I've thought it over, and I'm going to keep looking for another job. Not quitting the one I have just yet. Yesterday, I made an educated decision: though the hotel pays well, it is cancelled out by the time I spend driving, waiting for the bus, riding, walking, and changing into my uniform...then doing the same in reverse on the way home. It adds two hours, unpaid, to every shift. That means that an eight-hour shift pays about as well as any bookstore gig, and a shorter shift actually pays less. There's a B&N less than 10 minutes from my house, not to mention dozens of other retail shops. Short drive, no uniform, free parking. It's a sensible thing.
Today, my work experience cemented my decision. I went to work after two days off, noticed my schedule for the next week is totally workable--only three shifts: one evening and two overnights. No problem there. For the past week, the hotel was slammed full of people for a large conference downtown--and yes, if you check the papers, you know what conference I'm talking about, and therefore which hotel I work in, but I'm hunting again, so who cares--and being trained on the job was a little sketchy. There were three of us getting trained, and it was busy, so we mostly ended up stocking shelves and sandwiches. I have a good work ethic in retail, so every time I needed something to do, I went to work on the shelves or the drink cooler, or I trotted to the bar to make sure they had enough sodas in the coolers, etc. When the trainers looked around for someone who wasn't busy, they always saw the other girls, so those girls ended up learning more than me because they were handy when someone was ready to teach them.
Today was less busy, and I was told (just like I was told all week) that I would be training on the two most important areas: the register and the espresso drinks. Well. One of the other girls has been really stressed that she wouldn't learn drinks fast enough, so she has completely taken over the drink counter. The second girl and I can't even get close to the drinks--the first one just keeps nudging us out of the way, grabbing the cups when they come up. Also, the drink counter is a good place to be if you don't like stocking stuff (and who likes that?!) so the regular employees tend to park themselves there. The register is where you get tips, so, again, the regular employees take over the registers. And they refuse to train us using their own drawers--the hotel is SO strict about accountability that NOBODY will let anyone else touch their cash tills. Even the woman training us won't let us run on her register, we just stand behind her and watch. Customers love standing in line and seeing two girls in uniform doing nothing but watching someone else run a register. And if the department head walks by, we can't just be standing there behind the counter! We should be stocking something or cleaning something!
So I spent my time trudging back and forth, stocking the drink coolers and stacking sandwiches in various places. Getting sandwiches from the kitchen on 2, bringing them down to 1 and lining them up on trays, taking some back up to 2 when they don't fit, bringing them back to 1 when we run out, checking 2 to be sure I got all the sandwiches, going back to 1 to see if someone bought a chicken salad while I was gone, taking the expired sandwiches back to 2, and so on. Repeat for salads. Repeat for pizzas. Repeat for fruit cups.
Today, the department head was there--she's my boss's boss, essentially. She took us to lunch and told us some things we already had heard. Said that they really want to "retain" us and they want to make sure we "succeed" at our training. Then she decided, since we've been there a week, she would conduct our first evaluations on customer service.
She got a bartender to come to the coffee shop and pretend to order a drink from me. I had to remember all the specific things not to say (don't say "help," say assist...don't say "sorry," say apologize...don't say "no problem"...don't say "hey"...don't say "have a nice day"...etc.). Then I had to pretend to ring him up on a register, but I couldn't use the register because it had someone else's till in it--I had to tell that person what to do and pretend I was doing it. She couldn't prompt me, which meant I couldn't do it, because I haven't rung on the registers yet, anyway. I had to pretend to swipe his credit card. Then I had to make his mocha, which was easy enough for me because I've made ten thousand mochas at another job, but I didn't follow their drink procedure and I didn't know where everything was, because I haven't been allowed behind the drink counter yet. I told him to have a nice day.
When the dept. head came back from evaluating me, she held the chart where I could see it. It said BETSY J. on the top and in big letters: NEEDS MORE TRAINING.
NO FUCKING SHIT.
I spent seven days as a goddamn gopher and then I got tested on the register. Humiliating. The head told me she knew it wasn't my fault, that we'd been "crazy busy"--well, yeah--then why did you do it? I was pissed. I cry when I'm really angry, and I wasn't going to cry in front of her, so when she asked if I had any questions or comments, I just said no and I left. I have another two days off, and I'm going to spend them applying for other jobs. Retain that, assholes.
LOL!! I love you!
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