Assistant Manager

The team are amazing

Toxic management whereby you're made to feel guilty about taking the breaks you're legally entitled to because higher ups are continually cutting down staff hours. My coworkers were told a day before to not come in for their shift a day before because hours had been cut so they lost out on pay. Rotas aren't put out very far in advance or are irregular so occasionally you are caught short when trying to book time off. Cash tips aren't fairly distributed as when customers are given small refunds, some management will take from the tip jar rather than process a full refund. Additionally, I saw tips put into the charity pot rather than into the collective tip jar in the office. Overall, unsupportive and strangely competitive atmosphere. It sometimes feels as if management would rather see you do your job badly so that they can look better by comparison and are often quick to berate you for small mistakes that they may well make themselves from time to time.

Every day is different, our guests are amazing, I'm proud of our brand standards and high quality food/drinks

Stress, high workload, summertime heat, some colleagues

Some of the regulars are nice

Customers and some of the staff

Good environment

The fact i only get paid 20p more for being a team leader

The customers and job location.

Understaffed, very less time to approve the rota or change it the way we want to, not paid for breaks or not enough breaks, unaware of when will the shift be given,

GK benefits via the hapi app, ease of seeing schedules and booking time off via kingdom (though we do have WhatsApp groups too). Our team has good camaraderie, so generally it's a good interpersonal environment.
In terms of ease, you literally have specification books available at all times to follow. All training was provided, including a Level 2 in food safety. It can be challenging, but it's overall not bad.
Management are actually great. In the pubs I've worked in, not a single up-their-own jobsworth-type to be seen. Greene King seems to hire genuine people, and their diversity policy is great. They also enforce it well, a trainee was removed & blacklisted for going on a disgustingly aggressive & xenophobic rant about 'foreigners' - my manager is originally from Hungary and my colleague is originally from Bulgaria - directly to their face. Sometimes you find people like that, but we don't tolerate that behaviour here. I can truly say that my workplace feels like a safe space. My manager has supported me (and many others I presume) through difficult situations as she is trained to do. There is also a larger support network laid out in the company, with a directory of people you can freely contact to seek advice from, for things like mental health and so on.

Kitchen work is just stressful no matter where you go, especially in busy pubs. It just so happens I'm starting to realise this is not where I want my career to go. Also, with it being a chain pub, your role is basically a microwave specialist-cum-multitasking, dishwashing speed demon. Apparently, company policy says that one TM is enough for up to 15 orders in a 20 minute period. I didn't ask whether that is individual dishes or whole tickets. 20 minutes is enough for 20 portions of chips, but if you're ordering one of every item on the menu... No, one person won't be enough. Some days it's like that, you get a large volume unforeseen traffic 15 minutes before closing time after a very very quiet evening and your plan to leave on time is out the window. On time, if the rota is to be taken seriously, is 15 minutes after kitchen closes - though management is patient and understanding and I can't fault them at all. Thinking about it, this job is pretty good for benefits especially at this pay level.

Meet and greeting new people

When change the shifts at the last minute

The people at my work are very friendly and welcoming they helped me allot when training.

Our dishwasher broke but apparently we don’t have the money to fix it so me and another chef have to cook for over 80 people a day and do all the cleaning by ourselves without a dishwasher also the pay isn’t the best for the amount of work we are doing