In the late 1990’s I worked at a Golf Driving Range in England ( place people get a bucket of 100 balls to hit for a few pounds £ not a proper golf course ) the job was part time as I was doing A-levels at the time it was minimum wage type of wage and when I started the job wasn’t too much work , tasks like changing paper money for coins from a till as the machines took coins that gave out the golf balls for each customer , hiring clubs etc 9 too many tasks to mention) anyway my boss wasn’t a very friendly person but I was left in charge so mostly didn’t have to deal with him..just 1 member of staff running the place at a time, a few months into the job another man turns up unloading about 100 sets of golf clubs from a van ( well I did the work while he sat around ) lets call him Gavin, turns out my boss had done a deal to let Gavin sell his golf equipment from his driving range building in exchange for gavin now paying our wages ( no idea if this is legal to do ..i and other staff basically had no choice either leave or carry on with a new boss and now have a ton of extra jobs to do eg golf equipment to keep safe / try sell on top of all other duties )
my work load massively increased as they promoted the golf store and driving range in local newspapers etc so we had lot more people coming in, we had no cctv so we had to keep an eye on customers while giving change every few minutes and making coffee, cleaning, filling fridges, explaining lesson prices to people etc , we were promised 2% bonus from sales after 4months I think it was by Gavin ,
about 3 months into the job I found out a young lady that worked weekday mornings when its dead at the driving range there had got a pay rise from Gavin so seeing as I was working far far harder for the same wage I began at this place when I do the busy afternoon/evening shifts and weekends , so next time Gavin turned up I asked for a pay rise … Gavin then became very rude saying he could hire pakis to do the job ( paki is short for Pakistani and it’s a racist term used in the UK ) I am white male , anyway basically he made it very clear I wasn’t getting a pay rise !
he said his rude stuff while the golf pro was standing right here next to him the lady that gave lessons from the driving range bays ..she said nothing but I could tell she thought gavin was out of order, about a month later when the 2% bonus was due Gavin told us there was no 2% bonus as losses are taken for the bonus ( a few individual golf clubs were stolen he claims etc obviously not on my shift if at all ) there was no mention of losses coming out of the bonus ! and I had worked hard asking customers what they needed taking my time to try sell stuff ( all without any training what so ever from gavin )
so my next step I speak to my friends to see if they know of any jobs going and one of them told me he could get me a job starting anytime I wanted , for a bit better pay and more hours, so when Gavin went away on a holiday to Spain I quit ! cant recall how I did it maybe I phoned up and told who ever was on duty I wasn’t coming back as I had a new job , but anyway I quit without any warning what so ever no notice nothing ! and I walked straight into another job not needing a reference etc
about a week into my new job on my way home I called into the driving range to collect a few personal items I had left there and I got my cash wages in an envelope ..the young lady that worked mornings was covering my shift she told me Gavin was pissed at me and I explained what he had said/done , I told her she didn’t have to do my shift if she didn’t want to ( she looked knackered not happy ) I never did see gavin or my original boss and neither phoned me to speak to me : )
moral of the story don’t give a pay rise to people that don’t have to work as hard as other staff , give pay rises to the people working the hardest and also don’t be racist/ talk down to staff and don’t fail to give bonuses
plenty of other jobs don’t put up with shitty bosses move on
Glad I let my mates come and use the driving range for free too lol