolled my eyes at first. But as the months went on it really did seem that way. I loved all my coworkers, the owners were more or less great the whole time. There were moments here or there that they showed typical overbearing boss behaviour, but they always ended up talking to us later on and explaining themselves more calmly and rationally, apologizing for the ways they acted in the moment.
It really did start to feel like a family. Hell, this was the first year I didn't go home for Christmas and I actually went over to my bosses place for dinner. Just me and them, and it was a really nice evening. They had everyone over for a staff party one time, and they came to my house when I threw a party for my birthday. Everything seemed great. When we were doing things they didn't like, usually they would sit us down and talk to us about it and everyone would come to a solution.
Last week my boss called me in to talk and he told me he was really happy with everything, said I'd be getting another raise at the start of summer, and told me he'd be giving me more hours. Then last Wednesday I get a text from my boss saying that the cash out from Tuesday (the night I worked as a server) was $50 short and asked if I had made any mistakes? I was positive I didn't, as I started a new system for separating takeout bills from my own bills so that I knew exactly what was in my float (which we had to bring ourselves, something I just recently learned is actually illegal to ask of your employees.)
She said that since there was no way to tell if it was me or the other server who made the mistake, she would be docking both our tips by $25 to make up for it. I just said ok in the moment, even though I was pretty sure that wasn't allowed, because I wanted to be 100% sure before I said anything. I did my research and surprise surprise, it's illegal in BC to dock pay of workers for cost of business, which includes breakages and cash out mistakes.
I talked to a few of my other coworkers asking their advice if I should bring this up to the owners. I knew they wouldn't take the criticism very well, and honestly I didn't really care about the $25. I'm sympathetic to small, locally owned businesses, especially restaurants. I understand that overhead is low, margins are low, and it's a stressful thing to run. After talking to a few of my coworkers I decided not to say anything unless it happened again because I didn't want to rock the boat.
Yesterday I go in for my shift and the owners sit me down before I start, say that my closes have been “terrible” (even though the close I did on Tuesday night was praised as “perfect” the next day,) and that my attitude has been bad (even though I've been suffering from depression and feeling better the last few weeks, if anything my attitude has been happier and friendlier,) and that they'd have to let me go. I gave them their key and walked out while they were mid sentence. The seemed surprised that I just took it and left.
I'm pretty devastated. I became incredibly close with one of my coworkers and considered every other one a good friend. This was completely out of the blue. Never did anyone say there was something wrong with the closes, or ask me to do something differently. We had a checklist that I checked off every night. A few months ago there had been some issues with closes which everyone talked about and that's when we came up with the checklist. So this was very surprising to me.
I'm guessing either one of my coworkers told them about our conversation about the docked pay, or they heard it through the camera they have set up to watch the bar (I was sitting at the bar when I talked to one of them about it). In any case, this “family” booted me out without any subtle warning over seemingly bullshit or fabricated reasons. So when a business tells you they treat you like family, run.