Well, my 28 year old daughter just took a second part-time job 2 weeks ago. She's a single mom, struggling to make ends meet. She's a hard-worker, willing to learn new things and puts in extra effort because, well, that's what she does at work.
She currently works a closing shift 4 days a week at a well known discount retailer - almost 1 year now. However, she needed a 2nd job because, well, most of these retail joints won't let you work 20 or more hours a week because they don't want to pay benefits. She needed more money to pay the bills.
But, in general, they treat her well and with respect. They appreciate her hard work and she gets along great with her co-workers, managers, and customers.
None of which prepared her for the nightmare she just experienced at her new job, at a local pizza place here in town.
She got offered the job during her first interview - right after she just walked in and handed them a resume. She already had experience at two other pizza parlors in town, so, she knows what to do and how it works.
Or she thought she did until she went to this place.
You ever see the Paul Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke?
Remember the ditch digging scene, where one guard told him to get the dirt out of the warden's hole, then after digging it out, the other guard told him to put the dirt back in? This went on back and forth until an exhausted Newman was struck with a guard's baton and knocked out. (Here's a YouTube link if you haven't seen it.)
YouTube: Cool Hand Luke Ditch Digging Scene
Now, although there wasn't any physical violence, that's about what happened to my daughter.
After only 1 week and 1 day on the job, she was forced to quit in tears after the abhorrent ways that her shift manager, the shop owner, and her fellow employees treated her.
For example, she was told to make and stack 12 pizza boxes by one manager. So, she did that, only to be screamed at by another manager for not making 15 boxes. In front of the other employees. And in front of the customers in the store!
She was told her duties included cleaning the bathrooms whenever there were no customers - she worked the 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. shift, so there were down times after lunch. So, last Monday during a down time with no customers, she went into the men's bathroom and started cleaning a urinal. A customer came in the store. Rather than ask my daughter to come out and help the customer, she was loudly berated by the manager for not being at her post when the customer arrived!
And once again, she was screamed at in front of her co-workers and the customer!
A short while later, the owner came in and asked what was going on. My daughter tried to explain she was getting conflicting instructions from everyone in charge and just wanted to know what she was supposed to do, that she couldn't be in two places at once. And asked why she was being criticized for doing exactly what she was told to do. And how could they set up better communications between them. She was angrily told by the owner, "Well you'll just have to figure it out! The customer always comes first!"
My daughter was in tears. She could not believe how she was being talked down to and mistreated!
And her co-workers were not exactly any help to her either. They just stood there and watched!
I think it's pretty obvious why the job my daughter took was available in the first place. If those guys had said that to me, they'd be out cold on the floor covered in pizza sauce and melted cheese. But my daughter is barely 5 feet tall, so that wasn't going to happen.
She did the next best thing though. She told them that no one, nobody, is going to treat her with such disrespect on a job, especially as a new hire.
So she quit. Walked right out the door. Screw' em!
Right now, I'm thinking about what to do about these scumbags, other than just give my daughter some support until she finds another 2nd job. Maybe I'll use Yelp and put a real negative review about them and give some details. Maybe some of my paisano's and I will show up and go all Italian on them! Or maybe we'll set up a picket line in front of the store. I dunno. Let's just say I get more pissed the more I think about it.
I won't name the pizza joint. Oh hell, I'll give a hint. Look toward the end of the alphabet - maybe you can figure it out!
