So, last week I got an interview at an A&W Fast Food Restaurant. Very exciting, as it's very hard to find a job around my area. The interviewer liked my application and the fact that I had my FoodSafe. She asked me if I was interested in working long term, as they have had many people quitting after just a month, or even less. I soon found out the reason behind this, as later explained. So, the manager said she'll bring me in on Thursday for an hour to get a better impression of me. Cool, I thought.
So, thursday comes and the manager that interviewed me is not present. There is another one. She tells me that I will be working 3 hours instead of one now, and that I won't be getting paid for training. Red flags already started going up, but I didn't say anything. She throws me on the training program on the cash machine and leaves me there to fiddle around with the thing for a little bit. Half of the functions on the machine did not work in training mode, which was kind of inconvenient. So, she comes back, and now I get thrown on my first order. Do note that I have only been in the store for 15 minutes, with no previous cash machine experience and no fast food experience. They were fully aware about this, as noted in my application. Of course, I screw up. They have a employee work beside me to whisper commands in my ear, while I try to get everything right. She sometimes goes and does her own thing while I fend for myself. I was becoming very stressed fast. They throw me on drive-thru after more in-store orders, and I do receive help from one of the employee's, for the beginning at least (aka the first order). I come home frustrated and dreading the next day.
The second day I walk in, it happens to be busy. I am not receiving much of any assistance, if any at all. Customers are lining up, getting pissed, and I'm getting pissed too. They put me on drive-thru for most of the time and leave me to fend for myself. I can barely hear anything over the noise of the rain outside where the microphone is and with the customers inside the store. The manager tells me to "speed up", a rude remark considering how much training I've received. I'm confused, desperate and I ask a ton of questions. Now some of my co-workers get frustrated with me. At the end of the day, my managers keeps telling me to speed up and not panic. How am I not to panic when you haven't even given me orientation or proper training?
The day after I had the day off, and I had to do Net Training. How interesting I thought it was when the Net Training told me that I had to go through some orientation like stuff before even stepping behind the cash register. Throwing me behind the cash register wasn't supposed to happen in the first 15 min of working there according to what I read. Net Training was provided by the corporate level of the company. I was supposed to have a "trainer" who worked with me constantly, who was dedicated to me. But, this wasn't the case either. There were many things they seemed to leave out in their training program.
Today, I came back in. Same old thing again, screwed up an order, pissed someone off. It was so confusing, and I felt helpless quite a lot. The manager told me right when I walked in that she recommends me quitting. So, an hour after my shift started, I did just that. That was horror, I thought it would be fun at first. Their training program is practically non-existent. I can now see why so many people left so soon, it must have been horror for them too. The people there are sort of a "family" (they're all east indian, I was the only white person there. No racism intended). They've all been working there for a long time, and don't seem to hire too many people on, very few in fact.
Anyways, thats the end of my rant.
11 Jan 2010, 12:33 am
