Post by Lair of the Shadow MaDaBa on Dec 28, 2007 23:44:44 GMT -5
I am currently working at a store in the mall 30 miles away. It's a part-time job, minimum wage, and now that the Christmas season is over, business will grind to a halt and I'll be lucky to work two four-hour shifts a week. That is NOT the job I'm referring to in the topic title.
So, I go on the job search engine for our state (CareerLink) and I see an ad for a full-time job with benefits at the front desk in a hotel seven miles away. I figure "Well, this is good. I have experience working in a hotel. This could work out." I call to set up an interview and, when I tell the man that I have previous experience working in hotels, he's ecstatic and sets up the interview immediately. He tells me to my face that it's a full-time minimum-wage job with benefits and advancement opportunities. He shows me around the place, and behind the lobby is--I shit you not--a FULLY-FURNISHED APARTMENT. It's beautiful, it's got three TVs, it's got a big cushy king-size bed, and I WANT IT. He said that if I pull my weight, he'll comp it to me. This is a no-brainer. Of course, unless you're a retarded cow, you can see that this is too good to be true, and that there's a huge catch here somewhere.
Dur, moo.
During the interview, I'm informed that I'll start on the night shift on Friday the 28th. That's fine with me. Anyone who works nights at a hotel knows that, every night, a sometimes-complicated audit must be done. That's also fine, provided I'm working with someone to teach it to me. A few days later, the lady working the night shift calls me up and asks me if I can come over right then for a training session. So, at about 9:00 a couple nights ago, I arrive here and she proceeds to give me a two-hour crash course on the night shift, the audit, all this. Around 10:30, I say "Well, I'm sure after a few days of teaching me, I'll have it down." "What do you mean?" she replies. "Well, give me a few nights and I'll be able to do it without your help." "No, no," she corrected. "You're starting on Friday by yourself."
Huh? You're telling me that I have to have this down pat RIGHT THE HELL NOW? Are you ****ing kidding me?
Thankfully, she had previously written the entire procedure down start-to-finish, so it wouldn't be TOO bad. Yet, there's something...off. "Hmm..." I think to myself. "She doesn't look too happy to be here..." She goes to teach me how to stock the morning continental breakfast, where she takes me into the apartment. At this point, it is...shall we say "less than good"? It's filled with boxes and it's just plain hideous, even though it was GORGEOUS only two days previous! Turns out they leave all the stuff for breakfast in the apartment's kitchen, boxes of shampoo bottles in the dining area, and the plumbing doesn't even work. The last person who lived here was pushed by the owner to working 16-hour shifts DAILY. Hence why she doesn't live there now.
Still, today at my mall store, I give my two-week notice. It's a part-time job there, and I found a full-time for the same pay and closer to home with benefits, and my schedule at the mall store is completely random based on my boss' whim. See my logic? So I get here to the hotel (where I'm typing this up) an hour early because my store shift ends at 9:30 and my hotel shift starts at 11. I get here and start chatting it up with the girl on the evening shift, Tymberli. Out of the blue, I think to ask her, "Hey, we're all paid minimum wage here, right?" "Yep," she replied. "$6.65 an hour."
OK, I was just che--WHOA, WHOA, WHOA. $6.65? "But the federal minimum wage is $7.15. It's illegal to pay any less." "Not if you're a small business." My mind's reeling. This girl's worked here for a year, so the next question just blurted out...
"Do you get benefits?"
"Nope."
Moo.
Turns out that the owner of this hotel is an out-and-out liar. She proceeds to tell me horror stories about how she was owed benefits but never got them, overtime pay that she was forced to pay back, how the only reason she's sticking around is because she can't find work anywhere else, among other things. It suddenly hits me that I never got anything the owner told me in writing; what's more, I never even signed a W2. How am I even getting paid? Tonight will be my first and last night at the Best Western of Milroy, PA.
So, how was YOUR day?
So, I go on the job search engine for our state (CareerLink) and I see an ad for a full-time job with benefits at the front desk in a hotel seven miles away. I figure "Well, this is good. I have experience working in a hotel. This could work out." I call to set up an interview and, when I tell the man that I have previous experience working in hotels, he's ecstatic and sets up the interview immediately. He tells me to my face that it's a full-time minimum-wage job with benefits and advancement opportunities. He shows me around the place, and behind the lobby is--I shit you not--a FULLY-FURNISHED APARTMENT. It's beautiful, it's got three TVs, it's got a big cushy king-size bed, and I WANT IT. He said that if I pull my weight, he'll comp it to me. This is a no-brainer. Of course, unless you're a retarded cow, you can see that this is too good to be true, and that there's a huge catch here somewhere.
Dur, moo.
During the interview, I'm informed that I'll start on the night shift on Friday the 28th. That's fine with me. Anyone who works nights at a hotel knows that, every night, a sometimes-complicated audit must be done. That's also fine, provided I'm working with someone to teach it to me. A few days later, the lady working the night shift calls me up and asks me if I can come over right then for a training session. So, at about 9:00 a couple nights ago, I arrive here and she proceeds to give me a two-hour crash course on the night shift, the audit, all this. Around 10:30, I say "Well, I'm sure after a few days of teaching me, I'll have it down." "What do you mean?" she replies. "Well, give me a few nights and I'll be able to do it without your help." "No, no," she corrected. "You're starting on Friday by yourself."
Huh? You're telling me that I have to have this down pat RIGHT THE HELL NOW? Are you ****ing kidding me?
Thankfully, she had previously written the entire procedure down start-to-finish, so it wouldn't be TOO bad. Yet, there's something...off. "Hmm..." I think to myself. "She doesn't look too happy to be here..." She goes to teach me how to stock the morning continental breakfast, where she takes me into the apartment. At this point, it is...shall we say "less than good"? It's filled with boxes and it's just plain hideous, even though it was GORGEOUS only two days previous! Turns out they leave all the stuff for breakfast in the apartment's kitchen, boxes of shampoo bottles in the dining area, and the plumbing doesn't even work. The last person who lived here was pushed by the owner to working 16-hour shifts DAILY. Hence why she doesn't live there now.
Still, today at my mall store, I give my two-week notice. It's a part-time job there, and I found a full-time for the same pay and closer to home with benefits, and my schedule at the mall store is completely random based on my boss' whim. See my logic? So I get here to the hotel (where I'm typing this up) an hour early because my store shift ends at 9:30 and my hotel shift starts at 11. I get here and start chatting it up with the girl on the evening shift, Tymberli. Out of the blue, I think to ask her, "Hey, we're all paid minimum wage here, right?" "Yep," she replied. "$6.65 an hour."
OK, I was just che--WHOA, WHOA, WHOA. $6.65? "But the federal minimum wage is $7.15. It's illegal to pay any less." "Not if you're a small business." My mind's reeling. This girl's worked here for a year, so the next question just blurted out...
"Do you get benefits?"
"Nope."
Moo.
Turns out that the owner of this hotel is an out-and-out liar. She proceeds to tell me horror stories about how she was owed benefits but never got them, overtime pay that she was forced to pay back, how the only reason she's sticking around is because she can't find work anywhere else, among other things. It suddenly hits me that I never got anything the owner told me in writing; what's more, I never even signed a W2. How am I even getting paid? Tonight will be my first and last night at the Best Western of Milroy, PA.
So, how was YOUR day?
