I am a pastry cook at a hotel. Our pastry chef left the hotel in early January. At the time we were pretty slow so it wasn’t a big deal for a while. But they still haven’t replaced her. Now we’re in probably our second busiest time of the year (after Christmas time) and we have no help. They keep piling on more and more work. We’re all exhausted and miserable. We don’t take lunch breaks and barely take the time to pee. All the while the exec chef and managers make comments about how our job isn’t even that hard and we need to stop complaining. Normally in the past I’ve just sucked it up and dealt with situations like this. But I decided to put my foot down. I talked to my co-workers and we decided that the next time a manager came to us and asked us to do something that wasn’t on our agenda for that day we would say no. That happened this morning. The f&b manager was pissed and a fight ensued of us vs him and the hotel manager. But we stood our ground. The manager said, “Fine, I’ll just do it. It’s not even hard.” And we said absolutely, do what you gotta do. And he made the product he needed (which looked awful, btw). That made me even happier because my hotel happens to be a union hotel. I contacted the union this evening because he is not allowed to do our job. I told them about him making the product and all about how over worked we are. He is definitely going to be in trouble and I’m so excited to watch the ensuing shit storm.
One of the chefs in the savory side also quit this morning (with no notice) because of the work load. I hope more people quit but I’m sticking around for now to make their lives hell. I’ll probably be quitting sometime in the summer.
Thanks to all of you for helping me understand that I can stand up to my employers!!