By Stephanie Vi, staff writer
During the pandemic, I worked at Lee’s Sandwiches as a sandwich maker in a Vietnamese sandwich store. Before the Pandemic, I worked at Kee Wah Bakery as a food retailer at a bakery. Though both in the food industry, the pandemic has made the jobs so much different. Working during a pandemic has been rough in my experience.
When it came to the ambiance of work, they were both very different. Kee Wah was quiet, chill, and easy-going while Lee’s Sandwiches was chaotic, loud, and messy. Kee Wah could get really busy and very time-consuming, but people talked to each other with an indoor voice out of respect. At Lee’s people yelled over each other, and yelled even louder when it got busy. I have very bad social anxiety and I don’t cope well with loud noises so it made working at Lee’s really stressful. But because you’re wearing a mask during a pandemic, the masks make your voice really muffled so yelling over each other could be getting other workers to hear you.
The workers of both jobs were very different, from co-workers to managers. At Kee Wah, the manager was kind enough to raise my pay from $13 an hour to $16 an hour seeing how hard I worked. I got to make my own food and bring tons of food home and my co-workers cared enough about one another that I became close with them and still am friends with them ‘till this day. Lee’s, on the other hand, gave me the minimum wage of $13 an hour and didn’t raise it at all, despite how hard I worked. I worked way harder at Lee’s than I did at Kee Wah but the manager brushed it off with ‘that’s the bare minimum’. I cut my fingers and hand multiple times as well as overworked myself 8 hours a day and when I did hurt myself none of the workers helped me to get a bandaid so I had to buy them myself. I came home that day and almost had to go to the ER because of how much blood I lost. I think this is because businesses are struggling during a pandemic and can’t afford to give people raises as well as people get really stressed during a pandemic and only can focus on themselves.
Another difference in these jobs were the tips. At Kee Wah, they distribute the tip evenly amongst every worker including the bakers. From the credit card tip to the money tip. But at Lee’s we didn’t get any tips. Since it was a pandemic, people were not allowed to pay cash since we didn’t want any germs spreading, so the only way to pay was with a card. When tipping with a card, people tend not to pay tips, so the most tips we’d get in a day was $10, but even then, the manager would take the tips to pay bills for the restaurant. I’m pretty sure it was illegal but it’s fine. I’d say this was because again, they were struggling as a business because of the pandemic so I completely understand.
The type of work I did was very different too even though both were food retailers. I understand that they’re different restaurants so they have different expectations but that’s why restaurants tell you what you’re in for before you think about joining the job. At the bakery, before I was hired, they told me I’d be helping make bread and drinks, packaging bread and drinks, clean and sanitize, organize, be a cashier, do cake orders and cater to customers, as well as do the closing shift. Which is exactly what I did and signed up for. But at Lee’s, they told me I’d only be making sandwiches and packaging them. Though, when I got there, I did many other things such as, become a cashier, make boba and drinks, refilled supplies, run out of the restaurant to buy supplies, cleaned and did closing (they told me the other workers would’ve done closing), as well as cooked food for other menu items. It was all so frustrating so I voiced my concerns with my manager and she told me she’s short on staff so I just had to help around more. So the reason for this was because finding workers during a pandemic was hard so they tricked workers. In all honesty, it would’ve been fine with me if they told me what I would’ve been actually doing.
