The Horrors of Hospo

It’s pretty essential for students to get a part-time job to, you know, survive while they’re completing their studies. Finding a job in hospitality is a relatively easy route to go down; the hours are long and the pay is less than ideal but hospo jobs tend to work pretty easily around uni schedules and you don’t need a degree to get one. Getting the job is the straight forward part, but navigating management issues, dealing with short breaks and general mistreatment by employers is all too common in this industry. Massive spoke to some students who are working in hospo to get all the dirt. 

Louisa, a fourth year Massey student, has been working at a New Zealand cafe franchise for the past two years, and in her time she’s witnessed a number of unacceptable work practices take place there. The crew at her work were consistently understaffed and made to work long periods of time with no breaks. As well as this, they were made financially responsible for every aspect of their work. “If we lost our name badge, we were told $15 would come out of our pay to cover replacement costs, we found out later when discussing adding pronouns to our badges, that they only cost the company $1.50 to order,” Louisa recalls. As well as this, staff were told that they would be forced to pay a $300 ‘training fee’ if they left the company before six months, in exchange for the priceless knowledge they learnt there. One of Louisa’s co-workers handed in her resignation exactly one day after the six month period had elapsed, just as a big fuck you to that rule. The fact that people only stay in employment at this place because they run the risk of financial hardship if they leave is pretty fucking disturbing. “They also tried to charge me a locksmith fee for a key that I apparently lost after my shift, which I’m sure I handed in,” Louisa says. Listen, I’m not telling anyone how to run their business but maybe don’t rest the security of your store in the hands of a singular key? It literally costs $7 to get a key cut at Bunning’s. 

Many students working in hospitality are often left feeling extremely guilty for having to take a sick day, or a mental health day brought on by the never ending hell that is being abused for putting too much foam on someone’s latté. Louisa recalls one staff member being told she had to come in when she was sick, because the cafe was already short staffed. “My co-worker was literally coughing up blood and was told to come in to work because they couldn’t find cover for her,” she says. Employees at her work were told that if they were to call in sick - even with ample notice - it was up to them to organise cover or come in and work themselves until someone could replace them. One student, Milly, told Massive that she was yelled at over the phone after calling in sick for a weekend shift. “The owner of the cafe I was working at swore at me over the phone and told me that by taking the day off I had left everyone in the shit. When I tried to talk to her about the way she spoke to me, she told me that never happened. Because it was a small chain with no HR department, there was nothing I could do about it,” Milly says. 

For many students, the job they get during their study will be their first official place of employment that isn’t a paper round or babysitting. As a result of this, they don’t want to question what their employer says, because they are under the assumption that they will just do the right thing. Leteicha recalls a conversation about the union when she was employed at a popular fast food chain. “They handed me all the paper work like my contract and KiwiSaver and told me not to bother with the union form because there wasn’t much point,” she says. The Government’s employment website states that employers can’t express their feeling for or against a union when the employee is offered union information. Louisa agrees that there isn’t a lot of clarity for students when they’re employed about what is appropriate or not. “This was my first job, I had no idea what employers can and can’t say or do to you, so I just assumed they were right,” she says.

Working environments in hospo jobs are notoriously shit, with no breaks and hazardous jobs, they are not the ‘unskilled’ jobs people make them out to be. Elise worked at a Wellington bar in her first year of uni and notes how awful it was. “We were so understaffed, I had to work from 4pm to 4am with no breaks, we couldn’t take breaks unless you were a smoker,” she says. The whole time she was putting up with these working conditions she was kept on minimum wage. “I worked there for two years and essentially managed the bar, was in charge of functions and my pay didn’t go up the whole time. A guy once stood on the bar and just pissed all over it. I had so much experience cleaning up peoples vomit from the bar or in their drink cups,” she says. Elise was often rostered until 4am and would then go off to a 9am lecture that same morning. Milly remembers that the pay at her old fast food job was completely unfair. “There were managers who did nothing but sit on the back computer who were earning $23 an hour while the rest of us ran off our feet and cleaned hours’ worth of grease off of heavy duty grills for minimum wage.” Pay rates between employees often made no sense as well. “We were talking during a close one night and realised that a guy who had been there less than a year, was earning a dollar more than me and I’d been there for nearly two years,” Milly says. 

Working in hospitality is appealing to students because they can make money to cover their rent without cutting into the time they need to be at uni. It seems like the people in charge are aware of how many students need jobs that they can have while studying and take advantage. Louisa thinks that employers in the hospitality industry make an assumption about students during the hiring process. “I think employers always assume the worst of students, that they’re unreliable, so they treat us harshly,” she says. When your employer already thinks you’re the worst, there’s not much point trying to overachieve. Minimum wage, minimum effort right? “Most of my friends want to stay in their hospitality jobs long term, but when you know you’re going to be treated badly by your boss you might as well take liberties where you can,” Louisa adds. It seems that employers care more about their profit margin than the wellbeing of their staff. When people make complaints about superiors, or even co-workers, it’s not taken seriously because if that person is making them money then there’s no reason to punish them. Leteicha left her job as a result of nothing being done when she and her co-workers complained about a manager at her store. They didn’t do anything about this manager who had some pretty serious allegations against him, instead they let him keep his position. It seems like when you’re a student the job industry is literally working against you. 

Unless rent prices miraculously go down, or Massey starts handing out free money along with the Red Bulls, it looks like students are always going to play a huge role in the hospitality industry. I guess we just have to tough it out until we get our big boy jobs, but there’s probably assholes there too. Best advice is to join a union, read up on your workers’ rights and become a smoker for those sweet extra breaks.