Publix claims to care about employees, and boasts about the wonderful benefits you'll get from working there. What the mangers do not tell you is that you only get those benefits if you're full time, and that cashiers cannot be full time, and you can't be full time unless you have completely open availability, meaning they can drag you in at literally any time and you have no say at all.
I am disabled, both physically and mentally, and I cannot have open availability for multiple reasons, including the fact that I have a sleeping disorder and literally cannot be at work as early as eight am or whatever other horrible time they would expect me to be there. I literally physically cannot just go along with whatever schedule they will come up with.
I started at Publix in November, and they started out giving me okay hours - 26 or so at least. That was while I was being trained.
Then, after December, they started cutting my hours. Now instead of close to thirty, I was getting 15 at most.
They've been doing this since January, and it's now May. The most hours I've gotten per week since December was 25, and that was only one week. The rest of the time they've been giving me 12, 13, 15, or 16 hour weeks, and that's it, even when I told them I desperately need more hours because I can't pay my rent or even buy lunch. The only reason I haven't literally starved to death is because I get foodstamps, but again, I am literally disabled, and even when there is food I can make, I'm sometimes literally incapable of making it.
I am already as skinny as a stick from constantly being malnourished due to the horrific combination of being poor and disabled, and now, to make things even worse, I have literally lost weight since I started working at Publix, because not only are they not paying me enough to pay my rent or bills or buy food, I can't even use the foodstamps card there on my lunch break without wasting 90% of it because they have the prices for everything in the store absurdly high. last time I checked I weighed 120lbs. I am 27 years old. I am literally starving working at Publix because this company doesn't see me as a person, it sees me as a disposable tool for them to keep using until it breaks.
They will not give me more hours unless I become full time, but they won't let me become full time unless I have completely open availability, which I literally physically cannot do because I am disabled.
This corporation pretends to care, but they are just as evil and heartless as the rest. At least when I worked at Walmart their prices were low enough that I could sometimes buy food for my lunch break.
Publix does not care about their employees. They see us as nothing more than tools to break and throw away to be replaced with the next person standing in line who has no idea what's about to happen.
Employees are constantly harassed by managers while on their lunch breaks or after they've clocked out, forced to work off the clock, and they've just recently ""upgraded"" their computer system so that everyone is locked out and unable to access their schedules, and when I asked my manager to print out my shedule for me since there's literally no way for me to do it myself and literally no way for me to find out what my shedule is by myself now, it took them a day and half to finally do so, and then they gave me the wrong shedule, and are now going to try to blame me for missing days by accident.
They printed out last week's shedule, and the one for next week, but not this week.
Do you want to know how many hours I am sheduled for next week?
9.5
I make $13/h because that was the wage I demanded when I applied. Others are not so lucky. Many of the younger people working at this store are only making $11/h because they were afraid to ask for more. They also have rent and bills and food to pay for.
These people have me sheduled for 9.5 hours next week, which would give me $123.50 if taxes weren't taken out.
And they expect me to survive on this.
I am literally starving to death working here. They literally force injured employees to injure themselves further because they won't pay for them to stay home and recuperate. Another employee who had a broken arm and broken bones in both feet was forced to run the register and further destroy his health because they wouldn't pay him to stay home and actually get better.
We are not allowed to have water at our registers, and we are not allowed to leave to go to the breakroom to get water. We only get one single break, which sometimes doesn't even start until /six hours/ after you've clocked in. If you leave your register for a few minutes to go to the bathroom they'll be calling you to the service desk and acting like you kicked their puppy.
If you dare to clock out on time they will harass you for not waiting 10+ minutes past when you were sheduled to wait for the employee who should be getting on your register next.
If you clock out for your lunch after already waiting half an hour past when it was sheduled, they will follow you into the break room and harass you while you are off the clock about how you need to do their jobs for them and tell them when your break is like they don't literally have the paper with the times written on it at the service desk with them, like they don't literally get paid to MANAGE the time and people's breaks.
aside from EnMarket, where I was literally given no breaks and expected to stand for eight hours straight, this is literally the worst job I have ever had in my entire life.
If you have the option to work anywhere else, pick anywhere else. Publix has their prices so high because it's run by greedy pigs, not because they pass that profit into the employees.
If you willingly shop at Publix for whatever reason, ask your bagger to help you out to your car with your groceries. That's part of their job and they will be happy to help you. Once you're out there tip them $20 and ignore their protests that they aren't supposed to accept tips. Your tip will literally mean the difference between them starving the whole day or being able to buy a sandwhich on their one single break.
