I recently got hired as an ASM at a popular fast food chain and when I was hired I was told “we don't want to mess with your schooling”
I was starting to fall behind in school and decided to ask if I could instead work four days a week instead of five. For context, this store isn't high volume and only gets one or two of one thousand dollar hours each day with under twenty employees and that “administrative work should take a maximum of 10-15 minutes each day”. With the work I've seen them do, it is not hard and easily manageable. The problem is that I am also a full time student and unfortunately, I have bills that have to be paid. So to make a long story short, I was told that I was expected to do five days a week with some of those days ranging to 9+ hours.
I will admit, this was a nice opportunity, however I'm tired of being lied to by employers whether that is for raises, a timetable for promotions or even how they don't want to mess with my school schedule. I even accepted getting paid lower than what the market average for this job (and what they posted for the job) because I expected flexibility with school and didn't think to argue about that because I figured it was a good trade off and it was still a little more than enough to live off of.
On top of that, I noticed this company is violating labor laws by preventing workers from taking their lawfully required breaks because they plan for it to be busy on certain days. I felt terrible about that because they mostly hire immigrants who know little to no English and don't fully understand their rights as a worker. I escalated this to the district manager for it to fall on deaf ears. I always felt as a manager it's part of my responsibility (especially in middle management) to stand up for my employees and give them a safe, comfortable working environment so I got really frustrated that the culture of the management in this company is this way and that they don't explain the workers their rights so that they could exploit them this way.
I decided today that it is probably best I separate myself from this company as I cannot willingly work for a company that promotes this kind of behavior and expects you to put a hold on your life for a job that feels unfulfilling at the end of the day.