A Fast-Food Manager Tried to Illegally Cancel Employee Breaks During a Rush. The Trainee Who Stood Up to Him Is Now Facing Cruel Retaliation.
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When a job is understaffed, the only people to blame are the managers and maybe HR. Unfortunately, management often tries to force the employees to pick up the slack to ensure things don’t fall through the cracks.
What would you do if you were in training to become a manager at a fast food restaurant and on a very busy day, the manager who was training you tried to force everyone to skip their breaks and lunches?
That is what happened to the young woman in this story, so she pushed back on him and said that, at the least, the employees who are under 18 must get their breaks. He finally gave in and let them, but then he blamed her for making their service times go up drastically.
Personally, I think she did the right thing by ensuring those kids got their breaks. Sadly, it might cost her some career opportunities. Read through the full story here and see what you think.
AITA for arguing with my manager and causing his drive through times to tank?
I, (21F), am a manager in training at a popular fast food chain.
On a busy day, everyone has to pitch in and work together.
Today we were extremely short staffed and training new people. The floor manager concluded that nobody would get breaks.
Our times were about 7 minutes an order. We had 2 minors in the store E (17F) and J (16M). By law, minors have to get breaks if they work 4 or 4.5 hours.
Wow, this manager is kind of heartless. And he clearly doesn’t care about the policies.
He simply takes minor violations. E is pregnant and in her first trimester. E asked for a break and he said she could get something to eat real quick then she needed to be back on the floor.
I told the manager that she was pregnant and he said that he did not care. And then he caved after I argued that she needed a break.
Being understaffed is a management problem.
He got mad and said that I would have manage up front and that because E got a break, J also had to gave a break.
He then said that after E got back, J would go on break. Our times tanked to more then double what they were because she had been covering multiple positions as it was and we got a rush.
How could this possibly be her fault?
J never got a break. And my manager began to blame me for his times being inexcusably terrible.
AITA?
Just because a restaurant is short-staffed does not mean that the employees should suffer in order to cover the work. It wasn’t their fault that management can’t get enough people to work.
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Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this awful situation.
He was almost certainly breaking the law.
She should report him to the district or regional manager.
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This commenter is exactly right.
The manager was way out of line.
She did the right thing.
The manager is putting a lot of risk on the company. I would hope that the corporate management team would have her back if she reported him.
There are some very strict laws in place when it comes to having employees who are under 18. And he doesn’t seem to be following them.
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