Bad Job

I am currently a 20-year-old college junior double-majoring and planning to go premed. I was taking a full-time courseload this past summer in order to graduate on time with two majors and a two minors, and was looking for waitressing hours on the side that would allow me to make some extra money to cover my expenses. That's where Friendlys restaurant enters the picture.

I was desperate for money and fully aware by a set of nagging parents my moutain of piling tuition bills. I applied to Friendlys and the general manager scheduled me an interview right away for any time I was available, which should have sent up a warning flag right there. They were desperate to have me because many of the other waitresses had compulsively quit. The other two managers who were in charge of hiring and training me, hired me as a waitress(as I'd applied for) and told me I'd be trained in the fountain area first, learning to put the sundaes together, and then I'd be trained for waitressing about two weeks later. The job started off good, but right after I started the general manager quit, and the other two managers quit or got transferred. That left me working with a bunch of teeny-bopper high school waitresses, a few good managers, and a very bossy obnoxious manager that I soon learned(slowly but surely) to dislike her for her sneering to me.

After the three managers who'd hired me left, the other managers were ignorant of my available hours and would constantly schedule me late night hours during the schoolweek. Did I mention I was taking 16 credits that summer, and was in class 8 hours a day, four to five days a week? They would pull stupid shit like schedule me 8pm to 10pm on a Sunday night, when I had an Organic Chemistry test every Monday morning. And then they'd obligate me into staying way later than my shift, like getting out at 12am closing instead of when my shift ended at 10 or 11pm, which drastically interfered with my schoolwork, didn't allow me any time for socializing(isn't that what summer is about, anyway, a strange unknown concept called having fun?!), and made me very cranky around my family.

Oh, and I never left my training position at Fountain. Here I was, still making a set hourly wage, while my younger 17-year-old coworkers were bitching because they were "only" making twelve dollars an hour in tips. It didn't matter if it was a very busy shift and I had to serve millions of nagging bossy twelve-year-old customers at the take-out window all while being yelled at by the younger waitresses to make their sundaes for them(when take-out window was my primary responsibility), I still got paid a set rate. Even the kids hired after me as waitresses got to waitress before me. I think it's because I didn't make a big protesting fuss about it so the managers just left me at Fountain since no one else really wanted to work under a lower wage, anyway. I tried to tell the managers about the late hours outside my availability, and while some were understanding(but didn't do much about it) I was still scheduled late hours, and "not allowed" to call out, ever. I guess they felt that my coming to work ten minutes late justified me staying two hours past my shift to serve bitching middle schoolers?

Oh, and eventually the late hours interferred so much with my schoolwork that I ended up having to drop one of my nonrefundable college courses to avoid getting a failing grade on my transcript. The money lost on that course outweighed the meager pennies Friendlys was paying me. Funny, I thought slaving away at jobs all summer was to earn money to help pay off your debts, NOT lose more money by failing your classes and having to pay even more money to repeat them again next summer. It wasn't just the "dead-end" job position I was left with, or the finances, but the personalities of the workers as well. The one shift manager, Danielle, was 18 yeras old and fresh outta high school. I know I sound like I might have a grudge against her age, but really I gave her a fair chance. Despite her mood swings, I acted nice and if anything very appeasing to her and submissive. She was overall a big, loud, obnoxious girl with curly red hair and glasses who bitched a lot and thought all the guys(those "wigger" hip-hop guys she went for) wanted her. She would boss people around, and although she sounded tough at times, she was friends with all the high schoolers there that she'd went to school with. She would let them get away with more stuff, like eating free food on their breaks, but bark orders at me because I wasnt in her little circle of friends. As well as getting anxious about being short-handed for the night, so barking to me three minutes after my shift should have ended, "REBECCA, get the customers at the take-out window." I think my submissiveness made her more inclined to take advantage of me and to kinda step over me, if anything it also probably made her think I was much younger than my age(I do look kinda young) and thus incapable of more than being a lowly fountain person. Some of the other chubby high school waitresses were bossy too, and they didnt even have the title of manager, but everyone complained about those workers.

And then the idiotic scenario that occured when I gave my notice...or as would the managers say, "what notice?" I was so fed up with Friendlys and my problems there, I called up to quit one day and Danielle answered so I gave her my notice. She's just like, "uh suuuure" and I told her it was because I hadn't been made a waitress like I was hired for(hopefully that would give them a hint and motivate them) and when I went to work later that day, no one said anything to me about it. One of the cool older managers jokingly asked me why I was leaving, but acted like I wasnt really serious. I was still scheduled up to a week after I gave my notice, and one day when I was in there to get my paycheck, the assistant manager actually asked me to write down my fall availability! I'm like, "Didn't Danielle tell you I quit, and that this Saturday is my last day?" and she says casually "no she didnt" and here Danielle regarded my notice as a joke and didnt inform anyone! None of the managers tried to convince me to stay or offered me my original hired job as a waitress. Apparently that bitch Danielle also told the younger workers that I claimed to quit at least 6 times before, which had never happened, shows that she didn't like me. Ha, I worked there all summer, and it wasnt until the last week that I worked there that someone asked how old I was and I said "20" that Danielle says incredulously, "YOU'RE 20?!" God I was glad to get out of that dump and all the airheads who worked there and didn't even acknowledge my potential.

Oh, and did I mention that Friendlys took about $25 out of your first paycheck to buy required non-slip shoes, these tacky black sneakers? Yeah, mine were "stolen" from the managers' office before I was even given them. They tried to reorder them and I didn't receive them until two weeks before I left that dump, shows that my money went to good use.

Talk about a dead-end and humiliating job....nothing is more humiliating than having a 140 I.Q. and working UNDER a bi-otch manager young enough to be your daughter(not really, but still) and a bunch of ditzy high schoolers who can't even score a 950 on their SATs. At least other people who complain on websites about working in restaurants or fast-food had the position as supervisor.