line cook/prep cook

manager

FIRKIN GROUP OF PUBS

Former Connected Coffee Employee here, this is a long one. Buckle up! 

Firkin’s Connected Coffee is a coffee shop with great potential that is being drowned by 
1. Shoddy workplace training and
2. Poor if not outright malicious management structure. 

This review comes in two parts.

Part 1: Shoddy Workplace Training

Job training is pitiful, basically nonexistent. 
It took me two whole weeks and asking nearly everyone member of management to find someone that could actually verbalize how to steam milk. 

Scenario for you: You’re scheduled for a single opening or closing shift during training and taught the absolute bare minimum because the supervisors would rather watch you flounder. Great, whatever. It’s a coffee shop, not a hospital, I get it. However, you don’t have another closing shift for 4 weeks, and then you’re scheduled to close alone.

Maybe it’s just me, but something that is barely learned one time is not reinforced strongly enough in my mind to repeat flawlessly 4 weeks later. However, I sort of expected this, and since I like to stay busy when I’m working I would try implementing little improvements that honestly, should have already been there. 
This unfortunately leads me to Part 2.

Part 2: Poor if Not Outright Malicious Management Structure

Management and Supervisors only care about themselves, and WILL tear down anyone that tries to go above or beyond.

Let me preface: On the day I showed up for my first ever solo close I noticed the only copy of the closing checklist, which was written on the back of some poor kids resume by the way, had gone missing. So I decided I would rally the one good manager to my cause and together we could make a detailed opening and closing checklist on the iPad downstairs. For two reasons; any newer employees will have a resource to consult, and I have ADHD, so I’m often checking to make sure I don't forget anything. Makes sense to me, which is why I made them, and then posted in the group chat letting people know where they are.

Alas, the supervisors must’ve realized they should have done this already, and therefore had so many opinions on our lists its like I had personally stapled them to their faces. If you could have seen my own face when I opened my phone later to no less than 10 messages from the supervisors tearing our lists to shreds in the PUBLIC group chat full of the ENTIRE staff, saying such wonderful things as: 

“My training is sufficient for the workplace”
- No, it’s not, or I wouldn’t have had to make it.

“We don’t need lists, we’ve survived this long without them” 
- I need lists. ADHD ape brain work good with lists. I’ve taken careful steps to ensure my ADHD doesn’t hinder my work, and use it to improve my work instead. How? Lists, you say? Good guess. Also, why is a supervisor admitting she does the bare minimum required to float by? Have some pride in the things you do.

“Maybe focus on cleaning the store and stocking the shelves instead, hm?”
- First of all, the audacity. Second, if you don’t think I’ve already had the store clean and the shelves stocked, you haven’t been working with me. Oh wait, they hadn’t. More on that later.

I was later told that one of the supervisors said the lists made him feel like he wasn’t doing his job well enough, and thats why he was criticizing me in the group chat. A moment of self reflection from someone I genuinely believe is a good person outside of the coffee shop. However, to not say that to me but to someone else, and not apologize to me about it despite telling a coworker you were going to means you took that moment of weakness and shrunk from it instead of growing from it, which I cannot respect. 

The list wasn’t the end of it. I once asked the lower level manager about the location of the cash register since the design of the store wasn’t intuitive and 75% of customers would try and order in the wrong location. She said she’d be on board and I should bring it up with the upper manager. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so I drew up a floorplan of the shop with the new register location and customer line layout. This was a moment of naivety from both of us. 

I didn’t just want to criticize it, so I referenced how the floor plan had the register where the customers would try and order, since it would increase the amount of people that could line up in-store as well. She gave me a sorta valid reason (cord length) for why she couldn’t, which is all well and fine! I didn’t push it. I did however, get a little angry when I was told that the upper manager said i was “trying to change the store to suit my needs”. How in the world would the location of the cash register affect my needs in any way? Be so forreal right now. Sorry for bringing it up, I guess.

A month and a half later, just before my probation was over (for which the upper manager has a growing reputation of doing) I was fired. I was told the meeting to decide my fate consisted of the upper and lower managers and the two supervisors. 

But wait, I hadn’t had a shift with either supervisor since my very first month. Surely they couldn't have opinions on my work? 

Yeah, you know where this is going.

I was fascinated by the fact that they BOTH had so much to say about how I shouldn’t be working here because they “feel like they’re babysitting me”. I’m sorry? Did you go to the store for milk and cigarettes? Because I haven’t seen either of you in months. The worst part is that the lower level manager (who outranks them and actually works with me on a weekly basis) vouched hard for me. I told the lower level manager I’d appreciate her honesty every step of the way when I started working there, as I enjoy improving my weaknesses, and by the end she said I was just as good as people that had been there for much longer than me. 

The upper level manager must have literally never looked at the schedule and seen my amount of shifts with either supervisor (1 shift with one supervisor, 3 with the other. All months ago when I was quite new) despite needing to approve it on weekly basis (and approving it so late that it could be Friday and I wouldn’t know if I worked Monday) because she decided to side with the opinions of the supervisors. The supervisors who didn’t work with me. Okay, great.

Anyways, I wasn’t intending to write this review, but some good friends and coworkers who bore witness to the last few months convinced me I should, and so I did. I don’t like workplace drama, but that doesn’t mean I’m not good at it. 

Connected Coffee has good coworkers (not management) and good drinks, but it could work on everything else. I have this sneaking suspicion that if things continue as they are for Connected, their management will cause them to lose out on business down the line. If it doesn’t, good for them. If it does? They made their bed. They can lie in it.

I can't speak for all the locations but the one in particular that I worked for was horribly managed. The owner, (actually the wife of the owner who runs the place) has no idea, not even the slightest clue about how to run an establishment. The GM is great and will go out of her way to help out her staff, however the one other manager and the owner have no idea what's going on. No job security, constantly subjected to verbal abuse by some regulars and we are forced to put up with it, sexism, favouritism, etc. They always try to stiff your pay cheque, you will literally have no life outside of the pub because they work you like dogs. Do yourself a favour and work for any other place except for the Owl and Firkin.

Fun stuff to work with, generally quite organized, Definitely one of the better, if not the best firkin location in terms of location, staff, and food. The restaurant is slow outside of summer.

They do mass hires when they think they need staff and then lay off innocent people out of the blue for absurd reasons just because they don’t know how to run a business and time things out. They tell you what you want to hear but could care less. 

great pubs with a "like home" feeling
welcoming staff and overall pleasant environment for good laughs and great pub food
good drink and food specials and constantly changing with the seasons

Run unless you can pretend to be perfect and not share an opinion - work elsewhere

You are always reported back on and not necessarily in honesty, management is controlling

Fun work environment. Nice coworkers to work with and flexibility on the schedule. If you're getting into the hospitality industry as a profession, it is a nice place to learn .

Normal bar environment. Busy location so your able to make money but can be fast paced and stressful. If your not use to that or excel in that environment than good luck.

I'm capable to work with dynamic and motivated.  I cook international and European standards. 
I create Menu's according to my own style. 
I help all the departments in the kitchen and be one team as a family. 

It can be a fast pased work place, everyone knows thier place and we got the job done, the management are great down to earth. The staff are great. It is a very clean place to work, friendly inviroment. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Line cook/prep cook 6 salaries reported	$19.00 per hour
Manager 3 salaries reported	$51,667 per year

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