After 9 total hours working there, i quit.
attached is the rough draft of a letter i'm sending to my Boss. My mum is gonna read it over for me.
Dave,
When I talked to you on the phone the other day, you said vastly different things about this job than the reality of it. I would like to preface this by saying I'm not some flaky college student unwilling to work, but the conditions under which I was working at The Main Street Market were not working conditions, they were slave labor conditions. You said there would be few dishes, at least during the day. What you didn't tell me is that there is/was no one to work prior to my arrival and that therefore I was forced to do every cooking dish as well as the few eating dishes that were used since opening. This somehow seems odd that I signed on to work from 3-10pm yet I'm to do every single dish since opening. That's almost 18 hours of work that I am somehow supposed to cram into a 7 hour work day. On a similar note, that 7 hour work day quickly turned into almost 8 hours because I was told I couldn't leave till all the dishes were done. There were twice as many dishes to do when I got there today. I don't see how it's possibly for one person to do, or how it's at all fair.
And as far as "friendly coworkers who all help out at the end of the night to clean up the kitchen," that is a vast exaggeration. Scott and the other guy who worked down there (whose name eludes me) cleaned up their part of the kitchen, then left. Scott had finished and made his way up to the bar while I was still down there doing dishes and cleaning out the sinks. I also, during the same time, had to take out all the trash. During this 8 hour work day yesterday, I also had one 30 minute break during that period. Now, I'm not sure what my total time allotted for breaks is/was, but Scott and my other coworker would take at least 2 smoke breaks each hour, leaving me alone down there on my first day with no one to ask questions to. I was told "here's the dishwasher, here are the dishes go at it," and then, for the most part, left to my own devices for the next 8 hours.
There were no place to put the dishes while I waited for them to cool once out of the dishwasher. Therefore I had to wait for them to cool while more dishes piled up. Many of them I had to clean and return to the dishwasher multiple times before they got remotely clean. This is partly because during dinner all the dishes that were bussed from upstairs still had all the food on them. So now I had to clear of all the food, rinse them, put them in the dishwasher and still deal with all the cooking dishes being used. There was little room to put the clean dishes, and no extra room when the spaces filled up. And putting 10-15 pound cooking pots almost 20 feet up above the freezer is simply out of the question, especially when you're taking employee safety into account.
On similar note, the physical conditions under which I was working were positively illegal. I understand you are required to have the three sinks installed by Massachusetts law, each with a different function. That does not mean a.) every single one of those sinks should be used to pile all the dirty dishes and b.) I should be given little more than 6 inches in which to work. I can barely reach the further sink, and I'm a thin guy. I can't imagine anyone bigger than I am getting in there, let alone reaching the shelves 10 feet above my head to get bowls and whatnot (which I will say had a tendency to fall whenever anyone tried to get one).
When I approached Scott about why I was to do 18 hours worth of work, he passed it off because he was far too busy to deal with me. Finally after an hours work today (which would mean 9 total working hours over the last two days) I approached him (on one of his seemingly-constant cigarette breaks) again and said this wasn't fair that he was allowed to go out and smoke and I had to do all the work that no one did before me, plus all the stuff that I had actually signed on to do. He responded with, "Just get the fuck out." To which I replied, "Fine." It seems painfully obvious to me, if these are the conditions under which your dishwashers work that a.) You didn't have one and b.) your college students seem to "disappear."
attached is the rough draft of a letter i'm sending to my Boss. My mum is gonna read it over for me.
Dave,
When I talked to you on the phone the other day, you said vastly different things about this job than the reality of it. I would like to preface this by saying I'm not some flaky college student unwilling to work, but the conditions under which I was working at The Main Street Market were not working conditions, they were slave labor conditions. You said there would be few dishes, at least during the day. What you didn't tell me is that there is/was no one to work prior to my arrival and that therefore I was forced to do every cooking dish as well as the few eating dishes that were used since opening. This somehow seems odd that I signed on to work from 3-10pm yet I'm to do every single dish since opening. That's almost 18 hours of work that I am somehow supposed to cram into a 7 hour work day. On a similar note, that 7 hour work day quickly turned into almost 8 hours because I was told I couldn't leave till all the dishes were done. There were twice as many dishes to do when I got there today. I don't see how it's possibly for one person to do, or how it's at all fair.
And as far as "friendly coworkers who all help out at the end of the night to clean up the kitchen," that is a vast exaggeration. Scott and the other guy who worked down there (whose name eludes me) cleaned up their part of the kitchen, then left. Scott had finished and made his way up to the bar while I was still down there doing dishes and cleaning out the sinks. I also, during the same time, had to take out all the trash. During this 8 hour work day yesterday, I also had one 30 minute break during that period. Now, I'm not sure what my total time allotted for breaks is/was, but Scott and my other coworker would take at least 2 smoke breaks each hour, leaving me alone down there on my first day with no one to ask questions to. I was told "here's the dishwasher, here are the dishes go at it," and then, for the most part, left to my own devices for the next 8 hours.
There were no place to put the dishes while I waited for them to cool once out of the dishwasher. Therefore I had to wait for them to cool while more dishes piled up. Many of them I had to clean and return to the dishwasher multiple times before they got remotely clean. This is partly because during dinner all the dishes that were bussed from upstairs still had all the food on them. So now I had to clear of all the food, rinse them, put them in the dishwasher and still deal with all the cooking dishes being used. There was little room to put the clean dishes, and no extra room when the spaces filled up. And putting 10-15 pound cooking pots almost 20 feet up above the freezer is simply out of the question, especially when you're taking employee safety into account.
On similar note, the physical conditions under which I was working were positively illegal. I understand you are required to have the three sinks installed by Massachusetts law, each with a different function. That does not mean a.) every single one of those sinks should be used to pile all the dirty dishes and b.) I should be given little more than 6 inches in which to work. I can barely reach the further sink, and I'm a thin guy. I can't imagine anyone bigger than I am getting in there, let alone reaching the shelves 10 feet above my head to get bowls and whatnot (which I will say had a tendency to fall whenever anyone tried to get one).
When I approached Scott about why I was to do 18 hours worth of work, he passed it off because he was far too busy to deal with me. Finally after an hours work today (which would mean 9 total working hours over the last two days) I approached him (on one of his seemingly-constant cigarette breaks) again and said this wasn't fair that he was allowed to go out and smoke and I had to do all the work that no one did before me, plus all the stuff that I had actually signed on to do. He responded with, "Just get the fuck out." To which I replied, "Fine." It seems painfully obvious to me, if these are the conditions under which your dishwashers work that a.) You didn't have one and b.) your college students seem to "disappear."
imaginarydesire:
That really sucks :/ Glad you quit though, thats ridiculous...