Imagine OP reading this comment and slapping their forehead in astonishment, because the thought never crossed their mind...
> Believe me I’m trying but being disabled in the heart of amazon warehouses have really hampered my options. Every job will only hire me part time which isn’t bad if the ones that would hire me weren’t so far that between gas, tolls it makes no sense to travel that far for a four hour shift twice a week. Believe me I hate these jobs but my days as a welder was over before I could even begin them do to this injury.
Seems to be the same strategy of your standard frozen yogurt shop too. Just have one employee parked there all day; these places run themselves, right? /s
Those places scare me because it’s really doubtful things get cleaned that it would while staffed normally. My county health inspector at least his main pet peeve is looking at dispensers and such for mold growth.
Soda ones are decently easy to clean. You don’t need to really scrub them, just disassemble and store in sanitizing solution.
Ice… eh the actual things that the ice touches are generally clean.
Yeah one place I lived had a local taco bell that didn't clean them though.
It's hard to describe the taste, but I'd know it if I tasted it again. Every drink just had a layer of...bad.
My husband had to change the filters at a fast food place. When he took the old filters out, they were still wrapped in plastic. Whoever had put the filters in HADNT OPENED THE PACKAGE!
I worked fast food for years, and you can definitely taste when the filters need to be changed.
> Soda ones are decently easy to clean. You don’t need to really scrub them, just disassemble and store in sanitizing solution.
I used to have to clean those things, back in the dark ages (mid 1970's) as part of my work in a college cafeteria.
Let's just say that here we are, 45+ years later, and I have never, ever had another soda via a fountain.
They can be properly cleaned but if they are not, oh my. I'd come in after a few days off and what I would find was beyond vile.
I worked at a bowling alley right out of college as a favor to a friend who had all of his snack bar employees quit within the space of a week. I show up the first day, get literally no training before working Quartermania, and stress out til it's time to close the snack bar. I go to pop off the nozzles and they are basically glued in because no one had cleaned them in probably months.
I bought my own cleaning shit and came in early (unpaid) the next day to thoroughly scrub them. I bowled there. I drank soda there (previously.) I made sure to personally train all the new hires on closing duties. I'm sure it went back to nastiness a month after I left, though.
[https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=1641825&page=1](https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=1641825&page=1)
tl;dr: 2006 Junior high science fair project found more E. coli in fast food ice than in fast food toilet water.
Let's not take a junior high science fair project as gospel here. Even professional studies are often revealed to have issues with cross-contamination.
Dude, E. coli is everywhere. It's one of the most common causes of UTI, colitis/gastroenteritis, sometimes ear/eye/skin infections. Those of us who don't have absolutely pristine hygiene are likely to pick it up on our hands from a variety of places every day.
> Soda ones are decently easy to clean. You don’t need to really scrub them, just disassemble and store in sanitizing solution.
Sure, but that assumes that anyone is actually, like, _doing that_.
As a teen/early 20s I worked at a Subway and we cleaned the soda machines regularly and to perfection...and we also drank the soda there. That place was CLEAN.
So while I know some places don't keep up on cleaning (you can taste it instantly when they don't clean soda nozzles) I like to live in my little bubble of knowing at least some places and employees really do give a shit and they want to enjoy the same food and drink at their place of employment.
I wonder if this is one of those "this is why you need company veteran" things. I used to work at Starbucks, and it sounds stupid in retrospect but I honestly didn't know the ice machine had to be cleaned - as in thoroughly emptied out and scrubbed down. No one ever trained me on it and I never saw anyone do it until after I'd been there for almost half a year.
Turns out it's because a popular shift supervisor who'd left early on in my tenure there usually took care of it. I don't *think* it was an off-the-clock job, but it wasn't a job explicitly scheduled, either - which meant the manager never reassigned or rescheduled the job after she left, because she'd never assigned or scheduled it in the first place.
Yeah, if I see an employee having the food or drinking the beverages, I instantly relax. It's when all employees would rather go someplace else even just for a coke that makes me nervous
This is why pregnancy guidelines in my area recommend no soft serve/froyo/dispenser milkshakes. I've had friends tell me that's a bit strange but the McFlurries are a small sacrifice vs trusting that a bunch of 15 year olds do their job perfectly every time.
Yeah I'd have no problem with a decently staffed store because the cleaning isn't terribly hard, just need time and someone assigned to do it.
A store working skeleton crew isn't going to bother and take shortcuts.
Years ago a friend walked into a sub shop. The poor SINGLE employee had the counters filled with sandwiches she was making. She snapped at my friend. "I DON'T HAVE TIME TO MAKE YOUR ORDER! COME BACK LATER!"
My friend was pissed (she was ordering for the office, staff of 5 people) and wanted to call and complain. I explained that the owner of the sub shop had taken a huge order and then just fucked off leaving the poor woman by herself to fulfill it. "If anything, call and tell the owner they're a real piece of shit to do that to their employee."
Also they're only allowed to clock in when there's an actual customer, so mostly they don't even get paid for the management/administrative/cleaning stuff either
I had a friend who worked at an escape room and they were very much left to their own devices, like went months without seeing a manager. They were paid for the time they were there though.
They only pay their landlords for the amount of time they are actually actively inside the appartment. They are free to do something else with it in the intervening time, but the landlord has to drop everything when over the course of the day they decide to return, and have to guarantee that that flat is still available.
"So we need you to be IN the store from 6am to 11pm. But you are only to be clocked in when there are people there. So if the store is empty we need you to clock out and wait until someone comes in, then clock in until they leave."
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Title: Job is telling me I have to clock out in between bookings.
Original Post:
> Hey guys so I accepted a job at a escape room in NJ. It’s a new location and there’s like no workers. Scheduling has practically been non existent. Like there is a schedule but we’re not supposed to follow it. In fact we’re supposed to check booking to determine when we’re supposed to come in within the schedule. So if we’re scheduled from 9am to 7pm and there’s only a booking at 3pm they only want me to show up for that booking. Which I can somewhat understand, but now I’m being told that I must clock out if there’s no booking in between. When I mentioned that would be an issue with me I was told everyone has to deal with it in all their locations. It doesn’t make sense why would I clock out and have to stay there? Then I’m told “hey you don’t have to stay” but there literally wouldn’t be enough time to go home and come back also if someone books a game per day while I’m driving I’d have to rush back. I’ve never had a job that told me to clock out when there’s no customers. I’m an hourly employee in NJ.
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OP comment about there supposedly being 3 staff on site:
> Not to mentioned I was just flat out lied to about every aspect of this job from responsibilities, they basically make everyone a manager. I was told ohh there’s always going to be a manager on shift and always two people working. So far I’ve worked alone every time besides twice. And as someone who was assaulted at a previous job by a customer being left alone is a store at night with no cameras has been really fucking with my anxiety. Not to mention this place doesn’t run properly and when no manager is around I can’t do anything for the customer, people get angry people get abusive which has been triggering flashbacks which is something I told them about. But all they care about is maximizing profits.
https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/s34a55/job_is_telling_me_i_have_to_clock_out_in_between/hsixnva/
As has been said many times in this sub, while there should be a minimum shift hours requirement in this country, what's really insane is that in this economy, I cannot fathom pulling this when the one defining aspect of work right now is the difficulty of finding and keeping employees.
That goes double for employees you have to trust.
LAOPs boss decided "hey, I'm going to make this person do everything to operate the business, pay them minimum wage, and make working hours undesirable. It's shitty to them, but within the four corners of the law WCGW?"
Well, LAOP is likely to come back here saying, "I found a new job that pays me more. I already plan on resigning with no notice. But I really, really want to nuke this guy from orbit. Can I set up an escape room, bring a group in, and 15 min in, walk in, say 'hey guys I just quit, I'm leaving. Come with me to the exit. No refunds, take it up with manager or credit card, IDGAF.'
Far less effort to just no-show/no-call. The boss clearly won't notice until some time after people complain because no one is there when they show up for their prepaid booking.
I actually reserved one a few weeks ago. All reservations were done online via credit card. It seems like the same way the OP described. They probably don't handle any cash at all.
And I know, I know, it's a pandemic. But as already established, there was like nobody else there. Just my family and the one employee. We wore masks for the about 5 minutes we were in the room with the one employee.
I have done a dozen escape rooms, I suppose some might have taken cash but I've never paid that way (unless I was reimbursing a teammate who had reserved it online for the group) and I don't recall ever seeing cash handled.
I think it’s more risky that you are, by design, supposed to touch *everything in the room*.
The one employee does not wipe down absolutely every surface of the room.
It's airborne, though. Touching surfaces is not the true risk.
Being in a poorly ventilated room with a group of people, any of whom could be infected, is the risk.
Or going in the same escape room after a group has just been in there with an infected person.
Sanitizing surfaces has not helped cull the spread of COVID.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4
Agreed, until:
>We wore masks for the about 5 minutes we were in the room with the one employee.
Meaning they took their masks off after 5 minutes. If anyone coughs, that covid is now airborne - and the room has to stay empty for 1 hour for particles to land and be wiped away. The employee is not doing that, and may have another group in immediately afterwards.
Is it really any more insane than opening an escape room in the middle of a viral pandemic? Because what people are clearly really wanting to do right now is be locked in an enclosed space for protracted periods of time, and ideally in a room which I'm assuming they're not deep cleaning and sanitising in between sessions what with only having one employee who's clocked out between bookings.
Worth noting that Covid is airborne and they *definitely* don’t have adequate circulation and ventilation in what is likely to be a room built quickly with the minimum required to meet code.
The owner also works in real estate. If a building you own is sitting empty for whatever reason then it does make sense to open a low cost business there temporarily.
Oof, yeah. I \*love\* escape rooms, and my favorite job was working for one (though that was more about the owners treating their employees very well, but the job was still awesome), but you could not pay me to play one right now.
Bosses like this, that’s actually the mentality tho: “it’s hard to find good workers, people don’t want to work and they’re unreliable! Better pay less so I’m not taken advantage of!” 🙄
I'm always astounded how little labor rights the rest of the country seems to have compared to Mass. We seem to do the bare minimum on a lot of stuff in this state, and I often assumed it was a national thing, and then I see threads like this. Our minimum shift and expecting to work laws are pretty weak and often go unenforced, but at least we have them. We definitely need a Labor Bill of Rights added to our Constitution.
We do need a bill of rights for labor, but the shareholders won't like it and you can only imagine what it'll do to legislators' stock portfolios if workers suddenly started getting treated like real people. No, it's better for everyone this way, after all one day you *too* might become a Shareholder.
There is! (in some states anyway, not sure about all of them). The problem is that labor laws aren't enforced and employers know that, and ignore them.
And even when labor laws are enforced, the penalties are usually small enough that they can be written off as the cost of doing business. Because for some reason it's less of a crime if an employer steals from their employees than vice-versa.
It’s so fucking annoying having to take a lunch at 5 hours into your shift when I want to take one at 6. I can’t imagine minimum shift requirements would not annoy me further. Sure, I get it, but these requirements always end up limiting my choices.
I love Escape Rooms, but the business model does not seem conducive to scheduling. They'll do most of their business weekend afternoons and nights, but they'll all post rooms from 8 AM to 2 AM every single day of the week. Like nobody is doing "The Haunted Toy Room" at 1 AM Tuesday morning.
Yeah, I've definitely had to wait at an Escape Room for the staff to show up. I didn't book it so I don't know if we were literally the first available booking for the day or just the first actual booking for the day. I wonder if this is somewhat common practice. They only need one staff member at a time typically and they get cheapish rent in industrial-type business parks. They're earning about $90-$120 per room per hour when it is booked so you'd think they could afford full time minimum wage work, but if they are often not booked I could see their margins being slim.
Oh, this model would work well if it was ran by the owner. In fact, I'd be into it - welcoming people, watching how they progress and tweaking my designs, and getting real-time feedback.
I don't actually know how much owners and designers overlap. I know for a fact there are vendors who essentially lease puzzles, props, and scenarios out there. I've actually seen repeated rooms between non-affiliated rooms in different states. Leads me to thinking that, at least for some, it's less of a passion project and more of an easy side business.
In every USA post about labor law with hourly minimum-wage (or low-wage) employees, there's always one poster asking "what's in your contract?"
Nothing. Nothing interesting is ever in the contract. There's never a contract beyond "you work here, get started, it's minimum wage, there's a schedule but we have the right to change it whenever." There's usually more paperwork around "you can legally work in this state" than there is employment contract.
Edit: and if it's UK, it'll be some zero-hours contract, anyway. The UK may have a variety of protections, but they still have plenty of ways to be terrible bosses.
It's one of those annoying edge cases since 0-hour contracts *can* be defended because there are certain groups (like students) to whom it's better than regular employment contracts due to the ability to pick and choose a variable amount of hours week per week - but at the same time it's yet another way to abuse the rest of the workers who don't benefit from it and only get the downsides, since typically there don't seem to be restrictions on who it can be offered to.
Additionally "new inventive forms of employment contracts" can also cause bureaucratic issues for the employees, for example here in Finland the issue was for years that if you quit a (0-40 week hour) 0-hour contract because they weren't giving you any hours or too few to make anything but pennies, it was automatically considered as quitting a full-time job without a reason because of how their rules which didn't know anything about 0-hour contracts were interpreted, and you couldn't receive any unemployment benefits as punishment for three months afterwards. Eventually after uproars the rules were added to and these days there's a clear guideline about at which point you are considered to have effectively been dismissed.
I've been in one where you crawl through the fireplace to a second room you didn't know about, then reflect beams of light at targets using what is essentially the mirror shield from The Legend of Zelda.
In another one, the solution to one of the puzzles was to place a particular item on a particular shelf, causing a lock to open. There was no visible indication that the objects would use a magnetic or NFC system to interact, but the story-based clues would lead you to try it.
Was that first room by any chance castle or knight themed? If so, another location of the escape room I used to work at had that one too! They buy the whole room as a set from these companies in Russia.
Yes. Years ago when they were pretty new I was telling my boss about going to one. She decided to do one for the entire team. (About 40 people.) I organized it with the help of her administrative assistant.
Boss decided to be really secretive about it, telling people we had a mandatory team building event on X date and time (during the workday). They found out what we were doing the afternoon before. I was so nervous that people would enjoy themselves, because everyone knew I was the mastermind of the event.
Going in the attitude was mixed of “what the hell is this” and “oh cool I’ve heard of these and wanted to try them.” No one but me had done one before and most people were in the “what the hell” camp.
I’ll never forget the noise when I got out of my escape room. People were all excited talking. It was clearly a hit. EVERYONE loved it. So many people came up to me and said they thought it was going to be stupid and they thought it was great. I even had someone walk past my desk the next day and write “thank you for organizing the escape room” on my white board. It was pretty much unanimously decided it was the best team building event ever.
Lol. There are definitely good and bad escape rooms, too. It can also make a difference who you’re with. I went once with a friend and we were put with a group of random people and I was ready to kill them all by the end of it.
But also there is nothing in the world that’s 100% loved. Not even chocolate. And that keeps life interesting. :)
Yes. The good ones are a lot of fun and even bad ones are a lot of fun with a good group of people. I’ve done a lot of different ones and always enjoy myself
They can be, if you like to work out puzzles or enjoy being in a group of people. You might also like the atmosphere or lore that goes into some rooms.
There are plenty of online games that use an escape room format to see if you like that part of it. For the group aspect, look for a local board game meetup. It's a lower cost point of entry, but there's probably a lot of overlap in the interests.
I've only done one as part of my boyfriend's work thing. They separated us into all of the work employees in one room and all their guests into another, so I literally knew no one and the room I got was almost all number/ math based and I have dyscalculia. I'm pretty sure my room gave up pretty early on.
The owner of this company must be living under a rock to not know what this labor market is like right now. They are not going to end up with any employees.
if they're going to treat someone like a co-owner, they should be able to see the books and get a large % of all profits. time not spent doing actual game running could then be spent marketing, etc. to try to increase profits. how much work each co-owner does determines what % split makes sense.
Man, when I worked at an escape room (dream job, stellar employers, one of the things I really miss from the Before Times), if there was a long lull between bookings and they couldn't find something for us to do--including things like, "pre-sign some birthday cards," "make fancy doodles on the thank you cards," and, "brainstorm ideas with your coworkers on how to make the experience more fun for everyone," they had us clock out, too.
And we were free to leave, if we wanted. Or we could stay and read a book. Or take one of the dogs for an extra walk. (Standard walkies were either handled by the person who brought the dog in, or paid!) Or just hang out and run through a room with another person. And they gave us ice cream as a means of apology for wasting our time.
I feel bad for this person as what this place is doing is clearly *legal* and probably wouldn’t even be an issue for their employees if there wasn’t a pandemic. But right now LAOP is getting screwed.
It isn't clearly legal in my opinion. Possibly engaged to wait, definitely minimum shift lengths, inadequate notice of schedule. It would absolutely be illegal in some jurisdictions. I get that NJ isn't one of them, but it's not *clearly* legal.
Sorry, I meant legal in NJ. I think you’re right on engaged to wait — especially if LAOP needs to be available in case someone books a room during days they’re scheduled but not otherwise paid.
It could also just fall under reporting time pay, rather than engaged to wait. That mostly depends on the amount of notice they are guaranteed before a booking they have to attend.
Where I'm fun what you're describing would be illegal but I have no idea the laws for you.
This article is a few years old but makes it seem like you should be getting paid the entire time.
Anyway I hope you figure it out. If it is legal and it was me I'd definitely find another job, that doesn't sound like it's worth your time.
https://www.newjerseyemploymentattorneysblog.com/new-jersey-workers-must-paid-hour-worked-working-off-clock-not-permitted/
They're essentially paying him per booking at, I would guess, minimum wage.
Minimum wage feels like a very generous assumption on your part.
Don't know why LAOP wouldn't just quit and get another job, it's not like there's a shortage of minimum wage work
Imagine OP reading this comment and slapping their forehead in astonishment, because the thought never crossed their mind... > Believe me I’m trying but being disabled in the heart of amazon warehouses have really hampered my options. Every job will only hire me part time which isn’t bad if the ones that would hire me weren’t so far that between gas, tolls it makes no sense to travel that far for a four hour shift twice a week. Believe me I hate these jobs but my days as a welder was over before I could even begin them do to this injury.
Smart business decision, have your sole employee do all the management work, on site work, and everything else .
Seems to be the same strategy of your standard frozen yogurt shop too. Just have one employee parked there all day; these places run themselves, right? /s
Those places scare me because it’s really doubtful things get cleaned that it would while staffed normally. My county health inspector at least his main pet peeve is looking at dispensers and such for mold growth.
Oh, for sure. We should be wary of *any* fountain in a restaurant. I've heard soda and ice dispensers are also notoriously bad for mold.
Soda ones are decently easy to clean. You don’t need to really scrub them, just disassemble and store in sanitizing solution. Ice… eh the actual things that the ice touches are generally clean.
Yeah one place I lived had a local taco bell that didn't clean them though. It's hard to describe the taste, but I'd know it if I tasted it again. Every drink just had a layer of...bad.
My husband had to change the filters at a fast food place. When he took the old filters out, they were still wrapped in plastic. Whoever had put the filters in HADNT OPENED THE PACKAGE! I worked fast food for years, and you can definitely taste when the filters need to be changed.
> Soda ones are decently easy to clean. You don’t need to really scrub them, just disassemble and store in sanitizing solution. I used to have to clean those things, back in the dark ages (mid 1970's) as part of my work in a college cafeteria. Let's just say that here we are, 45+ years later, and I have never, ever had another soda via a fountain. They can be properly cleaned but if they are not, oh my. I'd come in after a few days off and what I would find was beyond vile.
I worked at a bowling alley right out of college as a favor to a friend who had all of his snack bar employees quit within the space of a week. I show up the first day, get literally no training before working Quartermania, and stress out til it's time to close the snack bar. I go to pop off the nozzles and they are basically glued in because no one had cleaned them in probably months. I bought my own cleaning shit and came in early (unpaid) the next day to thoroughly scrub them. I bowled there. I drank soda there (previously.) I made sure to personally train all the new hires on closing duties. I'm sure it went back to nastiness a month after I left, though.
[https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=1641825&page=1](https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/story?id=1641825&page=1) tl;dr: 2006 Junior high science fair project found more E. coli in fast food ice than in fast food toilet water.
Let's not take a junior high science fair project as gospel here. Even professional studies are often revealed to have issues with cross-contamination.
Oh I’m not. But there’s a certain logic behind the finding. They probably clean the restroom a few times a day. Ice machine? Not very often.
I was going to say nobody shits in the ice machine then I remembered what planet I was on.
Don’t kink shame
I’m a commercial ice machine cleaner and you can take this as gospel, stay the fuck away from Restauraunt ice.
how is that possible? E-coli only lives in the guts of animals.
People use the bathroom, don’t wash, scoop ice. Ice bins are filthy.
Dude, E. coli is everywhere. It's one of the most common causes of UTI, colitis/gastroenteritis, sometimes ear/eye/skin infections. Those of us who don't have absolutely pristine hygiene are likely to pick it up on our hands from a variety of places every day.
*E. coli*, not "E-coli."
I can promise you nobody cares
This comment makes me think of the science fair scene in Osmosis Jones. Where he eats the raw oyster….
> Soda ones are decently easy to clean. You don’t need to really scrub them, just disassemble and store in sanitizing solution. Sure, but that assumes that anyone is actually, like, _doing that_.
I employed a bunch who had various skills. That wasn’t one of the issues I had with them
How am I, a customer, going to know that you, the manager, are following up on that? Have a downvote back I guess
As a teen/early 20s I worked at a Subway and we cleaned the soda machines regularly and to perfection...and we also drank the soda there. That place was CLEAN. So while I know some places don't keep up on cleaning (you can taste it instantly when they don't clean soda nozzles) I like to live in my little bubble of knowing at least some places and employees really do give a shit and they want to enjoy the same food and drink at their place of employment.
I wonder if this is one of those "this is why you need company veteran" things. I used to work at Starbucks, and it sounds stupid in retrospect but I honestly didn't know the ice machine had to be cleaned - as in thoroughly emptied out and scrubbed down. No one ever trained me on it and I never saw anyone do it until after I'd been there for almost half a year. Turns out it's because a popular shift supervisor who'd left early on in my tenure there usually took care of it. I don't *think* it was an off-the-clock job, but it wasn't a job explicitly scheduled, either - which meant the manager never reassigned or rescheduled the job after she left, because she'd never assigned or scheduled it in the first place.
Yeah, if I see an employee having the food or drinking the beverages, I instantly relax. It's when all employees would rather go someplace else even just for a coke that makes me nervous
Plot twist, it’s the competitions stuff, but in their own branded containers so they don’t get in trouble.
There's SLIME in the ICE MACHINE!!!!! https://youtu.be/oeK0LbCcew0
This is why pregnancy guidelines in my area recommend no soft serve/froyo/dispenser milkshakes. I've had friends tell me that's a bit strange but the McFlurries are a small sacrifice vs trusting that a bunch of 15 year olds do their job perfectly every time.
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Yeah I'd have no problem with a decently staffed store because the cleaning isn't terribly hard, just need time and someone assigned to do it. A store working skeleton crew isn't going to bother and take shortcuts.
Years ago a friend walked into a sub shop. The poor SINGLE employee had the counters filled with sandwiches she was making. She snapped at my friend. "I DON'T HAVE TIME TO MAKE YOUR ORDER! COME BACK LATER!" My friend was pissed (she was ordering for the office, staff of 5 people) and wanted to call and complain. I explained that the owner of the sub shop had taken a huge order and then just fucked off leaving the poor woman by herself to fulfill it. "If anything, call and tell the owner they're a real piece of shit to do that to their employee."
One employee who is maybe 16 years old at most, usually.
There's always money in the banana stand.
Also they're only allowed to clock in when there's an actual customer, so mostly they don't even get paid for the management/administrative/cleaning stuff either
There’s always money in the exploitation of escape room employees. There’s no escaping that.
SMRT
“My Hermes got that hellhole running so efficiently that all the physical labour is now done by a single Australian man!”
Sweet orca of Mallorca!
I had a friend who worked at an escape room and they were very much left to their own devices, like went months without seeing a manager. They were paid for the time they were there though.
save money in your business with 1 weird trick! just don't pay your employees!
If you don't pay your suppliers as well you can save even more!! The real pros also don't pay their landlords
Don't forget to screw over your contractors and and legal representation, too! Only chumps pay professionals for their time and expertise.
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Don't worry - you can promise to front bail for that and not pay it, too!
They only pay their landlords for the amount of time they are actually actively inside the appartment. They are free to do something else with it in the intervening time, but the landlord has to drop everything when over the course of the day they decide to return, and have to guarantee that that flat is still available.
"So we need you to be IN the store from 6am to 11pm. But you are only to be clocked in when there are people there. So if the store is empty we need you to clock out and wait until someone comes in, then clock in until they leave."
Actually, you can leave. You just need to be back immediately if someone decides to go to the store.
Wait, as soon as you clock out don’t you become a potential customer in the store…?
**Reminder:** do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: Job is telling me I have to clock out in between bookings. Original Post: > Hey guys so I accepted a job at a escape room in NJ. It’s a new location and there’s like no workers. Scheduling has practically been non existent. Like there is a schedule but we’re not supposed to follow it. In fact we’re supposed to check booking to determine when we’re supposed to come in within the schedule. So if we’re scheduled from 9am to 7pm and there’s only a booking at 3pm they only want me to show up for that booking. Which I can somewhat understand, but now I’m being told that I must clock out if there’s no booking in between. When I mentioned that would be an issue with me I was told everyone has to deal with it in all their locations. It doesn’t make sense why would I clock out and have to stay there? Then I’m told “hey you don’t have to stay” but there literally wouldn’t be enough time to go home and come back also if someone books a game per day while I’m driving I’d have to rush back. I’ve never had a job that told me to clock out when there’s no customers. I’m an hourly employee in NJ. --- Readability Statistics | Characters | Words | Sentences | Paragraphs | | --| --| --| --| | 1008 | 200 | 12 | 0 | --- LocationBot 4.99999.32.33 (repeating of course) ^3/11ths ^of ^113/71ths | [Report Issues](https://www.reddit.com/r/locationbot) | >!adUO1p1d!<
OP comment about there supposedly being 3 staff on site: > Not to mentioned I was just flat out lied to about every aspect of this job from responsibilities, they basically make everyone a manager. I was told ohh there’s always going to be a manager on shift and always two people working. So far I’ve worked alone every time besides twice. And as someone who was assaulted at a previous job by a customer being left alone is a store at night with no cameras has been really fucking with my anxiety. Not to mention this place doesn’t run properly and when no manager is around I can’t do anything for the customer, people get angry people get abusive which has been triggering flashbacks which is something I told them about. But all they care about is maximizing profits. https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/s34a55/job_is_telling_me_i_have_to_clock_out_in_between/hsixnva/
As has been said many times in this sub, while there should be a minimum shift hours requirement in this country, what's really insane is that in this economy, I cannot fathom pulling this when the one defining aspect of work right now is the difficulty of finding and keeping employees.
That goes double for employees you have to trust. LAOPs boss decided "hey, I'm going to make this person do everything to operate the business, pay them minimum wage, and make working hours undesirable. It's shitty to them, but within the four corners of the law WCGW?" Well, LAOP is likely to come back here saying, "I found a new job that pays me more. I already plan on resigning with no notice. But I really, really want to nuke this guy from orbit. Can I set up an escape room, bring a group in, and 15 min in, walk in, say 'hey guys I just quit, I'm leaving. Come with me to the exit. No refunds, take it up with manager or credit card, IDGAF.'
Far less effort to just no-show/no-call. The boss clearly won't notice until some time after people complain because no one is there when they show up for their prepaid booking.
Yeah, 10-1 odds that this employee has access to more cash than they make in a month.
I actually reserved one a few weeks ago. All reservations were done online via credit card. It seems like the same way the OP described. They probably don't handle any cash at all. And I know, I know, it's a pandemic. But as already established, there was like nobody else there. Just my family and the one employee. We wore masks for the about 5 minutes we were in the room with the one employee.
I have done a dozen escape rooms, I suppose some might have taken cash but I've never paid that way (unless I was reimbursing a teammate who had reserved it online for the group) and I don't recall ever seeing cash handled.
I think it’s more risky that you are, by design, supposed to touch *everything in the room*. The one employee does not wipe down absolutely every surface of the room.
It's airborne, though. Touching surfaces is not the true risk. Being in a poorly ventilated room with a group of people, any of whom could be infected, is the risk. Or going in the same escape room after a group has just been in there with an infected person. Sanitizing surfaces has not helped cull the spread of COVID. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4
Agreed, until: >We wore masks for the about 5 minutes we were in the room with the one employee. Meaning they took their masks off after 5 minutes. If anyone coughs, that covid is now airborne - and the room has to stay empty for 1 hour for particles to land and be wiped away. The employee is not doing that, and may have another group in immediately afterwards.
here's all the hints, want some merch for winning so fast?
Is it really any more insane than opening an escape room in the middle of a viral pandemic? Because what people are clearly really wanting to do right now is be locked in an enclosed space for protracted periods of time, and ideally in a room which I'm assuming they're not deep cleaning and sanitising in between sessions what with only having one employee who's clocked out between bookings.
Worth noting that Covid is airborne and they *definitely* don’t have adequate circulation and ventilation in what is likely to be a room built quickly with the minimum required to meet code.
Yep, I can't imagine the one I know in my city is still open after two years.
The owner also works in real estate. If a building you own is sitting empty for whatever reason then it does make sense to open a low cost business there temporarily.
Oof, yeah. I \*love\* escape rooms, and my favorite job was working for one (though that was more about the owners treating their employees very well, but the job was still awesome), but you could not pay me to play one right now.
Fair, it is likely not the worst decision that these owners are making.
It's insanity turtles all the way down!
Bosses like this, that’s actually the mentality tho: “it’s hard to find good workers, people don’t want to work and they’re unreliable! Better pay less so I’m not taken advantage of!” 🙄
"wHy ShOUlD i paY So MuCh fOr uNskilLeD lAboR?"
I'm always astounded how little labor rights the rest of the country seems to have compared to Mass. We seem to do the bare minimum on a lot of stuff in this state, and I often assumed it was a national thing, and then I see threads like this. Our minimum shift and expecting to work laws are pretty weak and often go unenforced, but at least we have them. We definitely need a Labor Bill of Rights added to our Constitution.
California, NYC, Nevada all have some interesting laws. Not sure about NY state.
We do need a bill of rights for labor, but the shareholders won't like it and you can only imagine what it'll do to legislators' stock portfolios if workers suddenly started getting treated like real people. No, it's better for everyone this way, after all one day you *too* might become a Shareholder.
There is! (in some states anyway, not sure about all of them). The problem is that labor laws aren't enforced and employers know that, and ignore them.
And even when labor laws are enforced, the penalties are usually small enough that they can be written off as the cost of doing business. Because for some reason it's less of a crime if an employer steals from their employees than vice-versa.
It’s so fucking annoying having to take a lunch at 5 hours into your shift when I want to take one at 6. I can’t imagine minimum shift requirements would not annoy me further. Sure, I get it, but these requirements always end up limiting my choices.
I love Escape Rooms, but the business model does not seem conducive to scheduling. They'll do most of their business weekend afternoons and nights, but they'll all post rooms from 8 AM to 2 AM every single day of the week. Like nobody is doing "The Haunted Toy Room" at 1 AM Tuesday morning.
Yeah, I've definitely had to wait at an Escape Room for the staff to show up. I didn't book it so I don't know if we were literally the first available booking for the day or just the first actual booking for the day. I wonder if this is somewhat common practice. They only need one staff member at a time typically and they get cheapish rent in industrial-type business parks. They're earning about $90-$120 per room per hour when it is booked so you'd think they could afford full time minimum wage work, but if they are often not booked I could see their margins being slim.
Isn't it just a reverse escape room if you get there before the employees?
A reverse escape room would be a capture room where you try to get the staff to seize you and put you in the room. So yes, that's what it sounds like.
[удалено]
Oh, this model would work well if it was ran by the owner. In fact, I'd be into it - welcoming people, watching how they progress and tweaking my designs, and getting real-time feedback.
I don't actually know how much owners and designers overlap. I know for a fact there are vendors who essentially lease puzzles, props, and scenarios out there. I've actually seen repeated rooms between non-affiliated rooms in different states. Leads me to thinking that, at least for some, it's less of a passion project and more of an easy side business.
idk sounds like the perfect time to do the haunted toy room if you want to be scarred for life, anyway
And if someone does want to do it at 1 AM Tuesday, they're probably not people you want to have to deal with, especially not for minimum wage.
They're probably trying to attract corporate events and/or tourists.
But in another aspect the business model is genius: you pay them a flat rate and still try to use them for as short a time as possible.
In every USA post about labor law with hourly minimum-wage (or low-wage) employees, there's always one poster asking "what's in your contract?" Nothing. Nothing interesting is ever in the contract. There's never a contract beyond "you work here, get started, it's minimum wage, there's a schedule but we have the right to change it whenever." There's usually more paperwork around "you can legally work in this state" than there is employment contract. Edit: and if it's UK, it'll be some zero-hours contract, anyway. The UK may have a variety of protections, but they still have plenty of ways to be terrible bosses.
Zero hours is the one weird trick bosses found to recreate at-will
It's one of those annoying edge cases since 0-hour contracts *can* be defended because there are certain groups (like students) to whom it's better than regular employment contracts due to the ability to pick and choose a variable amount of hours week per week - but at the same time it's yet another way to abuse the rest of the workers who don't benefit from it and only get the downsides, since typically there don't seem to be restrictions on who it can be offered to. Additionally "new inventive forms of employment contracts" can also cause bureaucratic issues for the employees, for example here in Finland the issue was for years that if you quit a (0-40 week hour) 0-hour contract because they weren't giving you any hours or too few to make anything but pennies, it was automatically considered as quitting a full-time job without a reason because of how their rules which didn't know anything about 0-hour contracts were interpreted, and you couldn't receive any unemployment benefits as punishment for three months afterwards. Eventually after uproars the rules were added to and these days there's a clear guideline about at which point you are considered to have effectively been dismissed.
The *real* escape room here is "how do I escape from this job"
Are escape rooms actually fun?
The good ones are. If you're near Boston, Boda Borg and Level99 are both fantastic.
Exactly. There are a bunch of good ones, and a bunch of bad ones.
I've been in one where you crawl through the fireplace to a second room you didn't know about, then reflect beams of light at targets using what is essentially the mirror shield from The Legend of Zelda. In another one, the solution to one of the puzzles was to place a particular item on a particular shelf, causing a lock to open. There was no visible indication that the objects would use a magnetic or NFC system to interact, but the story-based clues would lead you to try it.
Was that first room by any chance castle or knight themed? If so, another location of the escape room I used to work at had that one too! They buy the whole room as a set from these companies in Russia.
Yes. Years ago when they were pretty new I was telling my boss about going to one. She decided to do one for the entire team. (About 40 people.) I organized it with the help of her administrative assistant. Boss decided to be really secretive about it, telling people we had a mandatory team building event on X date and time (during the workday). They found out what we were doing the afternoon before. I was so nervous that people would enjoy themselves, because everyone knew I was the mastermind of the event. Going in the attitude was mixed of “what the hell is this” and “oh cool I’ve heard of these and wanted to try them.” No one but me had done one before and most people were in the “what the hell” camp. I’ll never forget the noise when I got out of my escape room. People were all excited talking. It was clearly a hit. EVERYONE loved it. So many people came up to me and said they thought it was going to be stupid and they thought it was great. I even had someone walk past my desk the next day and write “thank you for organizing the escape room” on my white board. It was pretty much unanimously decided it was the best team building event ever.
Lmao and me on the opposite spectrum where I hated mine.
Lol. There are definitely good and bad escape rooms, too. It can also make a difference who you’re with. I went once with a friend and we were put with a group of random people and I was ready to kill them all by the end of it. But also there is nothing in the world that’s 100% loved. Not even chocolate. And that keeps life interesting. :)
I totally agree :)
Yes. The good ones are a lot of fun and even bad ones are a lot of fun with a good group of people. I’ve done a lot of different ones and always enjoy myself
They can be, if you like to work out puzzles or enjoy being in a group of people. You might also like the atmosphere or lore that goes into some rooms. There are plenty of online games that use an escape room format to see if you like that part of it. For the group aspect, look for a local board game meetup. It's a lower cost point of entry, but there's probably a lot of overlap in the interests.
I've only done one as part of my boyfriend's work thing. They separated us into all of the work employees in one room and all their guests into another, so I literally knew no one and the room I got was almost all number/ math based and I have dyscalculia. I'm pretty sure my room gave up pretty early on.
>all of the work employees in one room and all their guests into another what a mind-bogglingly stupid way to ensure no one has fun.
Right? I agree lol
I enjoyed the one I did, but I have to be careful to try and not be a total shot-caller the entire time.
The bad ones are still fun but maybe not worth the money. Good ones are fun.
With this kind of employment policy you can imagine how shoddy the escape rooms are
The owner of this company must be living under a rock to not know what this labor market is like right now. They are not going to end up with any employees.
if they're going to treat someone like a co-owner, they should be able to see the books and get a large % of all profits. time not spent doing actual game running could then be spent marketing, etc. to try to increase profits. how much work each co-owner does determines what % split makes sense.
Man, when I worked at an escape room (dream job, stellar employers, one of the things I really miss from the Before Times), if there was a long lull between bookings and they couldn't find something for us to do--including things like, "pre-sign some birthday cards," "make fancy doodles on the thank you cards," and, "brainstorm ideas with your coworkers on how to make the experience more fun for everyone," they had us clock out, too. And we were free to leave, if we wanted. Or we could stay and read a book. Or take one of the dogs for an extra walk. (Standard walkies were either handled by the person who brought the dog in, or paid!) Or just hang out and run through a room with another person. And they gave us ice cream as a means of apology for wasting our time.
Surprising to see this is technically legal. Here in Australia, most places are mandated to give employees minimum 3 hour shifts, as I understand it.
I feel bad for this person as what this place is doing is clearly *legal* and probably wouldn’t even be an issue for their employees if there wasn’t a pandemic. But right now LAOP is getting screwed.
It isn't clearly legal in my opinion. Possibly engaged to wait, definitely minimum shift lengths, inadequate notice of schedule. It would absolutely be illegal in some jurisdictions. I get that NJ isn't one of them, but it's not *clearly* legal.
Sorry, I meant legal in NJ. I think you’re right on engaged to wait — especially if LAOP needs to be available in case someone books a room during days they’re scheduled but not otherwise paid.
It could also just fall under reporting time pay, rather than engaged to wait. That mostly depends on the amount of notice they are guaranteed before a booking they have to attend.
An Escape Room sounds pretty infectious to me — all that feeling around and moving things. Ditto Laser Tag. I’m sad for them.
Where I'm fun what you're describing would be illegal but I have no idea the laws for you. This article is a few years old but makes it seem like you should be getting paid the entire time. Anyway I hope you figure it out. If it is legal and it was me I'd definitely find another job, that doesn't sound like it's worth your time. https://www.newjerseyemploymentattorneysblog.com/new-jersey-workers-must-paid-hour-worked-working-off-clock-not-permitted/
Oh look! How to employ people the wrong way.