Different Owner, Different Philosophy
“I worked at Chick-fil-A all through high school and loved it. Our restaurant owner treated us super well, paid well above minimum wage, and all of my friends worked there too. Unfortunately, the owner was TOO good at what he did and ended up being pulled up to corporate to train other owners.
If you work a certain number of hours at Chick-fil-A you will get a $1,000 scholarship from corporate. You just need to be recommended by your store’s owner. I worked my butt off for that store in high school, probably putting in around 30 hours every week. The owner told me I was a shoo-in for the scholarship. He wrote me a lovely recommendation right before he left for corporate and I was approved. My check was expected to come in about two months later, in June. That gave me plenty of time to apply for the scholarship to my first semester’s tuition.
Our new restaurant owner started in April. He immediately disliked how close our team was (we were a little cliquey, to be fair). He didn’t like that we had come up with our own systems of doing things and didn’t like that we played our own music in the kitchen. He especially hated that we got paid so much. He immediately starts making changes and rubbing people the wrong way. He was especially not a fan of me and the fact that I was going away for college.
Fast-forward to July: I took off two weeks of work to go on my last family vacation and another weeklong trip with some friends from work. I hadn’t received my scholarship check yet, so I called the corporate office to ask about it. They said the check had been sent to my store SIX WEEKS EARLIER. I was livid. When I was home in between my two trips, I stopped into the store to talk to my boss. He pulls out the envelope with my check in it and gives this big, long speech about how only employees who are committed to the company deserve these honors and that I would need to commit to working there at least twice a month after I left for school in order to get the scholarship. I was a dumb, scared teen who desperately needed the check, so I said yes. He gave me the check and I went on my way.
I never stepped foot in Chick-fil-A again. I let my friends know what happened (all of whom were managers) and then ignored all of his calls. It’s been five years now and I still haven’t had that delicious chicken.”
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