This is a job at a casual dining establishment. My colleague is driving me nuts but there seems to be no recourse for it. UK btw
Let’s call my colleague Sarah. Sarah is a salaried worker while most of the others are zero contract but she’s technically not above us in any way, just acts like it. Here are some of the things she’s done just recently:
-Left me by myself during the lunch rush while another colleague was on a break to manage FOH to go on a half hour smoke break. I was literally having to run from the pass to take out food to diners, back to the till, and making coffees at the same time, with a massive queue. She comes back for ten minutes then disappears somewhere again once the other colleague is back. Smoke breaks aren’t a part of her contract
-Leaves 15-20 min early every day but reported me for arriving 5 minutes late
-Reported me for not saying good morning to her happily enough
-Eats off of customers plates BEFORE they go out
-Signs off on things she didn’t actually do on the task sheet, but told others to do
She’s very two faced, and gossips with everyone about everyone else. And is very friendly with the manager and constantly reporting back to them. Everyone is waiting for her to leave the entire shift since she only ever opens, yet she expects everything to always be perfect when she comes in when there’s 10x more things to do on a close than when she opens as we are often busy until the very last minute
Honestly, she is making me dread coming into work, but the spot I’m stuck in at the moment for uni has very few students jobs and I desperately need the money. Is there anything I can do or am I just fucked?
The best would probably be to go as a group of colleagues and complain to the manager about Sarah. Tell the manager everything you wrote her.
But if the others don’t want to do that, then something like that might work:
Have some (secret) friends eat at the restaurant on different nights and complain to the manager about Sarah specifically.
They shouldn’t lie. But saying stuff like this might put the focus on the problem: “we waited for an hour for our food, meanwhile we saw this lady calmly smoke for 30 minutes”
You could also do the same as online reviews over some time span with a bunch of fake accounts.
I feel like this is the best advice tbh. Making waves at work can make you a target, even if what you’re doing is justified. Make it seem like the criticism is coming from customers and it’ll have a bigger impact than complaints from a less-favored and less-senior employee.