Complaint Review: Harold's - Gaffney South Carolina

I worked at Harold's for about two months. The first day I went to give Tony my license and ss card and he waved them away, explaining he pays cash. It was the only job in that small town, so I kept with it. One of the girls complained that she burnt herself there recently, a 3rd degree burn on her hand, and he wouldn't let her go to the hospital nor would he even pay for her Neosporin. Other girls complained that he charged everyone a different price for uniform shirts, depending on which he liked more. He takes as much money as he wants out of the workers' cash pay, with no notice. A male worker who came on the scene after I did bought the wrong milk at Walmart, and a female worker was charged the price of the entire quantity of the wrong purchase!! She hadn't even been at the store with him. But if a female does anything wrong, she's immediately berated for not having any common sense. The male worker spends most of his time when the boss is there hanging out in the office, commiserating loudly about how all the females who work there are "feminists." Of course after the boss leaves, all the male worker does is talk and start arguments, complaining to the customers about how the females are mean to him because he's the "minority" and we're all a bunch of stupid feminists. This is alright with the boss.

I'll tell you what else is alright with the boss. Slapping my a*s when he's been drinking in the bar next door. Yeah, you heard me right. There was an incident when I was not there long that had me so humiliated I wanted to cry, but I was so scared of losing my job and not being able to pay my rent (I'm a single mother with two kids for whom the government does not seem to be interested in collecting any child support), that I just tried to act like nothing was happening, because the other girls acted like nothing unusual was going on and I figured they all had to put up with it. I cried when I went home, I was so humiliated and angry. He apologized later but then started again when I forgave him (in the interest of keeping the peace... and my job).

And the food.... omg. Please don't eat there if you haven't already (if you haven't already, that means you haven't developed immunities yet). The small metal bins in which he keeps the sandwich spreads (egg spread, pimiento, etc...) are NEVER washed! Or changed out! Worse, new food is placed on top of the OLD food when they are "refilled." The explanation for this was that if they wash the metal containers, it changes the taste of the food. The obvious answer is to find plastic containers or have several extras so they can rest for a while before fresh product is filled in, but I learned early that everyone there is OK with the "country" (i.e. unsanitary) ways of doing things. For several days, when the sandwich cooler was broken, all of the condiments were placed in it anyway, with only a big container of ice inside, supposedly cooling it from below (like an icebox) but there's no way these foods kept a safe temp. They use mayonnaise out of squeeze tubes that sit out all day, which also are never washed and refilled with new mayo on top of the old, and the utensils used to spread the sandwich fillings and cut the sandwiches are not washed except for once at night before closing. They are simply put in an empty room temp bucket until used again, all day long. There is no bleach in the water that they clean the tables with, only a drop of dish soap. They use the same buckets of wing sauce for months, out at room temp, the kind of buckets you drop hot wings into and swish around to get sauce on them. The worst is this, though: The chili that is their staple menu item, has RAW meat in it. Yes, sir. The cook who comes in late nights to cook the meatballs and the chili cooks the meatballs in such large batches that they burn on the outside and stay raw on the inside. I personally found this out when scooping some the second week I was there. Up til then I had not been paying attention. I noticed a relatively large chunk of pink meat, brought it to everyone's attention, and was told aggressively that it was the tomato soup that it's mixed with. I put it on a napkin and said, "NO way that's soup, look at that it's pink meat." Tony impatiently barked that I was to just dump out (without any customers seeing, of course) the offending bit of meat. I said that the entire pot was contaminated and was completely ignored. A few days before this, I had foolishly eaten one of the chiliburgers, and was sick all the evening and next morning. I routinely saw pink meat in every single batch of chile I worked out of but we were not allowed to say anything about it. I was told that the female night cook had been told to cook the meat longer as a result of my comment, but no one listened when I said it was the batch size that was the problem and the chile continues to have raw meat in it.

A few days before I quit, his male employee best buddy called me a "b***h-a*s" and told me he would "do something" to me, after a perceived insult that was all in his head; I was saying some things quietly to myself about some jerk customers, and he just IMMEDIATELY assumed I was sassing him or something. I explained that I wasn't talking to him or about him and he needed to lose the attitude, at which point I was loudly and AGGRESSIVELY told in front of a full store that I needed to change my little b***h a*s, as he could do whatever he wants because he's Tony's boy and he's got nothing to worry about. I called Tony at home to advise him of the threat to me (a small female who does not speak to anyone, much less men, in a hostile or threatening tone) and was yelled at and hung up on for interrupting his dinner when he had a long day and doesn't feel like dealing with anything. I told him before he HUNG UP ON ME that I would call the law if I were threatened again, and he told me I better not because if the law gets called there's a chance he'll get in trouble for paying people under the table (and only $5 an hour at that, less than minimum wage).

So.... I tried to quit on the phone but he begged and whined so pitifully, promised me a raise (which didn't materialize, strangely, like the one that I was supposed to get after I learned to close the register at night, said raise not materializing that time, either). So I tried to stick it out a couple more days, but the environment was so weird after all that that I just couldn't take it anymore. So I quit by just not showing up, as I didn't want him pressuring me anymore. I didn't want to see him to collect my pay, so I sent a friend (he tried to tell me that he wouldn't give my friend my pay nor would he send it to me because those things are ILLEGAL, as if to imply his saintly allegiance to labor laws). I informed that it was indeed legal and he was compelled to give my friend my pay if I gave permission, which I did. So, my friend goes to get my pay, and it turns out to be $70 of $175 owed. My friend is told that there was a problem with the register one night and something about $20 was missing. But: Every night the register is reconciled and a deposit dropped in his safe, and the only two times I can remember there being a deficit in the cash drawer, they were resolved when the cash was found. (One time, someone forgot to write down a deposit, and another time, one of the girls accidentally took it home when she had put it in her pocket to get coin for the drawer but brought it back next day when she realized her mistake). I was involved in neither of these incidents and they didn't involve me anyway. So how does he justify stealing $105 of money that I worked for? He sends me a text message and says, "Why did you wait so long to contact me?" As if we have some personal relationship for which I am accountable to him. Why anything is none of his business, he's legally bound to pay me unless he can prove he provided me with prior notice that I owed him the money, and it's illegal to take more than a small amount of someone's pay for mistakes. Funny how that mistake never happened until I quit, huh?

If you value your intestinal health, don't work there. If you've seen it on that stupid Food Network show, don't think you're getting a slice of small-town charm by going there. You're getting half-raw, barely seasoned chili swimming in Cambpell's Tomato Soup; you're getting contaminated egg spread and pimiento cheese, and you're getting frozen, then fried, side items, none of which are homemade.

He's currently being investigated by the Board of Labor, and will soon be being investigated by the Health Dept.

Sc girl

Gaffney, South Carolina

U.S.A.