Pros
Food is delicious. They like to switch your role up on a daily, almost hourly basis. Keeps things interesting. If you like one specific position and if you're good at it, they'll let you stay generally in the position. It actually comes with benefits. It has a nice reputation like In n out and customer volume used to be large, which is a pro for some, con for others. You get a dollar raise, I think?, if you work the late night shift. If you get certified within the restaurant to be trainer, you get a raise of 50 cents or smt like that when you are clocked in as a trainer and help train newbies. Corporate mandates an open-door policy for all of management when you have a concern but depending on your manager, it can be just a formality and not an actual enforced policy. Also, one time, I got a Starbucks gift card as a reward and recognition for my work given by a manager who only worked at that restaurant for about two weeks before transferring to the Oakland location.
Cons
Your job actually comes with benefits that no one educates you on. As a matter of fact, you have access to a lot of corporate-provided resources that store management conveniently doesn't educate you on, such as numbers to corporate HR, financial aid for university education, and pet insurance. Mostly, too many managers. Many managers come and go as it is policy for all managers, asst. managers, shift-leaders to do their jobs over several different locations over several weeks/months at a time to get experience within the company to be their best at their "final destination" which is the store they are assigned to stay at by the time "experience gaining" time is over. Leads to a large disconnect with management, too many new faces you really shouldn't expect to stay very long and they're all giving you contradicting orders and MICROMANAGE. A LOT. even if you're a senior employee with a well-performing track record. Management keeps lists of who are top performing employees but does not respect them as such, by over-hiring employees and cutting your hours and taking you off peak-hour shifts despite how long and how well you've been performing. They also do not take into consideration of who has rent, children, families, etc. while others are in it for side-money, which shows in how they schedule and how they maintain a double-standard to their favorite, likeable employees (of course, assuming everyone performs equally but if you're well performing and have rent to pay or a family to look after, they consistently, for some reason, prioritize inexperienced hires and high schoolers.) It's also because of the fact they are catered to young people as a whole, they discriminate against the older employees who continue to outperform the younger workers simply because they aren't young. Also, they try to get you to train new people for free when they have a corporate-program that pays you extra for training the new ones, which is exploitative. They have a strict point-based system on attendance, which is outside of the managers' hands and is engrained in the POS system when you clock in. They also have a 5-minute grace period. Management does a lot of ordering-around but no actual helping during peak hours. Management is fine with people doing multiple jobs at once and paying them for only one. Managers expect team members to be physically fast when they themselves are quite physically slow. No actual accountability, you just have to deal with everything as it comes, like employees making unprecedented mess that you have to clean or managers majorly fumbling the ball with scheduling, dealing with customers or straight up accusing you of terminable offenses with no evidence then proven wrong. Grueling, back-bending work if you actually prepare the food ahead of time, like marinating bird, making sauce, assembling ice-cold coleslaw, squeezing lemon juice, which the opening crew does as early as 6 am every. single. day. who are also somehow responsible for cleaning the restaurant from the previous nights' mess before opening as well when the night crew doesn't clean, which was rarely NOT a daily occurrence. The work itself isn't as grueling as one might think but when management understaffs you and doesn't listen to your concerns about making the same wage as everyone else and doing significantly more to keep the restaurant running smoothly, you are suddenly dipping your gloved hands in ice-cold coleslaw for four hours straight starting at 6 am. Managers can show up late to opening which is apparently fine with Store leaders, district managers, and corporate, who I'm not sure are in the know. Openers wake up early, go to work on time, and often have to wait 30+ minutes in the crisp morning cold for managers to open the stores, somehow still have the audacity to breathe down your neck to work faster to open the restaurant because they were late to let everyone in and no one to hold them accountable. Are quick to tell you to make every interaction with customers personable and authentic but reprimand you for being too personable and authentic for their taste. Also, they get paid pretty well for managers (shift leaders make $18/hr for reference and GM's get paid an annual salary) so it's definitely not a corporate issue. Has a selective "if you have time to lean, you have time to clean" culture but managers frequently indulge in socializing with their favorite employees and deters them from work, which other employees have to pick up the slack for. When store leaders, district managers or anyone from corporate shows up, managers makes it everyone's problem and starts asking for extra work to show the higher ups a restaurant that doesn't exist. Not-work-related nepotism and favoritism runs rampant so expect to navigate the ambiguities of that. Some employees are openly mean, heinous and catty and management simply accepts that as who they are, despite it affecting the workplace morale and the work we're trying to do. When you try to enforce corporate policies, your managers will openly and consistently undermine you to go against corporate in front of customers and coworkers, which tells you everything you need to know. Also, since they opened coming up a year ago, they've had three general managers, including the current one, which tells you everything you need to know. Also, managers kind of hate their job but are in it for the generous pay and it shows with how they work and treat employees. Also, absolutely no systems in place when it comes to stocking and people doing what's in their job description, it really is a disorganized mess. Also, the restaurant was extremely overrun with customers but because of mismanagement and the opening of other locations, this restaurant is almost barren 90% of the time and somehow still mismanaged. Also, California state law states that it is ultimately the employer's responsibility to send you on your breaks and regulate them but the corporation creates their own policies which state that it is ultimately the employee's responsibility to take their breaks and if they do not, they can be terminated. So, not sure how legal that is. Also why are you hiring shift leaders, let alone paying a higher wage for them, but forcing employees to be diligent about their breaks while working in a fast-paced environment or else they could get terminated. Sound like minimum wage workers could be getting an $18'hr pay raise just for having to manage that alone instead of hiring people to do work that ultimately doesn't have anything to do with them? Also, music is too loud like chill we do not need Cotton Eye Joe actually preventing us from hearing each other or hearing customers' orders, especially when customers ask to turn it down and you refuse to, giving a hard time to both your employees and customers.
