This was about a year ago but I'm super proud of this moment.
I was a hotel housekeeper and laundry attendant. For two years I worked for this shit hole.
When I started it was tolerable. 5 months in they hired a new manager and housekeeping department fell apart. She was so rude. Threatened write ups for things out of our control. Super passive aggressive and nit picky too. Within 2 months, over half of the longtime staff left. She was relocated after a year and a half but the department was ruined.
The extra work was piled onto the rest of us. Me being an overachiever I bent over backwards. Showed up an hour earlier than everyone and left an hour after, including the manager. Did this to catch up on laundry which was a two person job but i did it solo. I did it so that the next day would MAYBE be less stressful. But it seemed like after my weekends I would spend the whole week catching up again. Even after all my hard work and dedication, if I had a bad day I would get bitched at.
Oh but the other lesser workers that half assed everything, showed up drunk or high, they never got discliplined. One even cursed out a manager and still had a job the next day. The good workers were livid.
We all begged for higher wages. Or new and better staff. SOMETHING. We had housekeepers dropping like flies by their end of workweek because it was so much. I was putting nearly 60hrs of physical labor on the clock every week. We were all exhausted.
The nail in the coffin was when they understaffed an event weekend. All hotel workers know and hate event weekends. I live in a college town, so you can imagine. We had 3 housekeepers for the ENTIRE HOTEL. 24 rooms each, each room at a time of 30-40 min. And all the rooms were thrashed. Trash, fecal, needles, food splatters, everything was everywhere. Every room was a party room. And nearly all of them used the pull out beds And they expected us to stay and get it all done. Oh and we were beyond behind on laundry. So we couldn't even stock towels or make beds until much later. More time per room!!!
Typical protocol for this type of situation would be to send the guests to another location and pay for their night there. But they said they couldn't afford that. So we had to stay and clean!!
I had just worked three 12hrs in a row. I had plans with my boyfriend that night that I had been planning for weeks. But they said “that sucks!”
One of our newer and more sensitive girls had a breakdown at 6pm (started at 9am). She had forgotten to take her ADHD meds. I stopped my work and spent some time with her to help calm her down. And I was disciplined for it! And they offered her a godamn muffin to make up for the extra work that day!!! A muffin!! When we had been begging for raises!!
That was the last straw. I grabbed new girls hand and we went to find the other housekeeper who was also in tears when we found her. We talked and I asked if they really wanted to stay longer. If this was feasible. Was it legal? We were all under 21, so we didn't know. We agreed that it was way too much and we weren't going to stay because management messed up. They didn't even care about us, why should we care?
I took us to find our manager who was also cleaning rooms. I asked what they expected us to do. Did they expect us to really stay another 8+hrs to get everything done? Even with all the messes everywhere and backed up laundry? It's already 6pm and we've been here since 9. I'd been there since 7am. She said you need to stay or lose your job. I layed it out. I was sick of this environment and the abuse. I stuck it out for two years but this is the final straw. I quit.
All three of us clocked out and left with more than half of the rooms left to clean. The other two kept their jobs somehow, but I quit then and there. I was a key staff member. At the time I was also taking the bus an hour to and from work. On my way home I got a panicked call from a manager from another location lol. I sent it to voicemail. “hey Lunch we can talk about this. If you could come on back we can work something out. You've really put us in a tough spot. Please come back”. She sounded on the verge of tears.
I never called back. I've not stepped foot in that place since. I heard that they did instate raises after I left. But then they cut hours!! This story doesn't even mention the sexual harrasment us girls would have to tolerate from guests. Management never did shit despite the staff being all women and most of us were under 25. I was the youngest at 19. They hired a new guy at one point and he was getting verbally abusive at our girls on his FIRST DAY. still had a job the day after.
Fuck that place. Sad thing is that I've had two jobs since then and I've had similar struggles in both of them . ANTI WORK!!! EAT THE RICH.