I am hearing so much about what people think of the food that Chipotle serves, what about the work environment? I know first hand how it goes. Let me start off by saying that I worked for that company a few years short of a decade and when I finally said "adios" it was was not because I was fired! I could not stand the work environment anymore, it was to the point that I physically was ill from putting up with the crap and being treated like a slave. The company is so hard up for managers that it promotes just about anybody into salaried positions because they do not have enough people. As a result you get managers running stores who do not know what on earth they are doing. You would think that the company would provide sufficent training for people that they are promoting however they do not. Infact they do not even test to make sure you know how to run numbers, hire, review or even place food orders let alone deal with cranky customers. Awhile back I found myself in this horrible position and although I was not comfortable with being promoted (to a general manager position keep in mind) I accepted because I simply needed the money. What they were paying me prior was enough money to live in a shit hole and they new salary would get me out of this position (barely). They put me in a store where the employees had been rioting, complaining and making phone calls to HR about the prior manager (who quit I might add was never fired) with absolutly no support. They did not give me training or check on me to make sure I new what I was doing. Lucky for me I know how to pick up a phone and ask questions. In the mean time I was expected to cut my employees hours down to under 30 hours a week. Now if you are a high school student this might just be acceptable but considering Chipotle does not hire anyone under 18 you can imagine how upset the staff was at their $8 wage. Ha money what a joke at Chipotle, did you know that on average you are allowed to give an 8 cent raise to your staff twice a year (maybe that is why the line crew always seems upset)? What is even worse is that that 8 cents that they MIGHT get twice a year is more than the salaried managers get once a year? No wonder they cant keep people! What is even worse is that the OD's actually get a bonus if their region meets those raise standards. How inhumane is that? So now lets talk about english. Shortly after being promoted I was instucted that I had to teach my crew english. What do I look like, an english teacher? I thought I was suppose to run a restaurant? Why not just hire people who already speak english? Maybe it is because we do not pay enough freaken money to get anyone to apply who does speak english let alone is legal.
So eventually I was asked to work at a different store, not because I was doing a bad job but because the entire management team quit and they needed help. Keep in mind I was asked not told. This new store was 50 miles away from my home and I was given 24 hours to think about it, that's it. When I gave my answer I told them I would work part time there to help out the team and part time at another store but not full time, it was simply too far. In the process they threatened my job. Needless to say I ended up working there full time sharing my job title to one other person who was the rudest, meanest, selfish person I have come across in a long time. This lasted a few months and in that time frame I was working at least 10 hours a day with no break to eat, driving a long distance to get to work in a car that is almost a decade old and being treated in an improper maner from the other manager infront of the staff I might add that devalued my authority. Now I realize it is not a perfect world and that in life you come across scum bags at work and you have two options. First and formost you can shut your mouth and deal with it or you can speak up and go to the person in charge and file a complaint. I chose the second option. In doing so I was told that this was not the first time they had a complaint on the other manager and was instucted to confront them myself. That was it. No investigation took place, nothing was documented and nothing was solved. In my experiance working for that company I did meet a few quality people however I would not recommend working there to anybody, what a crappy place to be!