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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To call my daughter’s manager

142 replies

Bunnyfuller · 25/09/2022 13:42

DD is 16 and is doing her first part time job, working as a Barista at a chain coffee shop. She was given her contracts to sign a few weeks ago, and given an employee handbook. In it it says pay should go up once ‘customer trained’ and again when barista trained. She’s definitely completed the assessments for both of these, and when she asked the shop manager about the rise as laid out in the handbook, the manager said ‘oh, I think that’s wrong, that book is from last year’.

Nothing since. I’ve said to DD to ask for the most current handbook, but immediately got bellowed at for hassling. She just says she’ll quit if her pay doesn’t go up.

I’d like to get to the bottom of it. Would it be very bad of me to call the manager and ask for clarification? There seems to be quite widespread exploitation of these kids starting out, her friend got similarly underpaid by a chain garden centre, and she just quit.

YABU - don’t call, if your daughter accepts it, or quits, it’s her choice

YANBU - a quiet request for the current handbook will let the manager know you’re onto her

OP posts:
romdowa · 25/09/2022 13:43

If its a chain then can't dd contact hr herself to request the updated info or is it a franchise?

alloutoflunchideas · 25/09/2022 13:43

It’s up to your daughter, but if it’s a chain there will be a head office and hr team she can contact

Livinginanotherworld · 25/09/2022 13:44

It’s all part of life skills….she needs to stand up for herself, not have Mummy do it for her. Help her plan what to say by all means, but she needs to do it herself.

PinkiOcelot · 25/09/2022 13:45

I totally get where you’re coming from and why you want to call, but you can’t really. It’s down to your DD to sort.

CheezePleeze · 25/09/2022 13:45

YABU

Whilst you have her interests at heart, this is her job and you need to listen to her and back off.

DenholmElliot1 · 25/09/2022 13:46

YABU - Your role as a parent is to teach HER to deal with things, not deal with them yourself.

Original poster
Bunnyfuller · 25/09/2022 13:47

I’m not sure if it’s a franchise. DD seems reluctant to ask for HR details and I think this woman is taking advantage of the youngsters’ inexperience to pay them less. Come to think of it, I think it’s part of an area group, they were all told to do a massive upsell initiative from head office I think

OP posts:
PortiaWithNoBreaks · 25/09/2022 13:47

I’d encourage her to set this out in an email and I’d help her with the wording.

MrsBennetsPoorNerves · 25/09/2022 13:48

If she's old enough to have a job, then she's old enough to deal with this herself. Your job is to support and encourage her, not to take over.

Learning to deal with this kind of thing is one of the benefits of working when you're young.

CheezePleeze · 25/09/2022 13:49

There's also a tiny chance she might have got it wrong in the first place and is now too embarrassed to admit it.

She wouldn't be the first.

DontSpeakLatinInFrontOfTheBooks · 25/09/2022 13:49

It doesn’t sound like your daughter wants you to get involved. She has a strategy for sorting this herself- it might not be the “right” way but it’s a life lesson.

Quirrelsotherface · 25/09/2022 13:51

And this is why we have a whole generation of snowflakes...

Thestagshead · 25/09/2022 13:53

If it’s a chain there is fuck all reason the manager would under pay your kid. She’s not making a profit and would likely get into trouble if she did. So I’d assume it’s right. Your daughter has to deal with it on her own, has she spoken to others?

HamiltonFan1 · 25/09/2022 13:54

YABU

Please don't do this to your DD, how embarrassing for the both of you

JackieCollinsExistentialQuestionTime · 25/09/2022 13:55

If it’s one of the big chain coffee shops, I worked there when I was your daughter’s age for a few years and looking back I can’t believe the way adults treated us.

If it’s the same one I worked at, they were notorious for doing the training for the pay rise enough so that you were capable on bar etc but avoiding signing it off on ambiguous technicalities so they didn’t have to pay more. Didn’t stop them getting you to do the jobs of a signed off person though.

When I was younger I would have been mortified if my mum had called up but now I’m a mother I can’t believe the lack of care of much older managers towards us young ones. We were 15 & 16 and although we thought we were very grown up at the time, managers in their 40s behaved very badly to what was essentially children.

Not paying properly, not giving breaks and holiday as we didn’t know our rights, insisting working through sickness and no interest in hygiene etc. On top of that, fair bit of sexual harassment - my friend who was 15 was given a nickname of ‘jailbait’ by managers in their 40s. I was assaulted by an older guy and the managers, in their 40s, witnessed it and made me carry on working with him.

So yeah, I’d be keeping an eye on things. It’s depressing but they will take advantage of younger ones and rely on them not knowing their rights/contacting HR etc.

WelshNerd · 25/09/2022 13:55

Better to join a union, I would think.

WhatALoadOfWankyness · 25/09/2022 13:58

Quirrelsotherface · 25/09/2022 13:51

And this is why we have a whole generation of snowflakes...

Don't be so bloody nasty, @Bunnyfuller is only asking for some advice

FTM2B1 · 25/09/2022 13:58

Help her construct an email or prepare for a conversation if she wants to pursue it, but you can't do it for her. Situations like this unfortunately occur and she needs to learn to make her own decisions and deal with thi gs herself. This is your daughter's job - if she doesn't want to have the confrontation and would rather vote with her feet, that's up to her.

For what it's worth, I had a similar experience to this when I was about 17. I got a job in a cafe after a trial shift and was told I'd be paid every fortnight. At the end of the fortnight I was told I'd be paid for 3 weeks a fortnight later because it wasn't a trial shift it was a trial week. When I queried it with the manager she very sweetly told me I'd clearly misunderstood and that she had never once said trial shift, that a week trial unpaid was very common. I knew she was taking the piss because I was young and I decided i didnt want to work for someone like that. So I apologised for the misunderstanding, confirmed my shifts for the following week and just never went back.

JackieCollinsExistentialQuestionTime · 25/09/2022 13:58

Thestagshead · 25/09/2022 13:53

If it’s a chain there is fuck all reason the manager would under pay your kid. She’s not making a profit and would likely get into trouble if she did. So I’d assume it’s right. Your daughter has to deal with it on her own, has she spoken to others?

Not true unfortunately. Our managers would do everything they could to avoid paying anyone more than the absolute minimum. They want to be efficient with the budget so that they can get promotions. I know people who still work for the same company but different chains and it’s the same.

MaChienEstUnDick · 25/09/2022 13:59

You can't do it for her - I absolutely get that you want to, my DS had a similar situation, but you can't. They don't even need to speak to you, you're not anyone to them.

When DS was struggling with a couple of things we'd do an email together. That way I could make sure it was ticking a few official sounding boxes, and it teaches them that there's no harm in a paper trail...

Original poster
Bunnyfuller · 25/09/2022 13:59

Thanks all, I suspected as much. It’s an interesting time going through the change of it being your child who you sort everything for, and allowing them to learn to be the adult she wants to be.

@PortiaWithNoBreaks that’s a good idea, if she wants to

@CheezePleeze good point! Quite possibly!

@Quirrelsotherface really necessary?! This is all new to me, and I’m navigating it. I asked here for a bit of clear and honest thinking, not name calling. My daughter hasn’t asked me to sort it for her, it’s my sense of injustice in overdrive because it’s my daughter!

OP posts:
YellowTreeHouse · 25/09/2022 14:01

Of course YABU. You are not employed by them, so they won’t speak to you.

I work somewhere where we employ a lot of under 18s and we don’t engage with their parents. They are not our employees.

Original poster
Bunnyfuller · 25/09/2022 14:11

@JackieCollinsExistentialQuestionTime exactly this! I suspect the manager is keeping wages low to boost her margins, especially thinking about how she’s openly said head office want better sales.

yes to all the things you’ve said, exploitation and abuse of young employees is rampant. My other daughter works for MacDonald’s and some of the things she tells me about horrify me. The managers in these places seem to not get much in the way of training in leading people, developing them and effective communication and as such there is little cohesiveness or protection from poor practice. My daughter was unwell one day, but forced herself in. She ended up fainting, so the manager gave her 10 minutes in the crew room then back out working. I obviously didn’t know until after the event, and haven’t done anything about it.

and presumably I’d be making a snowflake if I did! All part of our brave new world where we accept poor treatment, and are not bothered about it happening to those with limited ability to fight it themselves!

One of my first jobs was in an old people’s home. One of the residents kept exposing himself to me, and trying to, as I now know, masturbate. The manager there did nothing about it so one day I just refused to go. The staff thought it was funny. I was 14.

OP posts:
whynotwhatknot · 25/09/2022 14:11

get her to email if that makes her feel better about asking-i find they all lie about salay duties though its just to get you in then they just make up excuses

alfagirl73 · 25/09/2022 14:12

Definitely don't speak to the manager/employer - that is for your DD to learn to do herself, however, there is nothing wrong with you working WITH your DD to help her figure out what to do about it eg. go through her contract, research employment law, contact ACAs etc... a worthwhile exercise in any event. But don't do it FOR her.