Ughhh I am grateful that I got hired, don't get me wrong. Ive been job searching for a steady 9-5 for over a year and am close to homelessness so I did what everyone kept telling me to do: “if you really want a job you'll humble yourself and go work in fast food. Otherwise quit complaining.”
But the place I'm working for is Indian curry food, it's a fast food joint but they have very traditional Indian views on how women should behave and dress and act. They also are very micromanaging. You don't get paid for orientation which is technically illegal but I don't have money to get a lawyer to get paid for two hours. They tell you in orientation not to discuss your pay with coworkers. The women are picked apart mercilessly at how they must look down to them showing us pictures of what our makeup is allowed to look like, the exact bun that we must put our hair in and what it must look like, how much jewelry we are allowed to wear, and it's not for safety issues they make it clear it's for appearance.
The dress code is separated into men (not anywhere near as restricted) and women. (everything is dictated by the restaurant with photos of the exact look) You're only allowed to eat your employee meal if you come in early, you're not allowed to eat during the shift and you're not allowed to eat after your shift and you're not allowed to take food home at all even if you pay full price for it. So you have to go in early which for me I'm on the bus. This means if I want to eat my employee meal I have to go in 45 minutes early because of the way the buses run in order to get a meal during my shift. They are very clear no breaks at all and they went over that twice and they made it extra clear no breaks even if you work a double. Only minors get breaks- which is typical in the restaurant industry, but every other restaurant I've worked for in the last 20 years has had a little caveat to that where if it's slow they'll try and cycle all the adults through a quick 15 minute break at least. And if you really need one and ask, they all would let you take a breather.
No smoking or vaping even across the street from the store on public property and they have cameras lmao, and it's not because of appearances or laws or health it's because they don't want people using that to as an excuse to be taking any breaks LOL. They also lied in the job ad and they say they start their crew out at $15 an hour because they value their workers, but they actually start you out at $12.00 an hour. I pushed for $13 an hour and got it, and was told in the interview that it's really easy to get raises. Every time you master training at a station you get a 20 cent raise, but then in orientation we're told that we “owe” the company if we're started out at a higher wage based on our experience, so the first few raises that we would normally get for mastering stations we owe back to the company. So if you make $12.60 an hour you have to master four stations to get your first 20 cent raise instead of getting a 20 cent raise for each station, because everybody must be paid the exact same amount for every job at the end of the day regardless of experience. Sooooo then what is the point of hiring people in at higher than the base pay and telling them in the interview that they're experience means that they get a higher wage?
They also said in the interview and the ad that they have a great work/home life balance and that they close at 8:00 Sunday through thursday, and 9 on weekends but in reality they're pushing to be back closing again at midnight by the end of the year because according to them COVID is over so I guess work/home life balance doesn't matter? So I don't see myself staying at this company long I'm hoping and praying I get some type of office job 9-5 very soon because this entire company is a giant red flag.