Years ago when I worked at a major chain convenience store we had "mystery shoppers" hired by corporate that would come in and secretely evaluate the store. Employees' pay depended on these evals.
I worked an overnight shift, 10pm to 6am, alone. That's important because the mystery shopper eval list included asinine things like "hot fresh coffee," "roller grill full," etc. Not having them would cause you to be docked points, and thus not get raises.
Now if you ever worked this kind of job you know that is just silly during those hours of the night when there are few customers; the idea is to balance availability against waste. But after 2 rounds of my day coworkers getting raises and I didn't because per store policy I didn't make extra coffee or roller grill items during the night, I spoke to my boss about it.
"I understand that this is corporate policy, and I also understand that our store policy is to not do this at night. What can I do as a night shift worker, to get a better evaluation?" Something along those lines. Not adversarial or anything.
The boss told me, "just make sure you get full points on every line, that is your only job" and handed me another eval list to "study." OK, cue malicious compliance.
For the next couple weeks, I made sure to make fresh coffee (decaf and regular roast) at 10pm when I got to work, and fully stock the roller grill. Hotdogs, jalapeno sausage dogs, taquitos...
And then at midnight when exactly none of this stuff had actually sold, I closed the doors and went to stock the coolers. This took around an hour and is just something that's done on night shift. So at ~1am I would then toss all the roller grill items and pour the coffee down the drain and... make 2 fresh pots and restock the grill & reopen the doors.
And then at 4, I would dump it all and make fresh again because it had been there for 2 hours....
The boss called me in and told me as long as I got tens on all the other items, I would be getting my raise along with everyone else from then on. "Just ffs stop wasting $100/night of stuff that doesn't sell."
No prob, boss, thanks! (Too bad you didn't notice the issue until it cost your bottom line š)
Please forgive typos, I try to check but I have 'fat fingers' from a medical condition and am using a small smartphone screen outside in the cold humid weather in Texas š¤¦
And backpay + raise for the missed raises from before
Yeah I was thinking the same thing.
It's retail. Pick your battles.
A job is a job and should pay a living wage.
A raise is a fantastic step towards a living wage. Demanding back pay for perceived value would be a step too much to expect. Take a win. Overreaching might backfire.
So if a retail job is stiffing you on your wages you should just take it?
If you're being offered a raise, take the raise.
Yes, keep your head down and hope no one notices that they spend more money on you than they would to maintain robot.
OP isn't keeping their head down. They're letting their presence be known and it resulted in a raise.
To reject the raise and ask for a raise plus back pay would be stretch.
Yes, and boss might say no so it's better not to try. Just take what you are offered and don't ask for more. Doing so would clearly forfeit the raise.
I mean, yeah, probably.
Raise a stink and theyre going to be side-eyeing you.
OP already ate like $200 worth of taquitos, and the raise wont be more than 50c an hour. Is he really going to kick up a stink with the boss over this?
You've clearly never done the optimistic math on robotic replacements of general labor positions. To say nothing of diminished customer service experience.
The optimistic numbers for operational costs, ignoring the investment costs to implement the changes, work out to about the same or maybe slightly cheaper than keeping people employed. (Not too mention, in retail spaces employees also are likely to be a captive audience of potential customers whereas robots wouldn't.)
But your point still stands, the "they" that control these decisions have a fiscal obligation to get "their" labor as cheaply as legally and physically possible. And it's maddening.
If robots weren't cheaper, they wouldn't be used. No one is spending the same money to provide a "diminished customer service experience".
You say that, except that while robots might seem cheaper on paper, they often don't work out that way once maintenance and long term expenses are factored in. Plus the intangible affect of customers who don't want anything to do with robots.
So yes, actually, often companies do spend money to reduce costs and end up increasing costs and worse customer service.
Definitely don't train the robot to replace you. That's coming I'm sure.
No, you should look for another job that fits your needs better. Then, when you find one, quit without notice. That's the closest thing you get to a decent option.
You can always tell who has never worked for a faceless billion-dollar megacorporation because they think advice like "Ask for a raise!" or "They should be treating you better!" is actually helpful and not just laughably silly. You can't simply explain that extreme greed is bad and instantly change the minds of the people with all of the money and power; they only got those things because they enjoy exploiting people, and they want to continue doing it as much as they can.
Right because jobs are so plentiful and easy to get. I've worked at a mega corporation and have adjusted my output accordingly when I didn't get raises.
I meanāyeah. That's why I used the specific phrasing I did; job hunting is by no means a "good" option but it's the closest thing you're gonna get if you want more money and you're working for the type of company that won't drop a dime on you without a fight. Otherwise you deal with it and move along when a better opportunity presents itself.
None of that is in the same ballpark as the old cliche of walking into your boss's office with a firm handshake and confident smile and walking out with a raise and a pat on the back and a company car. That's just not the world we live in.
We haven't lived in that world for a very long time.
I personally don't understand your comment. Did you feel the need to reiterate what the commenter before you stated as a form of agreement, or was it something else?
You are going to takes the scraps offered to you and you are going to like it. We don't have to pay a robot a livable wage, why should we pay you?
Welcome to the future.
When thereās more workers than jobs, you take what you get because a shit paying job is better than no job
[deleted]
So after being overlooked, now acknowledged and given a raise, you want OP to reject the raise and instead say "that's good enough I want more?"
Do you really not see how off-putting that is in the situation? I can't help you to comprehend how interpersonal relationships in the workplace function in real world scenarios.
If you reject what was offered then that opportunity might not present itself again. Your choices end up being accept, reject, leave. Accepting seems the best of 3 options.
The OP wasn't given a raise. They were promised future raises based on new criteria.
Asking for back pay on an uncertain raise makes it that much more to be denied.
More places around my area offer a "shift premium" for overnight hours $2.50 to $3 extra per hour.
It's mainly that the boss acknowledged OP was doing the correct thing and following the boss' instructions the whole time by not keeping coffee/roller items hot and stocked, but is still punishing them by not giving them the raises they should have gotten. If they threaten/do take away the promised future raise because you had the gall to ask them for the inappropriately denied raise, then you know you need to find somewhere else to work
Well articulated.
This. You called it years ago. You deserve a triple raise plus a bonus. However, you work for a corporate machine, so chances of a fair treatment are exactly zero.
Yeah, I'd be asking for that before I stop wasting all the stuff that doesn't sell.
Back when I worked retail I worked at a movie store. We had secret shoppers come in from corporate and a coworker got a bad score because the movie he suggested to the customer was one she didnt like. That was the only negative mark and it still failed our store for the secret shop. Fuck secret shoppers never in my all years in retail were they ever helpful.
Iāve done mystery shopping and literally every single employee gets full marks for whatever the hell they are supposed to do. Aināt no way Iām ratting out a service worker for $15.
I've done mystery shopper just once in my life, it was at an event with booths set up at the conference center. I was only there to support my other half as she modeled at a wedding show. Coming in I was approached to be a secret shopper for $60, knowing I was going to stand around and do nothing for hours I said sure!
It was hilarious as far as I was concerned. I'm a shopper that wants to be left TF alone until I ask for help but that wasn't the job. A perfect rating was essentially WTF I hated as a customer. How fast I was approached by sales, if sales stuck with me me entire time in the booth to answer questions, if they could answer all my questions and if they basically pressured me into a sale. Sales people in the booth as a whole treated me the way I like to be treated but failed the Secret Shopper Evaluation because they left me alone like I like it but if I signaled them I had a question came right over.
I actually only failed one booth out of all the ones I visited. That booth no sales approached me when I came in, they refused to make eye contact with me so I could let them know I had questions and in fact completely ignored the that I was in the booth at all as they all BSed about something. In all honestly they probably sized me up at a glance and knew I wasn't a likely buyer but if they had at acknowledge my presence I would not of failed them.
BTW itās not ānot of,ā itās ānotāveā or ānot have.ā āNot ofā makes no sense at all.
Hold up. "not've"?
wouldn't've
y'all'd've
I accept this as valid English
source: Georgia
I'm not American, yet accept this as valid
Checks out: Georgia is right next to Russia
It works. Not have is the full version, not've is what we actually say. You might not've but I would've. It wouldn't've been wrong.
I mightn't've
I would not use it in academic writing but it's perfectly acceptable for everyday use.
Thereās a whole Reddit post about Is wouldnātāve a word.
WTF I get the English police? I've never heard of not've before and had to look it up. While apparently it's now an accepted part of the English language it sure as hell wasn't as I was in school. Just to be sure as I typed this out it the built in dictionary for Reddit flags not've as a misspelled word. You know those red squiggly lines under misspelled words.
Their issue was with your use of 'of'. There's no such thing in English language as "would not OF (verb)", only "would not HAVE (verb)".
Whichever actual way you decide to spell it out/ contract it, it's HAVE ('ve), not OF. Hope that helps :)
Not'f.
Actually š¤£š¤£š¤£
"Not've" is pretty non-standard, but I'd call it cromulent given the accepted "wouldn't've".
If you donāt like it, say it the proper way as ānot haveā
Hereās the thing. Language is something that is ever expanding and evolving.
Words are born and die all the time, and contractions like those above are largely regional, which are still valid dialects.
Doesnāt make them less of a word.
Linguist enthusiast here
Yeah my mom did the same thing. She was like they're doing their jobs (Though she did give one lady a bad score because she was incredibly rude).
They should have a secret retail worker to score the secret shopper.
They are helpful, just not to the employees.
They help corporate find yet another way to rob employees of decent wages.
Happy scrappy hero puff?
I (now 61M) came home from college for the holiday break. I got hired back on to the grocery store I had worked at since high school for some beer money while I was home.
One morning I saw a familiar face. He was a fellow student who I had met at the local gym. He also worked as a secret shopper for the same grocery store chain, which I already knew, only he was 100 miles from our college.
He had a panicked look for a second until I signalled don't sweat it, I'll play along. He asked where an item was located, I said "Yes sir, please follow me." I pointed it out and asked if I could help with anything else. "No? Thank you for shopping at *store*!" I didn't tell anyone about it.
Before heading back for the spring semester my store boss stopped me at work. My friend had given me a glowing report for my actions that day, and the boss gave me a nice little bonus check!
"No thanks, you can keep the $0.25/hr pay bump, I'm gonna keep dumping $100 of your money in the garbage every night, wouldn't want you to get in trouble with corporate."
Iāve done mystery shopping and unless I got the shittiest of shit service I always gave good marks. Retail is a shit job to have, I aināt making it harder.
"Boss, how do you like dem Taquitos?"
He did not.
But also, amazing that someone would think that it would be better to close for an hour and comply than... not. Sometime management really doesn't think. And I bet policy meant you weren't even able to drink some of the coffee before you chucked it >.<.
From then on? Not good enough, should have asked for immediate retroactive raise.
Nicely done! Get it in writing :)
Getting it in writing is good. But the threat of future malicious compliance is handy if the boss doesnāt come through with theš°
it was years ago, and worked out in my favor fairly quickly. i dont even work there anymore lol
Isn't this just crazy!
THEY need to have an issue and only then is a solution found.
That's how it always works. You can complain about a hole in the floor as much as you want, but the business won't do anything until someone actually fall because of it and sues them.
The company where I work at has a sort of "safety ambassador" program, the way it works is each week some random employee is picked and during that week he can file tickets on safety hazards and will also tour the building with the bosses (for like 20 minutes max), they can also submit "safety ideas" and if they are approved they get like a 50$ voucher, the employee is also still expected to work his job and meet his quotas like usual during that week.
The week I was picked I made sure to file tickets for every problem, I filled over 50 tickets some of them about really serious things that have caused injuries after that week, can you guess how many things they actually fixed?! 0!!
They only care about their profits and their image!
I'm guessing this happened a while ago, but for future reference, if you report an issue like this and someone gets hurt, definitely let the person know you filed a report on the issue before. Their lawyer will thank you because they'll be able to request the reports during discovery, and the company will settle in half a second because the reports are proof of negligence on the part of the company.
Suddenly, the company will actually care about fixing things, because at that point it actually is cutting in to their profits.
This happened like 2 months ago, and the accidents keep happening constantly, but so far not enough they weren't serious enough for people to actually go to the hospital or get sent home, so the company doesn't care.
But my coworkers know about the tickets I filed.
Perception IS reality.
You are better than me. Technically, they owed you past raises. I would have legally cost them more out of spite. It is the American way.
Technically they donāt owe her but morally they do
No, they don't.
If raises depends on the performance metric and the metric wasn't met, there is nothing owed. Just because the metric gets adjusted, doesn't mean it has to be retroactively adjusted.
If he was getting punished and having his pay docked for following store policy, he absolutely has grounds to consider legal action.
Legal arguments aside, providing back pay is simply the right thing to do. I don't know why you would argue against that unless you're a penny pinching manager or corporate stooge.
I don't argue against the morality of back payment.
I just don't think there is a strong legal case. Encouraging OP to go a legal route just seems to be pretty dangerous.
If the metric isnāt being met because of a store policy, then it should have been adjusted from the get go.
Obviously. But a should deosn't constitute a legal need. And that is what back payment is dependend on.
I don't dispute it would be the moral right thing to do, to grant back payment. Obviously it would .
š„±
When companies introduce kpi's/objectives/reward system work towards maximum money in your pocket!Ā
You can point out how stupid it is but don't take money out of your wallet to save the company money!Ā
God, I hate those KPI boards. The original ideas for those were great, unfortunately some people have gotten it in their head that every business or job needs one. Then every department has to come up with some measurable āproblemā that needs fixed. It ends up being a pain in the ass.
Have you tried using a dialing wand?
It's not a problem that you miss a raise, it's only a problem if the boss does.
I did secret shopper, but at a professional football stadium. Real fun.
Standard corporate bait-and-switch to deny you raises as long as possible based on conflicting directives.
I did secret shopping for a while in the mid 2010ās. This was after I had worked in retail for 15 years. Guess who almost always gave out āglowing reviews?ā
Unless the staff was truly terrible, tops score every time.
I got a tonnnn of free food from various restaurants at the time. At the time there was a ātire store shopā that paid $100, easy money!! Store got a good score, pissy little corporate overlord got to check mark off some BS program they came up withā¦ win-win all around.
KPIs are pretty stupid because instead of doing what higher up actually wants to do, employees only look to get full points even if they're actually not productive
"Once a measure starts being used as a target, it stops being a useful measure."
(not sure if that's the exact saying but you get the gist)
Goodhart's Law: once a metric starts being used as a measure it stops being useful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law
/xkcd/2899
I hope you got to eat some of the grill items rather then throwing them away
Itās very against store/corporate policy, otherwise people would āaccidentallyā make food intentionally to eat it when they āhad to throw it awayā. I used to work in stadium catering, and at the end of the shift Iād have to have a manager count and sign off on the food that was taken to the bin.
I get it, but it was also frustrating - blanket bans were easier to police than common sense. u/SweetMaam can probably attest (I just saw you reply lol), once the match was 3/4 done, the secret shoppers would appear and demand hot, fresh food. God help you if their chips were stale.
Actually, we didnt even have to accidentally make extra or anything. employees were allowed to have a snack from the roller grill and coffee or fountain drinks on shift. Which sounds cooler than it is after you work there a while actually, lol
The stuff we tossed kept numerous stray cats fat and happy for a minute. And the normal daytime stuff there was rarely any left anyway. busy store, with proper planning, and all that....
until they insisted on the night stuff. it changed quick, lol
I got food, souvenirs, visited first aid, really only reported on my actual findings. As for the food waste, really is dumb, My son worked in a gas station, same as you described but he and a Co worker would walk to bin and dump in car instead, ethics outweighs policy. They were not concerned about getting fired. I worked at a restaurant, same policy, but dumb because NO ONE wants to make extra food, managers told us to take the food.
So we had the opposite of this. The manager in charge of the bread aisle always made sure there was wastage so that there was bread available to those shopping on an evening. We were a locally-owned shop and looked after customers.
We got bought out, manager hailed over coals for wastage and was micromanaged to get his ordering down. So he simply ordered enough to fill the shelves for the morning before he left for the day, and the shelves sat empty through the afternoon and evening.
Took head office a few months to figure out what he was doing, heād handed his notice in by the time they realised.
So... you don't have it in writing which means when you don't get all 10s, he will deny your raise and ignore what was mentioned verbally.
read the first two words of the post š
So... did he give you the raise?
Reminds me of when i worked a summer job at a cinema chain.
The movie theater sold Taco Bell tacos as a concession option. we were told explicitly to only put the pre-measured amount of meat in each taco, because, they said, TB company reps came by periodically to buy tacos and weigh them secretly, to check if we were giving away too much meat (and we'd be disciplined for it).
We'd refer to these mysterious monitors as the "Taco Gestapo."
So for customers, we'd serve the specified (admittedly tiny) amount. But for ourselves and our friends? Those things looked like hippos in sleeping bags.
The best part of working fast food in my youth was making myself crazy food.
I worked at a Harvey's and would make myself a triple value burger with cheese and bacon, cheese and bacon, cheese and bacon. It was a succulently greasy.
I would also make a poutine cake to take home. Half the fries but load it with cheese and gravy. By the time I walked home it would be congealed and solid. Heat it in the microwave and use a fork and knife to slice it like a cake.
My heart hurts just reading this
I don't eat much fast food anymore. I make concoctions at home though.
My go to is either meatballs or popcorn chicken, a solid layer in a half lasagna tray, bake it, smother it in either spaghetti sauce or gravy, grate a good 1/4" or more of cheese on top, return it to the oven until hot and gooey.
OP, you need to go back to your boss and ask him how is he now going to give the past raises and back pay, or is the next raise going to be a larger one.
see other comments - and first two words of post - it was a long time ago
Loved your story OP. For the record I didnāt spot any typos on my first pass and I usually spot those out so I made a second pass. Impeccable spelling and grammar, which is very good for Reddit. The only typo that I found was an extra period (.) in one of the ellipses (ā¦) which could have been on purpose. Excellent job!
You were eating like a king those weeks though, I bet!
my ass would have said "not until I get backpay for every evaluation that had full points on every line but that one" because no way in hell are they gonna get away with keeping my money. at that point, you had earned it. it's theft.
I'm stuck on the fact that you were alone in the store at all, let alone during those hours! Is that normal in that industry? Back in the olden days when I worked in a grocery store, we always had at least two people working at all times, just for safety reasons!
Convenience stores at night often only have one employee. They're small, and have very little business at those times.
Can confirm. In my city, smaller convenience stores often only have one employee on duty at a time, even during the day. But even the larger ones like the 7-Eleven in my parents' neighborhood will do this at night.
(Never worked at a convenience store, but when I've needed something late at night, there's never more than one person working the counter.)
That just feels crazy to me!
Thanks for replying. I guess I don't go into c-stores late at night. I would be so anxious to work in one alone at night.
I think it depends on where you are and the specific company but yea, pretty normal around here to have one person work overnights in convenience stores even now. and this was a a while back. š¤·
Ah, the fun of corporate short-sightedness where metrics > common sense. Love it!
Iām getting mystery diner vibes lol.
Ppl are stupid