‘[He] regretted it': Entitled supervisor at a casino kitchen tries to get dishwasher to work for free, ruins his own career

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    "Working in a casino... It's not as glamorous as it seems."
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    Boss tried to make me work after hours without clocking in. Regretted it the next day! XL This story is a bit of a long one and goes back to when I worked at a casino. For anyone out there that thinks it would be a great job, well, I can tell you right now its not as glamorous as it seems. Especially when you are working in the kitchen.
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    Now, a little backstory so you all can get the whole picture. When I started working at this location I was young, still in college, and working two part-time jobs. At first, it was just ok. I had been hired on as a steward which is just a fancy term for dishwasher which wasn't too bad as it had been the same job I had at the last restaurant I had worked at. However there were a few differences. I won't go into too much detail and name all of them, just the ones that are important to this story.
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    next the buffet, then the Italian, the sandwich shop in the bingo hall, and so on. This meant that you were always working with other people, interacting with them, and gave a change of scenery. I was told I was odd for liking this, but my counter was that if you did end up working with someone you didn't get along with then it would only be a while till you worked with them again. The second was that this place hated unions. Twice a year there would be a meeting that everyone had to attend wher
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    After working for the casino for some time, my boss approached me asking if I wanted to be bumped from part-time to full-time. I said yes as the benefits were really good. Not only did I get medical and dental insurance, but I would also be getting access to their lawyers as well as a few other things. I guess it was a good thing that I did. because, a few months later there were some major shake-ups. I didn't know what caused it, but most everyone there hated the new changes. For one thing, the
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    Meaning, if you were sick it wouldn't matter if you had a note from your doctor saying that you couldn't work. If you didn't show up they docked you a point. This resulted in cooks and stewards coming in, vomiting on the floor and in the trash cans because they couldn't afford to lose a point as it would count against them when it came time for raises. Another thing they changed was that they were cutting the number of full- time employees. I was safe, along with everyone else who had that statu
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    Speaking of departments, that leads me to the next big change. Technically, the stewarding department would be disbanded. This meant that, while our supervisors would still be there, it would be the chefs and managers of the restaurants that would be in charge of us. This also meant that we would no longer be moving around! I was sent to the steakhouse and, thankfully, I had two great female coworkers. In fact, we were so good that we were called AAA as all of our names began with the letter A.
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    but I had a dream of buying my families. cabin from my parents and living up in the country while I finished college. Sadly, on my first attempt to becoming a supervisor failed and I ended up training the person who did get the job. I didn't complain, I just took it as a sigh that I needed to up my game. Now, here our story really begins. See, our head chief was being transferred to the Italian restaurant and the assistant chief was taking his place. Meaning we were going to hire a new guy. Lets
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    When Kevin first came in, he seemed ok. Not great or awful. He was just there and we had no real reason to talk most days as we were usually pretty busy. Then, maybe a month after Kevin started working there, I had my first real interaction with him and it, well, was something. It was at night with the dinner rush just starting to pick up and I told my coworkers that I was going to fill up my water bottle before it happened. They said ok and that they would begin doing the same once I got back.
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    Kevin: OP. Where are you going? Me: Just getting a drink before we get busy. I told the girls. Kevin: Then why aren't you using the waitstaff drink fountain? Me (blinking and confused): We were told when we started that staff are only supposed to get drinks from the breakroom. Kevin: Don't give me that! I see the waitstaff getting drinks there all the time! You are just going there to waste time. I'm going to have to write you up for this!
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    Me: Wasting time? The breakroom is just down the hall. In the time we've spent having this conversation, I could have gone done there, filled my bottle with ice, gotten my drink, and gotten back here! Kevin then opened his mouth, but before he could say anything the head chief caught sight of us standing there and came over to see what was going on. Before I could open my mouth, Kevin spoke up explaining the whole thing with a superior look on his face. That however. faded when the chief spoke.
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    Chief: Kevin, OP is right. Employees are only supposed to use the drink fountains in the break room. *Sigh* I'm going to have to talk to the waitress supervisor about this. OP, go get your drink. I need to talk to Kevin in private. So I did. After that, I was pretty much confused by what just happened. At first, I was willing to give Kevin the benefit of the doubt believing that he honestly didn't know about that rule. That maybe chiefs and supervisors were allowed to use the waitstaff station,
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    That he had pulled them over for a minor infraction of the rules and when they just said they were sorry he let them off with a warning. So they suggested that he was just 'marking his territory' and would have gone easier on me if I hadn't questioned his authority. It was after that, however, that I began to notice things. Firstly, the waitstaff was no longer talking with Kevin as they were I off at him for getting the crack downs at their station. It was during this time that I began to realiz
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    What's more, whenever I stopped to speak with one of my supervisors (who happened to be a young woman) he would yell at me to get back to work. Slowly I began to suspect that he had other intentions. These suspicions were later confirmed during that summer. For those of you who have never been in a professional kitchen, it can get hot. And in the summer, it can get really hot and the odors can sometimes overpower you. On this day, I was working at one of our massive sinks scrapping off the remai
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    Now this was odd as I had only ever been called to the office to get my ten cent raises while getting a performance evaluation and neither of those were to happen until January. Curious I followed him to the small room where he gestured me to enter first. I did, finding a woman I had never met before. sitting at one of the desks there. When I entered, she looked up from her work to give me a curious look that said 'Hello? Can I help you?' You know the look. Then Kevin spoke as he shut the door,
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    Kevin: Op, you stink! Woman: Excuse me?! At this Kevin jumped before turning around. The woman was looking at him with a rage while Kevin looked lost. It didn't take me long to realize that he didn't know she was in there. Kevin: Sorry, I mispoke. I meant he smell bad. We're getting complaints about his BO.
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    Now, like I said, the room was small. So small that I felt cramped being in there with two other people. With the way we were positioned, I was pretty close to the woman who was growing more annoyed. Woman: I don't smell anything. Sir, would you mind if I get a little closer? I said it wouldn't be a problem and allowed her to get close enough to sniff me. She did it maybe two or three times before pulling away. Woman: I don't smell anything. That's when I spoke up.
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    OP: Look, if someone said I smell then I'm sorry. But I'm working over greasy sinks full of chemicals to clean off pans with fried perch on them in a room that feels like a hundred degrees. And on top of that, the aprons we are given are not the best. To emphasize my point, I gestured to my shift which was wet and full of bits and pieces of fish. Woman: I see. I'm going to have to take a look at those and see if any need replacing. OP, how about you cool down for a bit in the breakroom. Kevin, y
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    After that, three things happened. The first was that the stewards got new aprons which made all of us happy as they hadn't been replaced in years. Second, from then on if Kevin wanted to talk to me about an issue another staff member had to be there as a witness. And if there wasn't one I was to find that woman who I learned was the steakhouse manager. Third, all bets were off between me and Kevin. While he couldn't pull me to the side like that, he did start yelling at me whenever he could in
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    across the room before going back to talk to one of the girls. He would just berate me for any little thing me could, just to make me miserable. Soon, I came to realize that he saw me as an obstacle between himself and all the female staff members as I was on good terms with all of them. I even wondered if he thought I was like a harem protagonist based on how many I worked with. For over the next year, I tried everything in my power to stop him while still trying to get that supervisor position
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    supervisor, he just said that I need thicker skin. It seemed like everyday it just got worse. On top of that, my identity was stolen twice: the first targeting my bank account while the second one was my tax return. With the bank refusing to help and the legal department of the casino dragging their feet to help me, I was in the red for a long time making my situation all the worse. There would be days when I would have to collect cans in the break room for gas and had to give away one of my cat
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    Thankfully, there were good people still around. A bunch of my coworkers naded together to given me small packs of food. and some of the line cooks helped sneak out some meats that they were about to throw away. Then, came the big night. It had been a concert night on one of the coldest nights of the year. So cold that several keys had snapped in the door locks because they had frozen shut. I had managed to get to my car and turn it on, leaving it running for a couple of minutes as I headed back
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    But before I could get past my first paragraph, the doors to the locker room opened and there strode in Kevin. He looked around for a moment before his eyes fell on me and a wicked smile appeared on his face. Kevin: Who told you you could punch out OP? Not me, that's for sure. I just got a complaint my the night crew saying that your dishwasher is a mess! Clearly you didn't clean it at all. Now you go back there and clean it right now. And I'd better not see you punching in or else you'll be fir
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    With that he strode out of the room, laughing. For a moment, I just sat there in utter confusion wondering if he could do that. I felt scared because, if I lost my job then I wouldn't know what to do. I was behind on my student loans (I had to drop out of college by this point due to various reasons), behind on paying my parents rent, could barely afford to keep the one cat I kept who had been abandoned. For the first time in years, I felt so overwhelmed with fear that I felt like I could begin
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    Then, the moment passed and I was furious! This guy had been doing this to me for too long. It didn't matter if he could or couldn't, I was done with this! I had to get out of there. As I stood up, I found myself making a plan fueled on by my rage. I had kept the fact that my identity had been stolen from my parents, partly out of shame and partly out of pride as I wanted to get myself out of this mess. Well, no more! I was going to tell them about it and ask if I could move back in with them. I
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    But before I could do anything, another thought crossed my mind, making me smile. He wanted me to wash the dishwasher right now without punching back in? Ok, I'll do just that! So I left the locker room, barely hearing the security guard stationed nearby as he called out to me. No, I ignored him and everyone else as I mentally prepared myself to do this. When I got to the kitchen, there were piles of dishes, pots, pans, and a slew of other items that needed to be cleaned in quantities that are o
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    Night Steward: What are you doing? OP: Sorry, but Kevin told me that you told him that no one had cleaned the dishwasher and that it was a mess. So much so that I had to come back and clean it without punching in or else I would be fired. The color on everyone's faces drained. When the first person managed to compose himself, he told me that none of them had seen Kevin and that the machine was perfectly cleaned when they arrived. Now, hearing this did make me feel bad as what I was doing would p
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    letter...while also making sure everyone there knew who sent me! Seeing that I wasn't going to stop, not that it mattered at this point as the machine had been drained, one of them went to get the night supervisor. While he was gone the other two began to argue with each other over whether or not Kevin could order us to stay past our shifts and fire us if we refused. It didn't help that the casino had this nasty habit of offering employees a room to stay in when the roads were snowed over only t
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    When the Night Supervisor came, she asked me what was going on. I repeated my story while cleaning the machine. She said that Kevin had not spoken to her and was gone before stating that he doesn't have the power to fire me. I just told her that I really couldn't take the chance. Then I asked her how to put in my two week notice. That confused her even more, asking why I was doing this if I was just planning on leaving anyways. I told her that I would need time to make arrangements for my future
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    So, I wrote up my two week notice, even mentioning why I was leaving, before hitting the road. When I got home, it was 3AM and with all the rage now out of my system I just crashed onto my bed with my uniform still on. The next morning, I was awoken to the sound of my phone ringing. It was the casino! The head stewarding supervisor was asking if I could come in and talk about last night. At first, I told him no that I couldn't come in early just to come back home. However, he said it was importa
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    Curious, I told him I would be there in an hour or two. When I arrived, I was taken back to the steakhouse office to find it crammed with people. The Night Supervisor was still there, the night security officer was there, my supervisors were there, several head chiefs were there, and the steakhouse manager was there looking like her face would erupt into flames at any moment as she stared at the one figure who was sitting. It was Kevin, hunched over in his seat looking like a child who was in ti
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    I was then told that they knew what happened. After I had my talk with the Night Supervisor, she went to security and found footage of Kevin looking out the door before heading towards the locker room and finishing off with him leaving with a grin minutes before I left the room. After that, she called in Kevin to show up the next morning. He tried to lie his way out of this, stating that it never happened and I was just lying to get him into trouble. The supervisors then said that it was a simpl
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    him and that he would never tell me to work without punching in. The Night Supervisor and the others in the room then asked: why would OP lie? Who told you that the machine needed cleaning? Why would he be the only one who needs permission to leave? And so on. Over and over Kevin tried to lie only to change his story again and again until finally, he realized he had been caught. The Steakhouse manager then turned to me before apologizing, asking me if I would consider staying. The head manager a
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    have to leave. So I said sure, but only if Kevin never talks to me again. If he has a problem with what I'm doing, he'll have to run it by the head chief unless its an emergency. They agreed. Later, I heard a few stories on why they finally acted. The first, and least likely in my opinion, was that this incident finally caused someone higher in the food chain to notice all the written complaints I had on Kevin and was demanding answers.
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    The second was that they didn't want to lose me just yet. Remember how I said that we used to move around from area to area? Well turns out, there were now only two employees who knew how to work in every restaurant! Meaning I could go into any area and know instantly where everything goes and how that area operates without wasting anyone's time. But the most likely reason was due to the union. News about what had happened the night before had spread throughout the casino faster than I ever coul
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    In the end, I stayed in the Steakhouse longer than Kevin did as he left two years later. But before he did, I offered to throw a pizza party for everyone the day after he left.

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