Saturday, February 15, 2014
The biggest reason I hate my job: the corporate culture. I am a Pastry Chef at Kroger. I knew when I took the job that the work would be disappointingly uncreative, but a job's a job. I suppose you can't get away from the us vs. them mentality when you work in a union-staffed facility, but it rises to such inane levels, it's really difficult to tolerate. When I started, I was quoted a pay right slightly higher than I had been making at my previous job. I was also warned that it would take some time to get to that rate, though, because of union rules and such that certain paperwork had to be filed, etc., so my first check would be minimum wage, but after the paperwork caught up, I'd get the difference paid back to me. Right now, I'm being paid about .70/hr short of the original quote. I said nothing to anyone, because I've seen good people get shafted by management for trying to stand up for themselves. Instead, I've been looking for another job.
A couple weeks ago, our HR administrator was transferred to another store. (This is another thing that I hate about this company: people are forcibly transferred against their will) As part of the loose-ends business she tried to handle, she made some inquiries to find out why I wasn't being paid the maximum. Keep in mind--I have never complained to anyone about my pay. Not a WORD. But suddenly Bitch Manager is in my face telling me in a very hostile way that if I "want my money", there are reams and REAMS of paperwork she's gonna have to complete", going on about how difficult and long the process is, and it's very unlikely that I would pass. She gave me a copy of this paperwork--turned out to be 10 pages long, more than half of which were photos. I was irritated by her attitude, given that I hadn't ASKED anyone for "MY MONEY", as she put it. But it was clear to me, especially after having read the paperwork, that I was entitled to it. But it all depended on her deciding when she had time to fill out the paperwork. Again, I said NOTHING to NOBODY about it. I'm a "Keep your head down and your mouth shut" kind of employee while I'm looking for work elsewhere.
So this week was Hell Week in the bakery--Valentine's Day. It turned out to be busier than even Christmas was for us, because we are located next to a large university, and the majority of our customers are college students. Add more drama in that our cake decorator was getting evicted and had a court date 2/13 and had to be out of her apartment by the end of 2/14. Horrifically bad timing. I had to put my pastry case work on the back burner and really bust my ass making up for her absence, and make some extra things she couldn't get to due to the increased number of orders we had for the week. Extra things like a dozen rose cupcakes in a long-stem rose box with greenery. Turns out those rose cupcakes were super-popular. They were selling faster than I could make them. We were also doing a strawberry dipping station, which Bitch Manager assigned to the two college girls that work in the bakery (not me, the person who dips strawberries year round?). Well, she learned the hard way that the college girls work when they feel like working, and their social lives are far more important than their jobs, and relied heavily on me teaching someone else how to do rose cupcakes with me and packaging strawberries that another employee was dipping--that were also selling faster than we could make them. And this level of work is unsustainable because I'm not working on MY case at all, and eventually there won't be anything left to stock it with.
Forward to the middle of Thursday afternoon, two corporate big-wigs come to the store. Abby is a district manager of Food Services, and Terry is her boss. I'd met Abby before--we get along well and she seems to like me. So when another employee told me that they wanted to see me over at the "Valentine's table" (where we were displaying the rose cupcakes), I was nervous--she'd never pulled me away from work before, and she knew we were super busy. I honestly thought I'd get my ass chewed. Instead, as soon as she saw me, Abby just said, "Amy..." with a look on her face like she was BLOWN AWAY. For a split second I still didn't get it. But she and her boss went on and on about how beautiful the table looked, that we really knocked it out of the park, "better than we could have imagined", etc. Keep in mind, those rose cupcakes weren't my idea--they had sent us photos of ideas and it was up to us to choose how to execute them in the real world. Additionally, they wanted to take my picture. Terry said he wanted to send a photo to HIS boss, and to the rest of the company! I was embarrassed by the attention, made sure to credit our whole team and Bitch Manager for having high standards, and made some small talk with Terry about my background (who then implied that he might be able to bend some rules to allow us to get some hard-to-get supplies to expand what we can do in the future). All in all, a very VERY good day, and I was weirded out that I got so much of the credit.
Forward to Friday at the end of my day. Bitch Manager pulls me aside and unloads--like we're buddies. Oh, those college girls really let her down and she won't make that mistake again, I really stepped up and pulled through for her and she's counting on me to make the next holiday session another hit, and "don't you worry, I'm gonna get that paperwork done and you'll get your money. I promise."
Is it just me? I'm pissed off that she's holding my pay hostage over some bizarre notion that I wasn't pulling my weight, and now suddenly I'm getting more credit than I deserve for one single event and now I deserve that pay? I'm so damned confused.
A couple weeks ago, our HR administrator was transferred to another store. (This is another thing that I hate about this company: people are forcibly transferred against their will) As part of the loose-ends business she tried to handle, she made some inquiries to find out why I wasn't being paid the maximum. Keep in mind--I have never complained to anyone about my pay. Not a WORD. But suddenly Bitch Manager is in my face telling me in a very hostile way that if I "want my money", there are reams and REAMS of paperwork she's gonna have to complete", going on about how difficult and long the process is, and it's very unlikely that I would pass. She gave me a copy of this paperwork--turned out to be 10 pages long, more than half of which were photos. I was irritated by her attitude, given that I hadn't ASKED anyone for "MY MONEY", as she put it. But it was clear to me, especially after having read the paperwork, that I was entitled to it. But it all depended on her deciding when she had time to fill out the paperwork. Again, I said NOTHING to NOBODY about it. I'm a "Keep your head down and your mouth shut" kind of employee while I'm looking for work elsewhere.
So this week was Hell Week in the bakery--Valentine's Day. It turned out to be busier than even Christmas was for us, because we are located next to a large university, and the majority of our customers are college students. Add more drama in that our cake decorator was getting evicted and had a court date 2/13 and had to be out of her apartment by the end of 2/14. Horrifically bad timing. I had to put my pastry case work on the back burner and really bust my ass making up for her absence, and make some extra things she couldn't get to due to the increased number of orders we had for the week. Extra things like a dozen rose cupcakes in a long-stem rose box with greenery. Turns out those rose cupcakes were super-popular. They were selling faster than I could make them. We were also doing a strawberry dipping station, which Bitch Manager assigned to the two college girls that work in the bakery (not me, the person who dips strawberries year round?). Well, she learned the hard way that the college girls work when they feel like working, and their social lives are far more important than their jobs, and relied heavily on me teaching someone else how to do rose cupcakes with me and packaging strawberries that another employee was dipping--that were also selling faster than we could make them. And this level of work is unsustainable because I'm not working on MY case at all, and eventually there won't be anything left to stock it with.
Forward to the middle of Thursday afternoon, two corporate big-wigs come to the store. Abby is a district manager of Food Services, and Terry is her boss. I'd met Abby before--we get along well and she seems to like me. So when another employee told me that they wanted to see me over at the "Valentine's table" (where we were displaying the rose cupcakes), I was nervous--she'd never pulled me away from work before, and she knew we were super busy. I honestly thought I'd get my ass chewed. Instead, as soon as she saw me, Abby just said, "Amy..." with a look on her face like she was BLOWN AWAY. For a split second I still didn't get it. But she and her boss went on and on about how beautiful the table looked, that we really knocked it out of the park, "better than we could have imagined", etc. Keep in mind, those rose cupcakes weren't my idea--they had sent us photos of ideas and it was up to us to choose how to execute them in the real world. Additionally, they wanted to take my picture. Terry said he wanted to send a photo to HIS boss, and to the rest of the company! I was embarrassed by the attention, made sure to credit our whole team and Bitch Manager for having high standards, and made some small talk with Terry about my background (who then implied that he might be able to bend some rules to allow us to get some hard-to-get supplies to expand what we can do in the future). All in all, a very VERY good day, and I was weirded out that I got so much of the credit.
Forward to Friday at the end of my day. Bitch Manager pulls me aside and unloads--like we're buddies. Oh, those college girls really let her down and she won't make that mistake again, I really stepped up and pulled through for her and she's counting on me to make the next holiday session another hit, and "don't you worry, I'm gonna get that paperwork done and you'll get your money. I promise."
Is it just me? I'm pissed off that she's holding my pay hostage over some bizarre notion that I wasn't pulling my weight, and now suddenly I'm getting more credit than I deserve for one single event and now I deserve that pay? I'm so damned confused.
Comments:
Post a Comment
