First post here, so sorry if this isn't the right place! Title, basically – I'm just out of college, and for the past month or so I've been working a part-time food service job while I figure out a job I'm more interested in. I'm a drag queen in my spare time, so the goal is to have something part-time that still gives me time to focus on theatre and drag. The plan was to email my two weeks' notice tonight, but I keep second-guessing it for some reason. Main reasons I want out are:
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The restaurant I work in does a trial shift process instead of an interview process – where I live, trial shifts must be paid at least at minimum wage/there is no exemption to paying the minimum wage just because the shift is a “trial” shift. When I asked about payment for my trial shift after it wasn't on my first paycheck, I was told that those shifts are unpaid – I got paid for it eventually, but not until I put it in writing in an email and made my managers aware that I knew the law. I'm glad I got paid for it, but I still feel a bit iffy about the fact I had to escalate it to that point/had to put it in writing.
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The job I have isn't the one I signed up for. I wasn't asked for a CV at any point in the application process, but there was a multiple choice question asking what kind of work I'd be interested in, with three options – cooking the ingredients, mixing/putting the meals together, or cleaning the dishes. I selected cleaning the dishes, the job I have is front of house (mixing/putting the food together).
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I live in another county about an hour and twenty minutes' bus journey away from the city, and my bus comes once an hour. My managers know this, I made it clear when I filled out the application form – I'm regularly put on the 7am shift which means I have to wake up at 4.30am.
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On my second day, I was asked to cut my nails – probably makes sense for food service reasons, but because I do drag and like using/painting my own nails it felt a bit off to me.
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The lunchtime rush is two guaranteed hours of hell every day – what specifically my job is during that rush period changes every day, but it's always extremely stressful. The queue regularly extends out the door, the till freezes on me, when I have to put people's orders together really quickly I find it extremely intense and overwhelming, and have been close to tears several times.
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I will regularly work a 9-hour shift and not get a break until seven and a half hours in. It's company policy that nobody gets a break between 12:30 and 2 – “power hours”, as they're so called. The minimum legal requirement for breaks where I live is a 15-minute break at the 4 1/2 hour point, and another 15 minutes (or a half hour) at the 6 hour point. For example, today I started at 7, finished at 4, got my break at 2:20.
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My contract says “part-time”, but does not strictly give a set number of hours a week – ballpark was usually somewhere between 21-25 hours a week. I'm working 26 hours this week, but last week I was rostered in for and worked 44 hours out of nowhere. I showed up that week because I'm paid every two weeks and I needed the money, but I'm not liking how they just did that out of nowhere.
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I'm not allowed to get my nails done while I'm working in food service, and I like the idea of getting my nails done in time for a friend's wedding in early October.
When I talk to my friends who've had jobs before/have had jobs longer than I have, it's pretty unanimous that I'm not being treated right and I should hit the bricks. I think my main concerns are the fact that I do not yet have anything else lined up, I get free food on shift, and the fact that it's my first job outside of seasonal/gig type jobs and I've only been there just over a month as of time of writing. I think I'm just a bit worried that I'm making a rash decision, even though I think my issues with the job are reasonable ones to have. Think I'm just trying to make sure I'm not insane for wanting to leave!