hodayathink
Member
I thank my fucking stars everyday that the food service place I work at has a union. 3 weeks paid vacation as a part timer, and I for damn sure take every single day of that every year, even if I just sit on my ass for a week.
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AP: Chipotle says employee worked while ill at Va. location
- Thread starter KSweeley
- Start date
GoldenEye 007
Member
Yeah I've been relatively lucky too. I largely avoided working in college (ultimately to my detriment). But in high school, my first job was at a grocery store. Even for part-timers, they offered stock options, retirement, and other perks. There wasn't an official PTO setup for hourly workers, though. Had I knew what I know now, I likely would have stuck with them and just tried to move up. Or at least take advantage of their tuition reimbursement....
All of my other jobs have been more traditional office or work from home that had clear and largely encouraged vacation/sick leave policies. But there are plenty of jobs out there where even vacation time use is discouraged. No matter the time of the year. And there is no recourse for employees - there largely are no laws saying employers ever have to approve your use of paid time off.
Dash_Riprock
Member
Gouty
Bloodborne is shit
I doubt anyone was actually sick. There are sick people working in every kitchen in the US and yet it's Chipotle that once again has people shitting themselves to death. Not Taco Bell, Hardees, Applebees, etc etc. Chipotle. Again.
Blame it on a sick employee and that means it could have happened anywhere, it was just bad luck. It absolves their entire supply chain of further scrutiny.
Bullshit.
Blame it on a sick employee and that means it could have happened anywhere, it was just bad luck. It absolves their entire supply chain of further scrutiny.
Bullshit.
Nydius
Member
As has been brought up in this topic multiple times, that has to do with the type of food Chipotle sells and the way it has to be prepared. Taco Bell, Hardees, and fast food establishments, usually cook their food into oblivion and have very few incidents of raw ingredients which makes transmission of the virus more likely. It IS much more likely in non-fast food restaurant settings like Applebee's. Because the food there is much different than fast food, has more handlers, and different cooking protocols. (That wasn't the first incident for an Applebee's either.)
TheCochese
Banned
All these other burrito places though?
I think it's a combination things. As people pointed out there could be negative reprocussions for taking sick time, They could be understaffing, and then training isn't effectively being executed or emphasized.
My career is in food safety for a large grocery chain. This is what I do for a living. If you can't get the importance across on stuff like this or you set your employees up for failure then that's on you.
The fact of the matter is, when you are dealing with handling ready to eat foods, you need to be even more cautious. There is no extra kill step to protect the customer.
Lord of Ostia
Member
Do you work for a large chain in the US?
Shadow Puppetry
Member
Sums it up.
Yeah, on the corporate side of a Grocery chain.
Sgt.Pepper
Banned
One thing this thread made clear is that usa work culture is fucked up.
Lord of Ostia
Member
I assume you don't want to get too specific. I work for a large US grocery chain, and food safety standards at the store level are abysmal. Hope we don't work for the same company.
itwasTuesday
He wasn't alone.
Cause you used all your sick days to go to va beach when you were fine.
I'm just kidding, wtf chipotle.
but, you know.
I'm just kidding, wtf chipotle.
but, you know.
hodayathink
Member
I work store level at a grocery chain as well, and while I don't think our food safety standards are terrible, I know we could do better. But we've been understaffed for years and that doesn't help things.
Lord of Ostia
Member
What department do you work in? We are understaffed also, probably the main source of our issues. To be fair, we always pass health inspections...but that doesnt mean we dont have employees working sick.
The Greek Freak
Member
Usually it's a cold or flu not a bad strain of noro.
hodayathink
Member
Deli, which means I'm in the only department in the store that deals with raw, processed and cooked foods all at once (and generally has to switch between the 3 at various points during the day). I personally take things pretty seriously just because of that.
bobbychalkers
Member
As easy as it is to cast blame to the person that was working....this is fucking true.
YesThatGuy
Banned
Most of the population has been brainwashed or conditioned to accept slavery as "normal". They still run out of people, so they "let" a few people "snug in" from the southern countries. Works perfect for them, pay a fraction, slave is in constant fear, and when they star slaking, call the "authorities".
If you don't submit to these principles, you are called a filthy liberal, or demanded to go back to your "socialist" country.
Wow, shocking, a food service employee working while sick. Yeah, but really you'd have to be oblivious (or not American) to think that there isn't any less than a coin-flip's chance some sick dude isn't in the back sniffling all over your order when you go out to eat. I worked in food service for 6-years and that was 6-years I never had any official sick leave. I made pizzas with flus, colds, the day after I got my wisdom teeth pulled, running to the back to throw up because of food poisoning/stomach issues, etc.; you name the common disease, I've probably made your food with those germs. I got sympathy maybe 3 or 4 times in that entire 6-year time span to stay home when I was sick. Otherwise it was "Oooooo, sorry man, but we really need you tonight; can't you just tough it out? I promise I'll get you out as soon I can".
I see the article says hourly Chipotle workers do get sick leave; that's cool, but I guarantee you they still have an anti-leave culture at most restaurants. While I never got a sick-leave bank, I know plenty of other food servants who do, and I've heard the story from every single one about how their boss is an absolute shithead about them trying to use it. Those who have managed to use it just get punished in whatever passive aggressive means their manager can come up with to guilt trip them into never doing it again. It's a shitty system that's reinforced by requiring these places to cut labor costs as absolutely much as they can, so 99% of the time they're running on bare bones staff that can't be down any people without service significantly suffering.
I see the article says hourly Chipotle workers do get sick leave; that's cool, but I guarantee you they still have an anti-leave culture at most restaurants. While I never got a sick-leave bank, I know plenty of other food servants who do, and I've heard the story from every single one about how their boss is an absolute shithead about them trying to use it. Those who have managed to use it just get punished in whatever passive aggressive means their manager can come up with to guilt trip them into never doing it again. It's a shitty system that's reinforced by requiring these places to cut labor costs as absolutely much as they can, so 99% of the time they're running on bare bones staff that can't be down any people without service significantly suffering.
A few states have them.
Pretty much every for profit business would shut down then lol.
Skellig Gra
Member
I wonder why the employee didn't just stay home sick /eyeroll
Fulminator
Member
Worked at Target for 5ish years (no longer though) and called in sick plenty of times
Manager never said a word to me about it, and work just carried on as normal for me
I didn't realize it was so bad to call in sick for a lot of places
Still gonna do it in the future though
I'm guessing Target has a pool of workers to drag in if someone is sick or no shows, grocery chain I work at has this kind of system.
Rockandrollclown
lookwhatyou'vedone
Yup. Especially in food service its just good customer service to not have the customers' food being handled by sick people. Hopefully Chipotle's downfall brings changes in that area. It probably won't.
SporeCrawler
Member
why? rather have customers getting ill and share value drop?
ChubbyHuggs
Member
Tons of people work while sick. They're expandable and don't want to lose their jobs.
I worked in retail for three years and while we weren't penalized for using sick time, my store was pretty much always short staffed. I know myself and others wouldn't call out so that it wouldn't just be two cashiers till the closers come in. I would imagine the same is true in the food industry. And due to American work culture some people feel as though they shouldn't use sick time, even if their bosses won't retaliate.
Miles Quaritch
Member
So it's better to risk making customers sick and the fallout from that?
How does that make any sense...
old
Member
Republicans have effectively scared rural and suburban folk into thinking that rich people, corporations, and employers must always have their way or the economy will tank. That workers rights and consumer rights would lead to the economic collapse of America.
And because rural and suburban areas often have tenuous microeconomies held up by one big employer, they bite and vote to undermine workers in the hopes that it will "bring jobs". Which they do...just not the jobs they want. These votes lead to one decent job turning into three bad underpaying jobs.
Mammoth Jones
Member
This. I remember those shitty jobs when I was younger. They gave me so much shit for taking a sick day. Always accusations and insinuating I'm lying and demanding a doctor's note. With no medical insurance....
^
When I worked food and retail people routinely came in sick because...
1. Managers wouldn't let them have off
2. They couldn't afford to take the day off and lose the hours
3. Possibility of vindictive managers slashing hours of people who call off because "they don't want to come in anyway"
4. Any combo of the above
It's some fucked up shit.
In most places like this even if you are bestowed the amazing rare honor of sick leave trying to use it is a damn shitstorm. Oh and the goddamn doctor's note, because minimum wage workers without insurance can afford to go to a goddamn clinic to get one.
When I was a shift leader at a food place, I sent home sick workers all the time. My store's GM manager would get FURIOUS. "They're just faking it!" "You don't have enough workers now", etc etc. Look, if someone is willing to go vomit in the bathroom and say to me, word for word, "look I don't feel good I just vomited but I didn't flush it so I can prove to you I'm not lying", guess the fuck what? I'm not gonna look at vomit and take their goddamn word for it. If they weren't sick they sure as hell really wanted to leave if they induced vomiting.
Minimum wage workers don't make enough money to move out of town. How will they afford to move to another country? And what kind of skills do they have to offer for a country so they can work?
Training is all fine and dandy, but if employees can't go home or stay home when they're sick, training and more training isn't going to do jack shit.
I guarantee you most food employees and managers know how food safety works. Hell the grocery chain I worked for had monthly mandatory training on it. Doesn't help when I'm calling in sick and my manager goes "well we need you here, two other people called out!" Why did they call out? Cuz someone else was forced to come in sick as all hell (who was full time and had sick leave, mind you, but had to come in regardless) and got other workers sick. And when I said "I'm too sick to work" I mysteriously got my hours slashed for two weeks. Guess I was lucky it was only two weeks though... but our turnover was so high they can't punish people for being sick too long!
Not to mention the time I got injured and was unable to stand on my knee for two weeks, and suddenly I didn't get hours for a whole month, despite after two weeks my knee was healed enough to work again. Good thing they were my second job at that point! That was the move that made me go "eh, I don't need this second job anyway lol"
It doesn't but when you got bills to pay and a risk of getting fired for the audacity of getting sick, well... yeah. Employees gotta do what they gotta do.
Fulminator
Member
therealist
Member
I'd rather have a few extra days off than not be able to use all of my sick days (without lying about being sick)
Mental health was covered under our old policy so you could use them during/right after periods of high stress or anxiety. Also they rolled over so you could bank up to 25 of them.
Meanwhile in socialist commie europe my boss gets pissed when people don't take their vacations, he'll assign them if people don't take them, that's how I ended up with an unplanned two week vacation in october the year I started. Using all our vacation days is mandatory.
Same here. First our store eliminated several positions and I got lucky enough to be able to get moved into a new department. Then more hours were cut in the following months. Then several full-time employees got laid off, replaced by inexperienced part-timers. People come in sick all the time because, if they don't come in, shit literally wont get done because of how stingy corporate has gotten with hours there's no one to cover the shifts anymore. Theres several incidents in the year+ of me working there of people who had no buisness working at all coming in to work.