"Most of my friends at school have jobs that consist of them doing their homework"
So before I begin with the wonderful Pizza restaurant, let me analyze everyone else’s job. Most of the jobs that my friends have at school consist of them doing their homework. Most of them get paid more than almost anyone in my restaurant. Most of them have so much downtime it would personally kill me as a manager.
When it comes to unpaid Internships, you get what you pay for...
Next we shall look at the unpaid internship that I am doing. Sure, most of the people in that room are unpaid and all working for academic credit. Some are getting pieces of the grant money that we have. However, today I reported for work, did about 45 minutes of working on my personal projects, and then took two hours for lunch, and then watched a kid do an experiment for ten minutes, waited an hour for the next step, and then completed that within five minutes and left. What a terrific day’s work!
During the hour that I was waiting, I was typing out the equivalent of four pages single spaced in Microsoft Word, except I did it on my iPhone. The rest of the people in the room spent their time browsing facebook, reading the news in Chinese, using a Chinese travel agency to look at hotels, then look them up in Google Street View, read College Humor and sports blogs, play minesweeper, search for online radio stations to listen to, and watch YouTube videos. Out of seven people in the room only two were doing work. It was more down time that I felt comfortable participating in.
I enjoy my internship, when they actually give me things to do anyway. I usually get assigned some sort of design project, and then just work on it by myself. I am much more productive in this manner, plus it is very good experience. I already have plenty of experience finding ways to kill time. The stuff I’ve been designing isn’t anything crazy, but it’s fun and interesting. But the main reason I have the internship is so I can put it on a resume so I can get a paid internship some point in the future.
Pizza Pizza!
Now back to my restaurant. I’ve been working there since July 2006. I’ve been in the restaurant at least two years longer than anyone else including management. Four years of experience is a very valuable thing. However, just like all chains, the money stays at the top and doesn’t trickle down. It doesn’t matter about your accomplishments. Now the people at the restaurant work very hard, to make sure that we can provide pizza to your door stop usually within 20 minutes (take that Dominos!).
Like I said in the previous post, someone I used to know said, “How hard can it be to run a pizza joint?” People simply don’t comprehend the necessity of management. Or how a chain will try to cut costs and maximize profit and therefore cut costs by cutting workers. They don’t understand how one driver can clearly only deliver so many pizzas at a time, and if they are late, it doesn’t only effect the drivers tip, it effects the stores performance. But anyway, he is majoring in Philosophy and Japanese, so apparently he is preparing for a life living on top of a Japanese mountain thinking about what he could be doing with his life if had chosen something practical.
Like I said, I am not making minimum wage, but there are those who work for me and are. They put in hard effort and work when they come into the restaurant and you would think that eventually we would reward them with wage increases.
And we do!
For a team member the maximum increase they can receive is 25 cents each year! Hooray! Oh, but I forgot the restrictions, they need to have already been in the company for a full year in March, so if you were hired in April, May, or June, and you’ve been there for almost a full year, it doesn’t quite matter. Oh, and I said the maximum increase you can receive is 25 cents. But in order to cut costs it isn’t uncommon to receive far less than that. Oh, and if the economy is in a bad shape and corporate decides they aren’t giving any raises out that’s okay!
See corporate works on the assumption, which is mostly true in foodservice, that there is a high turnover rate. So if we cheat one generation out of raises, most of them won’t be there the following year to finally get their raise, but then get the same raise as someone who worked in the company for only 12 months.
Oh, and if you get promoted during the bad economy year, than you need to receive the minimum promotion raise, but then the people who get promoted after you will get the higher raises.
See corporations don’t appreciate the people who actually do the work. I have taken the shaft from the corporation so many times it makes me want to go Peter Falcone on the world.
In the previous histories of the blog, I’ve deleted the posts where I rant about corporate attitudes because I used to include specific names.
This post is staying, and there probably will be more in the future. I know that I am not the only person in the world to get screwed over, and it’s very easy to play the part of the whiner. Maybe that day may be coming sooner than I thought.
The truth that I’ve learned from corporations like this, is that the best way to work is to move sideways. Eventually, you will hit a dead end, or a price ceiling that you just can’t pass, or you can only inch forward, and that is the time to take all you’re experience and current pay level and use that as leverage to hunt for a job again.
So screw the economy, and me being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ll continue to just come here and pound the keys in frustration until some day two years in the future when I can trade in my apron for desk job and a dream of a six figure salary at some point in the future.
And anyone who tries to smash that dream and wake me up like alarm will find themselves smacked like the snooze button.
I will achieve happiness.
I will achieve success.
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