Also curious. Why didn’t you just drop a dime on them?
Yeo :nodding: One of my former employers was notorious for this and they took advantage of everyone, not just kids. With adults it was basically “Do this or be fired.” I don’t remember anybody, full or part time, making a stink about it. I certainly didn’t.
At McDonald’s, if business was slow, they would make employees clock out and sit in the employee lounge, with our uniforms on. I was young and didn’t realize this was a violation of labor laws. I later learned that McDonald’s was known for this practice, and that the puny penalties and scant enforcement basically made it a smart business decision. (This was decades ago - don’t know if it’s changed.)
My last experience wasn’t too great. I learned the “veterans” were “testing” all new employees to ensure they were “fit” for the service industry. As a bartender I endured petulant waitresses and a hostess who thought it would be ok to unplug our POS system during the middle of rush hour. Needless to say the clever acts of these miscreants were awarded with disregard of their lack of initiative and efficiency and no reprimand was made. Though my decisions did not comply with company policy I still feel that if careful attention was made to ensure all sales were made rightfully that extra attention could (and I feel was probably made, but not addressed) have been given to these low-lives. If jobs are so high in demand and creating them has been done as said to be maybe this competitive edge is just a simple power trip from uneducated, self-righteous thunder-c****!
As I am sure my rant is unsupported and lacks reason. I don’t mind elaborating on the whole experience and exposure of poor business etiquette is not far beneath me.
Part of the NDA was not to discuss the business, or anything they did, sorry.
As for my age … let’s just say I was in high school at the time. This goes hand-in-hand with why I went for public shaming instead of going to the labour board.
This, of course, is part of the problem with NDAs. I believe that they should be unenforceable in cases where the public interest is undermined by silence.
Basically, you got paid off and the company got to continue with their illegal activities because you agreed that your own financial interest trumped the principles. I’m not saying that i wouldn’t have done the same thing, but it’s precisely why these sorts of things should be unenforceable.
An NDA can protect trade secrets, but it can’t forbid you from discussing “anything they did”. Especially if they trash talked you to other potential employers. Clean Hands Doctrine and all that.
Truth be told, it’s been over 20 years, and my memory is fuzzy on the details of the NDA. While it is indeed probable that the NDA I signed is not enforcable, especially given that I was a minor at the time I signed it, the simple fact remains that they can afford both more and better lawyers than I can.
In short, I’m going to again put my financial interests ahead of principles and continue to keep my mouth shut.
In other words: “I made it all up so please stop pressing for details.”
I was interviewing medical assistants for a job and one of them mentioned that her current employer paid them all as independent contractors. I know there are some jobs that can be considered gray areas but this person had a regular 9-5 job with set hours and no way was she an independent contractor. I didn’t know whether to tell her that her employer was just trying to cheat the IRS.
Yup, when I was 16 I worked at a McDonalds franchise and we were explicitly, no winks or nudges even, told we must clock out at time X but keep working til time Y, where the Y was later than the X, every night.
And I liked my boss.
You would be surprised how often it’s not because the manager told him to. In some situations, I’m sure it is ( fast food or retail worker working a closing shift who is told to punch out and then continue working ) but others are not so clear. I know of someone who in an office based, government, union job must constantly be told not to work more than the required hours and to report her hours accurately on her timesheet. No manager or supervisor tells her to work off the clock. She apparently does this because she’s afraid of disciplinary action for missing deadlines because a) she’s out a lot and b) she works very slowly.
Employers abuse contractor status a lot. If I’m an independent contractor, like a plumber or roofer, then that means I can take on other clients and bill you for tasks not covered under the contractor agreement.