The corporate managers of my region were very out-of-touch and refused to allow us to hire more people. I am fluent in French and one of the regional corporate heads asked “Do you know what ‘mise en place’ means?” I responded that I speak French. He then proceeded to explain what it means and go through a beginner-level training sheet with me. I had already been working for Chipotle for 6 months, but this was a new location opening. The other corporate guy decided to put on an apron and start showing off his onion-chopping skills in front of people who were literally faster and chopping onions than him. It was kind of cringe-worthy.
Also, a lot of people quit and I ended up having to come in at insanely early hours to do all of the food prep with just 1-2 other people. I was helping out with line, dish washing, and grill and preparing all of the peppers, guac, and onions by myself. But during my employee review, rather then compliment me for taking on so many responsibilities, my manager criticized me for “not being as fast as [I] used to be.” Not to mention that at this point I had strained my wrist and finger from all of the work.
The corporate level management acted similarly to the CEO, Brian Niccols. The CEO comes across as a rich guy who doesn’t care. The work I put in was worth way more than $12/hr with benefits. It’s a shame people at some locations make the same rate while doing far less work while others are working extremely hard to carry the prep on their own making the same rate.
