I work at a franchised business that recently changed ownership due to the original owner retiring. I’ve worked there for about four years before the ownership change (which happened with the start of the new year).
The new owner has been making some…interesting business decisions. They have not honored the old owner’s policy of yearly raises, and did not even raise any employee’s wages as minimum wage went up in 2023 (before the new year we were all a couple dollars over min wage, now we all work less than 50 cents above min wage).
I recently got a monthly report for June that my department (which I oversee, with a junior employee working with me) was up in revenue 15% last month from the month prior. We have been growing our department exponentially and reaching out to local groups for what we do. I asked for a raise in light of this accomplishment and I was denied with “it’s just not in the budget” as the reason.
But the following is the last straw. The supply of soap that the old owner had ran out in the restroom about a month ago. The first few days people didn’t mind using personal hand sanitizers, but after a couple weeks I talked to the store owner. They said that they did not want to provide soap in the bathroom so that employees would spend less time in there.
This has…for sure gotta be illegal, right? I spoke to other employees and they seem to be only mildly bothered by the lack of hand soap. I cant tell if I am being over dramatic or not.
There’s a million other reasons that the business has become very unpleasant to work at. I’ll spare you from the novel I could write. For the record, this is my job that I’ve had through college. I’m graduated now and am searching for a job in my field outside of this hellhole.
TL;DR Store owner refuses to buy soap for the bathroom in hopes that employees use it less.