Not as up to standard as it claims to be - Crew Member Chipotle Employee Review

1.0
20 Aug 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Starts above minimum wage, "ethical" farming practices, flexible scheduling, free food during your shifts

Cons

Working as a crew member, I was taught to make salsas. Managers would constantly drive into my head that I needed to have high standards such as if the rice's cilantro looked brown, toss it out, or if the guacamole looked brown, scrape it off or toss it out. Prep and even managers confused me every day and would constantly tell me to half recipes and even at one point, quarter recipes, forcing me to skimp on cilantro and jalapeños, due to their inabilities to manage their time, so instead of cutting more jalapeños or cilantro, they would have me cut the recipes down severely in key ingredients to prevent themselves from doing more work. I don't believe that cutting down on key ingredients is "high standards" and felt like the managers were constantly picking and choosing which parts of the restaurant had high standards and which ones didn't matter, which was hypocritical. One specific manager even got angry at me for halving the recipe, saying that I was using too much and to cut down what I was using in half again. I felt like she was being hostile and I felt that I could not do my job the way I was taught to because she was angry and frustrated with me for doing what I was supposed to. One Yelp review of our Chipotle restaurant even noted that our salsas were not spicy anymore, indicating that YES, someone actually noticed that we were skimping out on jalapeños. Managers are never wearing hats in the back when they prep food. I have pulled out numerous hairs out of foods due to the fact that none of them wear hats when in the back. Once again, a customer pulled me to the side mentioning this, so someone did notice people walking around in the back without any sort of hair restraint beside a loose pony tail/bun. Chipotle also prides themselves, saying that crew members decide who gets hired, fired, promoted. This is such a far fetched concept, as there would be times I would come into work and there would be someone new there, already hired, whom I had never met before. Or someone who would be on the schedule, not show up, and it turns out they had been fired, and I had never been aware of it. There have been numerous incidents where crew members were promoted, yet have had customer complaints on Yelp or even in person due to their bad attitudes. I personally have experienced negative attitudes toward me due to the person being in a bad mood and looking just for others to take out their frustrations out on, all while in front of customers. I felt that I was in a cult-like environment while I was working here, as there were definitions we had to memorize and were asked numerous times a day what the Chipotle definition of certain things were and if you were not up to speed on definitions, you would be written up. I find that this was an extremely useless way of promoting good work ethic, team work, and overall good top performing employees, due to the fact that workers who had attitude problems or over all had a feeling of superiority over others, knew the definitions and were never written up for their attitudes, yet workers who were not up to speed with the definitions yet provided excellent customer service and finished all their work on time would quickly be written up for not knowing a definition word for word. While I worked at Chipotle, I also experienced complete unprofessionalism from the managers. There was always loud music, including profanity, playing in the back and no one cared how loud it was even though customers could hear it even in the front of the restaurant. Managers and favored crew members, hiding behind corners and stacks of boxes in order to scare other employees, causing their screams to be heard everywhere in the restaurant during store hours. In just the 3 months that I had been there, 2 managers and 1 crew member were fired, as well as more than 6 others quit and after asking why they left, I more than once heard that their new places of employment provided a better working environment and they were much happier not being at Chipotle anymore. Many of my coworkers, including myself, have had to get 2nd jobs due to Chipotle not giving out enough hours which is frustrating because in the 3 months I worked there, I had been called to come in over 10 times due to someone not showing up, they were under staffed, etc. Then when I declined because I had to either work at my 2nd job or I had plans, they would be clearly upset by not even bothering to text back with an "Okay, thanks anyway" or anything. They would just ignore me. I felt like this work environment was hostile, unfriendly, and very unpleasant. I quickly put my 2 weeks in and will gladly be working for another company now.

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Pros

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Cons

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Pros

Learning and growing to cultivate your own career path into a competent General Manager. The hours are longer than regular but the position is labeled as salary hourly with a minimum of 50 hours per week which guarantees 10 hours if overtime per week.

Cons

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