Retail Hell Underground

Fast-Food Workers Decry Widespread Wage Theft In New York

Huff Po: Vicente de Jesus Garcia says he had a bad feeling when he arrived at a Harlem housing project three years ago to deliver a pizza. He didn't like the looks of the place, so he told the customers to meet him outside. As he waited, a group of men pulled him into the lobby, threw him to the ground, kicked him until he was black and blue, and stole $400.

On Thursday, Garcia, a Mexican immigrant and a father of seven, appeared at a rally outside a fast-food outlet in New York City to denounce the people he views as the real thieves -– not the men who took his cash in the lobby but the multinational corporation that employs him.

According to Garcia, the owner of the Papa John's franchise where Garcia worked held him accountable for the stolen money.

"I had to use my rent money to pay him back," he said through an interpreter. "It’s bad enough that it’s dangerous and I get robbed doing this job. To make me pay back the money if I want to keep my job, is an insult on top of it."

Garcia's story is just one of the more dramatic episodes highlighted in a new report from the labor campaign Fast Food Forward on the prevalence of wage theft in New York's fast-food industry. In a survey commissioned by the campaign, which advocates for higher pay for fast-food workers, 84 percent of those surveyed said that their employers engaged in practices that amount to what the group has identified as theft. Respondents described performing duties before and after clocking in, working during scheduled meal breaks, working overtime without getting paid extra for it, and, in the case of delivery workers, receiving no reimbursement for money spent on gas, bicycle helmets and other job-related necessities.

On Thursday, the New York state attorney general's office acknowledged that its investigators are looking into these practices. In an email, spokesman Damien LaVera called the report's findings "deeply troubling" and said they "shed light on potentially broad labor violations by the fast food industry."

Representatives for Papa John's and the National Restaurant Association did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Melissa Mark-Viverito, a Democratic New York City councilwoman who represents parts of Harlem and the Bronx, was among several local leaders at the rally who framed the report as evidence of a "hidden crime wave."

"This is a crime wave that is not being engaged in by petty thieves, but by a multimillion dollar industry," she said.

The demonstration, which took place outside of a KFC on the Brooklyn-Queens border, came on the heels of a series of strikes and protests by fast-food and retail workers around the country. In November, about 200 workers affiliated with the Fast Food Forward campaign walked out of their restaurants in New York City, demanding better pay and the right to form a union.

In April, more than 400 workers participated in a second New York strike, inspiring a wave of similar actions in Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit and Milwaukee.

By law, fast-food workers must be paid at least the federal minimum wage, which is now $7.25 an hour. In recent years, these jobs have become much more common; since the official end of the economic downturn, jobs in the fast-food sector and other low-paying industries have grown nearly three times as fast as jobs with better pay.

One of the workers who spoke at the rally was Joseph Barrera, a 22-year-old employee of the KFC that loomed in the background. Barrera was the subject of a recent Huffington Post story exploring the prevalence of poverty among people who work for a living.

Although some employees at the franchise where he works end up contributing more than 40 hours a week to the company, Barrera said, the boss divides their hours among different franchises, so that he doesn't have to pay them overtime.

"They want to play games with us," Barrera said. "We're not playing games no more."

via www.huffingtonpost.com

A Service Slave Wants A Fresh Perspective From RHUers

Hello fellow slaves! I have worked in veterinarian hell, bartending hell, and now I have a job that makes me feel like an actual slave sometimes. It's not retail, but it's a necessary service. Now where I work there are several different rooms that are all specialties of the same basic task. I was trained for a different one than I was hired for, and have been in all rooms at this point so that tells you how important this training is to my bosses.

Anyway, my complaint is about the shady attendance and hours mix ups that happen way too often. First, a lot of people just don't show up for work, and my bosses refuse to hire substitutes. In this line of work, they can get in serious trouble or shut down by the state of there are not enough people in each room.

Turnover is ridiculous--in the 8 months I've been there, we've gone through ten new hires who have quit. That's out of a staff of twenty. Because of this, the rest of us have to bust our butts to make up for it, but the administration will fudge our hours to avoid paying us overtime. I technically have an hour of overtime every week because I have people who are in my room past closing, but I don't get paid for it, and we're told to have the rooms cleaned and shut down while there are still people there.

When I was in a different room, I would work on my unpaid break because it was physically impossible to get everything done on the clock, and some bitchy co-worker tried to make me do her work as well as my own, plus an extra project my boss gave me. I'm okay with my pay because it's above minimum wage and I get an extra dollar because I have a master's degree, but the sad part is that almost everyone should be working on salary because of the education requirements but we are all paid by the hour.

The other thing is that they will change our hours and breaks with no discussion or notice. Today I was told to move my lunch break back 2 hours to help out in a room that didn't need help and apparently someone said I preferred late breaks, which is not true at all. I told them I need more than 5 minutes notice.

On top of all this is an atmosphere of gossip and spreading mean rumours, plus a couple of people who are just plain crazy, in a disgruntled employee comes back to shoot up the place kind of way. One evening I was working alone past closing and I was told not to answer the phone or door because the woman they just fired might try to get back in.

Anyway, I've always told my bosses that I'm glad to help where needed and I get that they want a family feel to the place, but switching everything around without telling me is really starting to get to me. I've been asked to come in when I got sick from food poisoning and was vomiting at work, and called early in the morning to come in early, then had my hours moved around to make up for it. The worst part is, when you ask to be given some advance notice, the bosses look at you like your just complaining to complain. What do you guys think, am I being dramatic about this or do I have a right to veto changes to my schedule? I'm getting more and more glad I'm leaving in 3 weeks!

--Sally

Fired Amy's Baking Company Server, Katy Cipriano Answers Questions On Reddit About Her Server Hell

From what I could see on the Nitchen Nightmares episode, Katy was a caring, hard worker and did not deserve the way she was treated by Amy's Baking Company owners Amy and Samy. The hateful greedy scumbags took her tips!

Here's the link to Katy's reddit account where she answers questions to comments.

 

Working Through Injuries Isn't Enough For Canadia's New Boss

Canadia here eh, with some bad news and an outrageous story of my now ex job.

Background: Long story short my fiance left me and my dad was diagnosed with a terminal illness, so these last few months of finding a job was rough with all of this other stuff going on. For 5 long months I finally found a job at a burger joint. They called me in for a second interview, this one went a lot better than the first and I was hired on the spot. My life was finally back on track.

I sat for 13 hours going through training videos for the second time (I had worked at this burger joint before but a different location and trust me the first time was enough).

On my resume it says I have about 5-6 years of retail experience in cash, I have NO COOKING experience whatsoever.

This is where it gets good: Next day however I had an accident. I fractured a bone in my foot about 2 days after I was hired. They were still struggling to get me an uniform, and I had yet to catch a manager or supervisor to tell them I had finished my videos. So I finally got a hold of one of the supervisors that interviewed me and told her at the end I had fractured my foot so I may be walking a little funny. At the coffee shop I worked at before I saw employees able to work with broken arms and ankles so I thought they'd put me in drive thru or cash because they said they'd cross train me to be in kitchen and out front. I figured I'd be a backup for kitchen if it really came to it and they needed someone to be covered.

I show up for my first day with a very visible limp and they put me in kitchen. The one place where I am not strong. But I didn't say anything because I wanted to give it a fair chance. After 3 days of working there, 1 for each station during the busiest times of the week I was expected to know each station off by heart and work as fast as I can. I'm a little clumsy by nature but once I get it I'm very fluid with how I move.

My second day I was chewed out by a Supervisor for not moving fast enough despite pushing my limit with my foot. Each step was painful, I finally turned around and said to her; "I HAVE A FRACTURE IN MY FOOT."

I've only snapped back at a supervisor once prior (by now I've finally found my voice). She didn't hear me and walked off but the employee I was working with heard me and asked me to repeat myself. I then found out the Supervisor didn't tell the manager like she was suppose to. I was sent home that night until I got a doctor's note.

I got my note the next day and called ahead to see if they still needed me for that night in case they had my covered already. The manager picked up the phone and I was yelled at and at one point mocked over the phone, because I didn't tell her, which according to the supervisor on last night I did everything I was supposed to. So I didn't need to call back and check to make sure she had heard. I went in and fumbled the next two days because I'm still trying to figure stuff out and I'm forgetful. At the times where it'd be a bit of a wait she'd ask me why it wasn't done.

I'd do no excuses, I owned up to it and say I'm sorry I forgot. But the times where I do have a legitimate reason why something happened it didn't matter what I had to say, she didn't care. Then she would hound me when I would go to respond to something in the correct way and distract me by calling my name and listening to her explain what I was going to do in the next few seconds. It got so bad last night I almost walked out on her. The busiest night of the week, I was being pushed way to far. The expectations were unrealistically high.

Last night she had to refund several orders, which I felt bad for; once you get past a certain amount an e-mail needs to be sent to the big boss about why it happened. But the expectation that how I was supposed to be despite being injured, an enormous amount of pressure in a completely new setting and the feeling of believing I couldn't do anything right, broke me.

I never let strangers see me cry, and it's the first time I've cried over work in a while. She pulled me in the back and apologized profusely and told me I was doing well. It got me to thinking of how far I've come from my first day. The next day I came in I was confident it was my fifth day of work, my pain was going away so I was walking a lot easier and surprise, surprise, working faster.

I had a good day for my 5th day of working in the kitchen. Today was also a good day, we had another trainee working and I was starting to get into the groove of how everything works. My first red flag was we had the big boss come in. I think I saw him previously once, but I'm not sure I'm horrible with names. I didn't think that much of it. I had a good shift for the second day in a row, didn't run out of anything and if I did it was already down cooking and almost done.

I'd found my center, I punched out and shook the big bosses hand and said with sincerity and a big smile that was legitimate as I got my things to go home; "It was a pleasure to meet you. I felt good about today and looked forward to the next day."

I punched out and all I heard was; "Canadia before you go can we talk for a sec?"

I said "Sure what's up?"

"We've decided to discontinue your training."

When she said this I was like; "Oh good, they finally decided to put me up on counter."

"Can you turn in your uniform in the next few days and we'll get you set up with your ROE?"

My heart dropped into my stomach. I said "...Okay." And walked out crying the whole way home.

I had never been fired before and even if I had this was ridiculous because the only thing I can think of of why I was fired is; I was fired for not working fast enough with a broken foot, NO prior experience in the kitchen, on my 6th day of training. No days off in between those days either.

The kicker? They just hired a few new girls for cashier positions. I've worked at 'popular Canadian coffee chain' on the busiest days of the year. I was trusted to run an entire counter and clean every inch of it at my last two years of working there, and I was trained on how to operate the newer tills for when they switched over so I could have quite possibly trained THEM on how to operate them.

May your managers always do extensive background checks and if it does come to the point where something has to give, may it be for a legitimate reason.

--Canadia

Nestle CEO: Water Is Not A Human Right, Should Be Privatized

Is water a free and basic human right, or should all the water on the planet belong to major corporations and be treated as a product? Should the poor who cannot afford to pay these said corporations suffer from starvation due to their lack of financial wealth? According to the former CEO and now Chairman of the largest food product manufacturer in the world, corporations should own every drop of water on the planet — and you’re not getting any unless you pay up.

The company notorious for sending out hordes of ‘internet warriors’ to defend the company and its actions online in comments and message boards (perhaps we’ll find some below) even takes a firm stance behind Monsanto’s GMOs and their ‘proven safety’. In fact, the former Nestle CEO actually says that his idea of water privatization is very similar to Monsanto’s GMOs. In a video interview, Nestle Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe states that there has never been ‘one illness’ ever caused from the consumption of GMOs.

Watch the video below for yourself:

 

The way in which this sociopath clearly has zero regard for the human race outside of his own wealth and the development of Nestle, who has been caught funding attacks against GMO labeling, can be witnessed when watching and listening to his talk on the issue. This is a company that actually goes into struggling rural areas and extracts the groundwater for their bottled water products, completely destroying the water supply of the area without any compensation. In fact, they actually make rural areas in the United States foot the bill.

As reported on by Corporate Watch, Nestle and former CEO Peter Brabeck-Letmathe have a long history of disregarding public health and abusing the environment to take part in the profit of an astounding $35 billion in annual profit from water bottle sales alone. The report states:

“Nestlé production of mineral water involves the abuse of vulnerable water resources. In the Serra da Mantiqueira region of Brazil, home to the “circuit of waters” park whose groundwater has a high mineral content and medicinal properties, over-pumping has resulted in depletion and long-term damage.”

Nestle has also come under fire over the assertion that they are actually conducting business with massive slavery rings. Another Corporate Watch entry details:

“In 2001, Nestlé faced criticism for buying cocoa from the Ivory Coast and Ghana, which may have been produced using child slaves.[58] According to an investigative report by the BBC, hundreds of thousands of children in Mali, Burkina Faso and Togo were being purchased from their destitute parents and shipped to the Ivory Coast, to be sold as slaves to cocoa farms.”

So is water a human right, or should it be owned by big corporations? Well, if water is not here for all of us, then perhaps air should be owned by major corporations as well. And as for crops, Monsanto is already working hard to make sure their monopoly on our staple crops and beyond is well situated. It should really come as no surprise that this Nestle Chairman fights to keep Monsanto’s GMOs alive and well in the food supply, as his ideology lines right up with that of Monsanto.

via www.trueactivist.com

More Douchiness From Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jefferies: Not Selling To Overweight People

From Business Insider: Teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch doesn't stock XL or XXL sizes in women's clothing because they don't want overweight women wearing their brand. 

They want the "cool kids," and they don't consider plus-sized women as being a part of that group. 

Abercrombie is sticking to its guns of conventional beauty, even as that standard becomes outdated. 

Contrast Abercrombie with H&M, another favorite with the teen set, who just subtly introduced a plus-sized model in its latest swimwear collection. 

H&M has a plus-sized line. American Eagle, Abercrombie's biggest competitor, offers up to size XXL for men and women. 

Abercrombie doesn't even list women's XL or XXL on its size chart. Its largest women's pants are a size 10, while H&M's standard line goes up to a size 16, and American Eagle offers up to 18. 

It's not surprising that Abercrombie excludes plus-sized women considering the attitude of CEO Mike Jeffries, said Robin Lewis, co-author of The New Rules of Retail and CEO of newsletter The Robin Report.

"He doesn't want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people," Lewis told Business Insider. "He doesn't want his core customers to see people who aren't as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they're one of the 'cool kids.'" 

The only reason Abercrombie offers XL and XXL men's sizes is probably to appeal to beefy football players and wrestlers, Lewis said. 

We asked the company why it doesn't offer larger sizes for women. A spokeswoman told us that Abercrombie wasn't available to provide a comment. 

In a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries himself said that his business was built around sex appeal. 

“It’s almost everything. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that,” Jeffries said. 

Jeffries also told Salon that he wasn't bothered by excluding some customers. 

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely."

Jeffries said he thinks that including everyone would make his business boring. 

"Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either," he told Salon. 

While a specialty retailer like Abercrombie can't be expected to appeal to everyone, the brand's standard of beauty is quickly becoming stale. 

Plus-sized is no longer a niche market: 67 percent of the apparel purchasing population fit that label, and the number is growing all the time. 

For too long, this sizable and growing segment has been ignored," writes Margaret Bogenrief at ACM Partners. "Treated shabbily, ostracized by the “pro-skinny fashion world,” and seemingly discarded by designers, department stores, and retailers alike, plus-size fashion consumers, critics, and bloggers are taking back their spending and sartorial power and, in turn, changing both the e-commerce and retailing landscapes."

Ignoring this "revolution" could be costly for businesses, Bogenrief writes. 

More brands are featuring curvy, "real-sized," models. 

In addition to H&M's Jennie Runk, Dove's wildly popular "Real Beauty" campaign highlights women who aren't as thin as traditional models.

But it's unlikely that Abercrombie will ever sway from its image, Lewis told us.  

"Abercrombie is only interested in people with washboard stomachs who look like they're about to jump on a surfboard," Lewis said.

via www.businessinsider.com

You’ve Got Questions? We’ve Got Assholes! (Part 2)

You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Assholes!

A Cover Letter

I was recently on glassdoor.com which asked me to write the pros and cons of a company. My former employer, RadioShack, immediately came to mind. Before I left there, I wrote a letter to my Regional Manager in regards to my district manager. Now, I didn’t expect anything to come of this letter, mostly because the Regional Manager, Bill Mynett, was a Napoleonic little man who had been hired from Blockbuster. He, in turn, placed former Blockbuster employees in District Manager positions, who did the same with store manager positions. One such District Manager was my former…Reginald Weekly.

The Letter: (Part 2)

During my time in his district, I witnessed several other shortcomings in Reggie’s management style:

1.) Reggie told three of our district’s managers that they needed to take a re-take inventory and gave them one day’s notice. When the manager of the Crestwood store told Reggie that he wouldn’t be able to get a staff together in that short of a time, Reggie made veiled threats about “not doing his job,” and “at will employment.” From what I understand, Reggie had a month to set up these re-take inventories, yet he waited until the day before to let anybody know. He made similar, last minute requests of me earlier last year, and he’d done it to several other managers.

2.) Reggie rarely updates his calendar. There is a DM calendar on the intra company website so managers know what events are taking place. Reggie often puts a manager meeting on it merely two days before the meeting takes place, once again forcing us to change our schedules and causing an upheaval with our staff. This was unprecedented as ALL district managers I’ve worked for updated their calendars up to a month ahead of time.

3.) Reggie was extremely non-communicative. He took a vacation in December and didn’t have a conference call before he left to discuss expectations, and he didn’t leave anyone in charge. A lot of managers didn’t even know he was on vacation, because who gets a vacation in December in retail? Especially without clearly outlining expectations during the busy holiday shopping season.

4.) When the Matteson RadioShack was robbed at gunpoint, Reggie explained to us on our conference call that RadioShack won’t hire security guards because it would cost too much money. When I asked, “Aren’t we losing more money in thefts than it would cost to just hire some $8.00 an hour rent-a-cop?” Reggie exasperatingly said, in a heavy exhale like a king who was being bothered by a peasant, “”huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhh, we’re not losing ANY money Mike, we’re insured. So we’d actually be LOSING money if we hired security” to which I replied “so what happens when someone gets shot?”….”Anyone ELSE have any questions?” IF you’re keeping score at home, that’s 2 armed robberies in January, 16 since Novemeber. And that’s JUST of the 18 stores in Reggie’s district. Employees are scared, nervous, and quitting all over the place. Where’s Bill Curtis when you need him? Once again, I feel that Reggie’s lack of interest in a concern that everyone in my district shared, was highly unprofessional.

5.) For years I only worked until noon on Thursdays, as I have another obligation after that time. I still always worked 48 to 54 hours per week, and when I first started at the Tinley Park store I was working 60-80 hours a week. However, this year Reggie told me that I was no longer allowed to work those hours on Thursdays and that he expected me to work open to close every day until my wireless sales were where he wanted them to be. Whenever I did work open to close on Friday or Saturday, Reggie either wouldn’t acknowledge my dedication to my store, or he would say that I only worked open to close because I had bad employees.

6.) Every time I requested vacation time or time off in general, Reggie rejected it. Then I had to call him and explain why I was requesting the time off while he made me feel like an incompetent manager for taking time off that I’d earned or that I needed to take because of a doctor’s appointment. I don’t make doctor’s appointments around Reginald Weekly.

7.) In my time in Reggie’s district I tried to call off of work sick once when I had the stomach flu. I had coverage for my store, but when I called Reggie to let him know, he forced me to go into work anyway by telling me I couldn’t take the time off because my store was doing poorly in phone sales.

8.) I asked Reggie on MULTIPLE occasions, since I started at the Tinley Park store, to order several things for me. First, a new lock box at the counter. I sent Reggie emails, I asked him in person, and in 14 months I never received one. Since my store didn’t have a safe, I would have liked to have been able to put excess money in the lockbox especially during Christmas time and especially since all of our stores were getting robbed. A functional lockbox is a basic loss prevention tool. I also asked Reggie for a new lock for the backroom filing cabinet since October of 2011 and still hadn’t received one as of January ’13 (Another loss prevention must have), and I asked him for a new vacuum cleaner as the cord was broke on ours. I tried to order these things myself, but I was always told that only the District Manger could do it. When I sent Reggie an email every day for a week asking for the vacuum cleaner, just to remind him daily, and then asked him again at a managers meeting, he flippantly yelled at me to stop bothering him and that the order had gone through. That was in July, and as of January, I still didn’t have a vacuum cleaner. When he came  into my store and the floor looked like shit, he wrote it up on his Store Operational Report as if it were my fault.

9.) RadioShack finally put its managers on a FIVE day work week in 2012, provided that they had a viable Assistant manager working in their store. For 7 years I’d worked 6 day work weeks. My store was the last store to get an Assistant Manager because once again, Reggie offered no support in helping me find a viable candidate. I asked him time and time again to help me recruit as he gets Assistant Manager Candidate applications through people-soft (Our hiring portal) that I can’t see. I was met with Reggie ignoring me and more flippant rejection. I was the only manager in Reggie’s district who wasn’t put on a five day work week for the entire year of 2012.

10.) Reggie’s webmail was full of anger and bile, as he did nothing but tell the district how bad it was doing while offering no encouragement or suggestions as to how we could build our numbers. And that’s if we could read them. I find it grotesquely unprofessional that my boss wrote like a third grader with no punctuation, he misspelled simple words, while often using no prepositions or definite articles.

Reggie went to great lengths to tell me every week how poorly my store was performing; however he never said a word to me when our store was performing well. I don’t mind criticism, but if it’s going to be constant, I expect the same enthusiasm, with which it’s given, in my praise. Also, it seems that every time he came into my store to do a Store Operating Report, he wrote things on there as NOT having been done, which WERE done. Other than the above vacuum example, another would be that he would complain on his report that I had product in my back room, when it was product that we were TOLD to put in the backroom for either a street date or a recall. It was as if I couldn’t be seen to be doing TOO good of a job. My store was ALWAYS clean and priced, the windows were washed, the stock was out, my paperwork was immaculate, we received 100’s on mystery shop reports, but I NEVER heard a word of praise. And again, I was never looking for praise, my paycheck was all the praise I needed, but HE was the one who told me to always start my employee reviews with praise and then talk about the opportunities. Yet in the 14 months I was in his district I’d never once heard him say “good job” or “your store looks great”. Just veiled threats of “at will employment” which is a way of saying “I could fire you for whatever I want.”

(End part 2.)

--via http://generaldouchebaggery.com/

The Magic Ends Quickly At The New Store

Hey guys, Munchies here again.

So, we got the word, they're not re-opening our flooded location. Our district manager came by and gave us the news, but oh, it's not all so bad!

We can all drive to the nearest store (30 miles away), to work. Most of us (though there's only like, 6 of us left) take the city bus or walk to work. And if we refused, we would have voluntarily resigned. >_< 

My boyfriend and I decided to move to Florida from good 'ol Misery, and I managed to swing a transfer to a local fabric store. The store is beautiful compared to my old one (the one that flooded, if you all remember that). It's a huge, new, pretty store. My new co-workers are pretty cool people, but I haven't met anyone I'm real buddy-buddy with.

The magic ended when I checked my schedule.

Apparently, it's a common thing around this store that the store manager will schedule someone to close, meaning they stay til 10 or 10:30, and then have them come in as early as 5am the next morning. I stayed until 8, three hours past my scheduled shift, and had to be in at 5. :/

I know it's legal as long as there's 8 hours between shifts, but my receiving manager has to stay until 11  and come back in at 5 the next morning. Nobody seems to be complaining for fear of losing their jobs, and I guess we all need the hours, but still. Damn. :/

As soon as the boyfriend finishes his medical training, I'm out.

--Munchies

Science Ninja Needs Advice

Hello RHU!

I have an update + another story about a horrific custy and Sparrow, which I will share later, but for now I need to ask a quick and rather urgent question!

So, for context I need to take you back to February. I knew that I would be off Uni for 6 months in the summer, so I asked my manager (I think I called her Horrid Manager in the past) if there was any more overtime in the summer, any chance of temporarily going up to more hours contracted etc.

Her reply was a resounding no, her favourite employee finished her degree this summer, and so she is getting all the overtime. Then it will go to the newer hires - as they need more experience, and then to the students who have just finished school and are leaving in September. So, I was pretty much bottom of the pile when it came to doling out overtime.

So, with that bugging me, I decided to go out and get a second job. Now, I got this job, which is officially only 4 hours a week, however as they are going through a major reorganisation, they give insane amounts of overtime (as in I have frequently quadrupled my contracted hours). I shall now on, for clarity, name my original retail hell Lebenkuchen (which I believe I have before) and my new employer Then. I inform Horrid Manager, telling her my new availability but that I may not be able to work short notice shifts anymore.

Anyway, during my shift today at Then, my awesome Manager (Who I shall call JP) asked if I was available tomorrow for an urgent move, and to work through backlog. This would be an 8 hour shift, one which I am fine working, and one which would give me twice the amount of pay I would normally get in a week. Plus, I am working with two amazing co workers, so I jumped on the opportunity; it is logged onto the computer and finalised.

Lo' and behold when I am at home, I get a text from Horrid Manager: "Just scheduled you to work full day tomorrow - see you at 9"

What. The Actual. Fuck. I, like a good retail slave, text back within a minute. "Sorry, I am working all day tomorrow! Am free for the other shifts you put me down for though!"

Well, the next minute I get a phone call. HM has flipped.

HM: "I need you to work tomorrow! I am 3 staff members down! I have no one to open, or close, I can't run my shop floor like this!"

Me: "Why can't [Favourite Employee] Work?"

HM: "She's on holiday! Everyone else are doing exams! You must work tomorrow! Plus, I need to do your review, if you don't come in tomorrow I can't do it in time for you to get your pay rise. It is in your contract that you must work a certain amount of overtime, and you have not fulfilled your quota! I am in so much trouble now!"

Now, hold the fuck up. I know for a fact you knew you were 3 staff members down 2 weeks ago (One employee broke her ankle, and two moved onto other jobs). If you had half a brain cell, you'd have realised this coincided with your favourite employee being on holiday, AND with the school exam period. If you had asked me to work then, then I would have said yes. But no, you leave it til the day before.

Secondly, if you are 3 employees down, and I am the ONLY ONE who can cover it, what makes you think we are gonna be quiet enough for you to take me out for an hour to do my review?

And Thirdly, I asked you for overtime. You offered me none. Those extra shifts I mentioned? You added those to the schedule randomly, and I cancelled 2 events to be able to make them. Those alone have fulfilled my quota. And think back to last year, who came in to work a 5-10 shift, the night before her exam. Oh wait, that'll be me.

So, my question is, what do I do about this? Do I stop taking overtime at Then, which doesn't pay as well, but is more consistent and often more reliable (I don't get called an hour before to say I'm not needed), or do I wait to see if I get called in at Lebenkuchen - which pays better and where I have a great opportunity to be promoted soon?

Hope your managers don't make you tear your hair out,

--Science Ninja

You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Assholes! (Part 1)

You’ve Got Questions, We’ve Got Assholes!

A Cover Letter

I was recently on glassdoor.com which asked me to write the pros and cons of a company. My former employer, RadioShack, immediately came to mind. Before I left there, I wrote a letter to my Regional Manager in regards to my district manager. Now, I didn’t expect anything to come of this letter, mostly because the Regional Manager, Bill Mynett, was a Napoleonic little man who had been hired from Blockbuster. He, in turn, placed former Blockbuster employees in District Manager positions, who did the same with store manager positions. One such District Manager was my former…Reginald Weekly.

The Letter: (Part 1)

In October 2011, I was enjoying my third year in a row in the top position of my district and my seventh year overall with the company. My store on Archer and Central was in the top three ranking on the metric report for three years running (of 18), and the store was always in the top five of sales gross profit. I received bonuses every year and most months, and I generally enjoyed my job under the district management of Larissa O’Neil—who was an excellent district manager as she not only encouraged growth, but reinforced it through positive motivation. These have been trends I’ve been lucky to have seen exhibited by all of my former district managers at RadioShack, starting with Todd Chinn in 2004, and that constructive motivation is what I attribute my successes with the company to over my years of service.

It was also in October 2011 that I received a call from Reginald Weekly asking me if I would like to take over the Tinley Park store on 159^th and Harlem, in his district. After doing some research, I found that the previous manager of that store, Lawrence, was fired for theft. Before him, Jim McLean, who was my manager when I worked as an associate at that same store several years earlier, was let go by Reggie after a confrontation in which Jim yelled at him. 14 months later, I understand that confrontation better.

But back then, I spoke with Larissa and asked her advice on how I should proceed. Always a fair and balanced district manager, Larissa told me that it would be an opportunity to grow as a store manager, because the Tinley Park store was potentially a higher volume location. As a result, I would be making more money in the long run. I say potentially because the Tinley Park RadioShack had suffered a fall from grace in recent years. Located in a strip mall, the store was once a flagship store in that district and held a multi-million dollar volume. However, since most of the businesses had closed in the strip mall, and wireless stores had sprung up in the surrounding area, it was not so much in favor anymore.

As much as she hated to see me leave her district, Larissa told me that I had grown as much as I possibly could in my current store. However, her advice came with a warning that several other people I spoke with also gave me: Reggie was not the easiest District Manager to get along with, to say the least. Despite the mixed feedback concerning Reggie, I’ve always looked for new opportunities to grow with the company, and the position in the Tinley Park store offered the promise of a new set of challenges and the chance to collaborate with a new team. I accepted Reggie’s offer and came to work in Tinley Park.

My first responsibility as the new store manager was to complete an incoming manager inventory. This was also my first inclination that something was not quite right in Reggie’s district. See, when a manager leaves a store, especially when he’s fired for stealing, an outgoing inventory is conducted immediately to assess the damages and prepare the store for its new manager. However, Lawrence was fired 2 months prior to my coming in and an inventory was NEVER conducted. This meant that I would be doing an outgoing AND incoming inventory in one sitting, which in the eyes of the company, made me responsible for the losses; of which there was 20, 0000 dollars in merchandise missing. Among the missing merchandise were televisions, iPads, cell phones, and various miscellany.

I wondered how Lawrence, the previous manager, could have been in charge of the store for as long he was what with the loss prevention manager’s office at that location, without being caught stealing. Needless to say, this was a significant amount of theft, and surely the district manager should have been aware of it long before the manager had been fired. I also noticed that there had been a noteworthy amount of fraudulent phone sales done at the Tinley Park store during Lawrence’s time in charge —fraudulent phone sales that I was now responsible for comping, as Reggie would inform me in the coming months.

The missing merchandise notwithstanding, my new store looked like a tornado had torn through it. There was product in the wrong sections on the floor and base decks, there were no tags up in half the store, and the other half had sales tags posted that were outdated by months. The floor hadn’t been vacuumed, there was dust everywhere, and you could barely see through the windows from the grime covering them. I found it odd that this store could fall into such a state of disrepair when the district manager was supposed to be following up and doing Store Operational Reports monthly.

Since those first few days in Reggie’s district, I came to learn why I was warned against moving there: Reggie offered no support to me in any aspect of my job, in the year I was there. All he did was complain without offering viable solutions or encouragement. In the 26 years that I’ve been in retail, working for just three companies in all that time, I’ve never come across a less involved District Manager than Reginald Weekly.

How do I define “no support?” Over the 14 months that I worked for Reggie, he did nothing but complain about my staffing, yet he did nothing to help me resolve the issue. Reggie told me on numerous occasions that he must do all second interviews before I hire a candidate; I can’t tell you how frustrating that is, given the fact that my official title at RadioShack was ‘Hiring Manager’ and I had a proven track record of hiring good talent. Never the less, I had asked Reggie many times to step in and do the second interview, to which he would tell me that he would, he’d set a date, and then not show up leaving my candidate high and dry. As someone that understands the value of hiring qualified candidates, it was frustrating to have good candidates back out and get another job while they waited weeks sometimes for Reggie to finally interview them. When I did take the initiative to hire a candidate of my own volition to alleviate the staffing issues at my store, Reggie complained about their performance and told me I need to get rid of them without offering any solutions other than termination. Most times these terminable suggestions were offered during the new employees first week. My philosophy as manager has always been to avoid termination, encourage growth, and provide employees with a positive work environment to improve upon and learn new skills. Developing and encouraging talent should be the number one priority for any manager.

When I was at my previous store I had the same employees for three years; only one person quit because he was going to college. Martha Corral got promoted to manager, and Liz Thompson got promoted to assistant manager of the Riverside Mall RadioShack. One of my other employees, Maricela Luna was the highest performing associate in my REGION month after month. She could have easily been promoted to manager and was in fact offered the position by Larissa, but she turned it down as she was still going to college. I was proud of my turn-a-round rate and the fact that I was helping the company grow with my candidate choices. In the time I worked for Reggie, I’d lost six employees. All quit because they couldn’t take the constant haranguing from Reggie concerning cell phone sales. Reggie offered no time or room for employees to grow—it was either sell phones or get out.

Unfortunately, the Tinley Park RadioShack didn’t sell a lot of cell phones, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. The employees and I consistently tried to get every phone sale we could out of our store, because we had a deep desire to succeed. None of us wanted to see our store in the bottom, but because we were surrounded by a Sam’s Club, a Verizon, an AT&T, two Sprint stores, a T-Mobile, 2 Best Buys, and a Wal-mart, we struggled at meeting our wireless goals. And I know some of you are saying “But RadioShack has a price guarantee for cell phones, right?” Not necessarily; we found out, after dragging customers away from other stores, that RadioShack does not price match corporate stores, Sam’s Club, or Wal-Mart…the only 3 places who consistently undercut their cell phone prices. These are not excuses, as Reggie would tell me, these are facts.  We kept a positive attitude at my store and did the best we could do with what we were given, but each day was a struggle to reach our wireless goals. One of Reggie’s pieces of advice was to hire hotter employees. He even went so far as to mention my employees Chris and Irene by name, then he looked at me and said, “I mean c’mon,” clearly referencing their appearance.

(End Part 1)

--To Read The whole Story, Visit http://generaldouchebaggery.com/

Man Wrestles Shark, Loses Job

Paul Marshallsea, 62, was vacationing in Australia when a six-foot-long dusky shark appeared in the water near where children were playing. Marshallsea and two other men waded into the surf and grabbed the shark by the tail to shoo it away.

 

“It’s shallow for about six yards where the shark was and a lot of babies and toddlers splash about there. It could have been very nasty,” he said, according to the Mirror.

The charity worker, from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, claims he risked his life at the beach outside Brisbane in January to ensure other beachgoers’ safety and his act was praised by lifeguards. It was also captured by news cameras and his story made headlines around the world.

That was all well and good until his employers at the children’s charity, Pant and Dowlais Boys & Girls Club, read the headlines and promptly sacked Marshallsea since he was supposedly on sick leave at the time of his heroic act.

Marshallsea received a letter from his bosses reading, “Whilst unfit to work you were well enough to travel to Australia and, according to recent news footage of yourself in Queensland, you allegedly grabbed a shark by the tail and narrowly missed being bitten by quickly jumping out of the way, the photographs and footage appearing in newspapers and television broadcasts.”

A follow-up letter added: “The breakdown of the trustees’ confidence and trust in you and your ability to perform the role is so great that we find that dismissal is the only course of action we can recommend.”

Marshallsea has protested his firing since he claims his doctor had advised he take a holiday. He was on leave from his job due to work-related stress.

“What am I going to do now?” he said. “There’s not much call for shark wrestlers in Merthyr Tydfil.” — via Sky News.

via news.discovery.com

McDonald's New Zealand Employee Harassed By Management For Being "Too Gay"

From Huff Po: A New Zealand McDonald's employee says he was reprimanded and harassed by management for being "too gay."

Sean Bailey, an employee at a McDonald's franchise in Auckland, told TVNZ's OneNews that he was discriminated against for being gay on multiple occasions. He made the claims during a May 1 protest on Quay Street against the fast food chain.

Bailey allegedly faced three incidents of discrimination by two different managers -- one of which was reportedly about his voice sounding "too gay" -- and he says the encounters made him "embarrassed" to return to work.

"One of my managers said, 'If you act gay on my shift, I will discipline you,'" he told OneNews. "He also said, 'If you turn anyone else in the store gay, I will punish you and make you lose your job.'" Adding, "I had to call in sick just because I couldn't work with him, which meant I lost work hours and money."

Bailey has the support of Unite, a New Zealand workers' union that fights to improve workers' wages and work conditions. The group led Wednesday's picket, according to GayNZ. Unite rep Joe Carolan revealed one of the managers who harassed Bailey was moved to another location, which he likened to the Catholic Church's covering for sexually abusive priests.

"I think McDonald’s have gone for the Catholic Church solution here. Rather than reprimand or fire someone for gross discrimination, they simply moved him to another store," Carolan told GayNZ. “And I don’t know how gay or lesbian people at that store feel about this manager there. Will it be another couple of months before we have a similar report there?”

In response to the discrimination, Bailey wants to hold a "Turn McDonald’s Gay Day" kiss-in in Auckland, which has the backing of Unite as well as the Queer Avengers, a gay activist group.

“Management is trying to use homophobia to control workers,” Queer Avenger member Ian Anderson said in a press release. “But if we stand up and fight back together, we can overcome this tactic.” Anderson added that the group will support any action taken by McDonald's employees against discrimination and exploitation.

The Huffington Post previously spoke with a media representative for McDonald's U.S. about the company's stance on equal rights in regards to a story about transgender bathroom issues. That representative said McDonald's U.S. doesn't stand for discrimination of any kind.

“At McDonald’s, we respect and value everyone," the spokeswoman said. "We have a strict policy prohibiting any form of discrimination in our restaurants. We recognize and appreciate individuals’ rights and require all our restaurants to follow local, state and federal laws."

A global media relations representative could not immediately be reached for comment.

Unite Union gathered on Quay Street on Wednesday to picket the breakdown in negotiations with McDonald's over a collective agreement regarding better wages. Cops were called to the scene, even though the protest was peaceful, Yahoo! News New Zealand notes.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

 

T-Mobile Store Makes Pregnant Employee Clock Out To Use The Bathroom

From Huf Po: This story will astound you.

A 40-year-old pregnant woman who worked at a T-Mobile call center in Nashville, Tenn., says the company forced her to clock out just so she could use the bathroom.

Former T-Mobile employee Kristi Rifkin told ABC News that, even after being told to clock out, she still had to record all the times she used the bathroom and had to turn them in to her supervisor to prove she wasn't taking advantage of a doctor's note she had obtained for the privilege of using the toilet.

In a blog post published Thursday on MomsRising.org, Rifkin explained that T-Mobile had advised her to get the doctor's note because she had to visit the restroom frequently on account of a "difficult pregnancy" that required her to drink a lot of water. T-Mobile warned her she could lose her job for making too many trips to the toilet, Rifkin alleged in her post.

"Essentially the message was, 'You can go, but understand that if you don’t meet [your quota for time spent on the phone] at the end of the day, week and month, we have the opportunity to fill your seat,'" she wrote.

Rifkin told ABC she was fired by T-Mobile in the summer of 2010 -- about six weeks after giving birth -- for neglecting to remove an extra-charge feature from a customer's account. The commission for that extra-charge feature was just 12 cents.

"In addition to a 30-60 minute lunch break and two paid breaks of at least 15 minutes per day, T-Mobile hourly employees working in call center roles are able to take a reasonable amount of additional breaks as needed without any adverse effect on assessment of performance," T-Mobile spokesman Glenn Zaccara told The Huffington Post in an email. "When breaks become frequently in excess of the already generous paid breaks, we work together with our employee to see if there are ways to take additional time with pay, such as using FMLA [Family and Medical Leave Act] time and their generous paid time off benefits."

The story has a happy ending, though.

Rifkin says she's "done with T-Mobile" and that her son, who turns 3 this month, is "very healthy."

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires that employers make bathroom facilities available so that workers don't suffer from adverse health affects. But only nine states require that employees be paid for at least some of their bathroom breaks, and Tennessee isn't one of them.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

Snobby Manager Tries To Lord It Over Hellgreens_Slave, Despite Having Less Experience

I know it's been a looooooooong time since I last wrote in (3yrs maybe?!) because like all good slaves I've busted my ass and was made assistant store manager in 2010.. and was happy with my job. Yes, shocker! lol.

Until about two months ago. Now I started with Hellgreens in 2005 as a cashier & worked my way through college & up to a manager. I've worked with some nice & plenty of not-so-nice people but now my DM & RXDM appreciate the work I do & my boss is awesome so I'm pretty content.

But then they got rid of our executive manager and replaced him with another assistant that despite having the same job title, growing up in the same town (sorta important since we don't work in that town) and being around the same age, this chick thinks she's better than me because she went to state college for business. SMH.

I laugh at this only because 1. I went to a private school, 2. my family is well known in our town, 3. I don't think anyone should walk around with a silver spoon up their ass because no one is entitled to anything in this world - we're all born naked & we die naked.

But not this chick. Mind you I have 3 yrs MORE experience in this company than her & I know what I'm doing because I'm not stupid.

She came in yesterday questioning every little damn thing myself & the employees did, got mad that I fixed several departments, and basically kept questioning why I didn't do EFGH when I did ABCD, and basically tried to tell me what to do.

I just looked at her, asked her who the fuck she thinks she is and reminded her that we have the same job title, that I have seniority at the company & store and if she has a problem with how I do my job that she can talk to the store manager about it.

I don't deal with petty bitches. I've taken over all the executive manager's duties, on top of mine, and all she's done is make my stockroom look like a hurricane, tornado, and earthquake hit. It's more than insane!

When she first started I gave her a run down of the employees - which one is better at what so she'd have a sense on how the employees work because everyone is different! Well, since she started she's pretty much made it known she's "out to get me" by being nasty to me.

I know it's because she's threatened by me because I see her being nice & chatty with some of the employees and some have told me she's told them she's the executive manager. LMFAO. So, while I'm going to have a nice chat with my boss about little miss petty airhead, I figured I'd update you with where I've been hiding.

--Hellgreens_Slave

Queer Geek's Update on Hell at The Big Fancy

Recently a close friend and coworker of mine e-mailed me about what was going on with her at her retail hell. Now if you’ve been following my posts, you know that me and Freeman Hall are former slaves freed from the oppression of The Big Fancy plantation.  

When the corporate wheel decided to get rid of my department, my friend got caught behind and got transitioned into a ridiculous department that made it impossible to meet company expectations especially in this difficult economy.

Well finally they let her go and she contacted me with concern of what her next strategy would be and all I told her is to file unemployment and try to pound the pavement looking for job.  Face it!  The economy sucks and even fast food places are being extra picky about who they hire in this competitive market.   

Since kicking me out of Big Fancy (I’d like to say that I was asked to leave), I found out that my vacant position remains cursed since my departure.  

From what my friend revealed to me, everyone they hired to replace me turned out to be complete flakes.  The first got fired for stealing money from the till, the second for unprofessionalism, and the last person would never show up for work.  Add to that, the constant budget cuts and pretty much every department manager that had been with Big Fancy a long time was let go and replaced with a revolving door of naïve slaves.

Now comes word that the all multiple stores in the region are shutting their corporate offices in my city and moving them up north for budget reasons.  This means that at least 50 some employees are out of job and anyone wanting a position in any of the left over Big Fancy stores are going to have to compete for positions within the area so some poor slave is going to left out in the cold.  Think of it as a lottery where the losers get a one way ticket to the unemployment line while the lucky ones get the opportunity to be exploited slaves in the process.  So much for employee loyalty!

In the end, it’s the company that suffers.  It turns out that the so called family Big Fancy business is no longer owned or controlled by the original Mr. Lou and his descendants.   It’s made up of a pair of shareholders and Board of Directors who dictate these ridiculous changes with the façade of being the company recognized for their outstanding customer service.  So with each stupid Big Fancy shopping bag that I see and their logo playing on commercial ads, I cringe with the knowledge that I know the truth.  Big Fancy sucks and that no one should ever shop with their company!

--Queer Geek

 

From Freddy:

It's so true. With their unforgivable and ridiculous expectations, I watched The Big Fancy ruin the lives of many quality workers. I also wittnessed long-time managers with amazing track records lose their positions to younger, lower paid newbies because Big Fancy felt the old timers were making fifty cents more an hour too much. And now with the adancement of technology, these humanless corporations like The Big Fancy have new excuses and easier ways to replace hard-working people who have given their souls to the company.

To read more hellacious but funny tales about this company I call a Wolf in Designer Clothes, check out my new book "Return To The Big Fancy," and its predessor "Retail Hell."

 

What is the worst thing you have seen your company do to an employee?