After me and my coworker BOTH getting fired unfairly from a Tim Hortons store, this is a copy of the email I send to the corporate head office. I have gotten no response so far from them or my boss..
Hello.
My name is Belinda Blake.
Me and Ronald Massier were both fired unfairly from store #1436.
I have been employed there since February, and Ronald has been there for almost 4 years!
We have had alot of trouble with that store, especially when it was run under Michel Masse. We had managers who started the cash with negative amounts of money, and then told us to pay them. I had coworkers who verbally abused me, that the boss did nothing about. Ronald even had coworkers who PHYSICALLY abused him, and the boss never seemed to care.
Me and Ronald worked the Night Shift, the shift that no one wanted, because in downtown Montreal, there are ALOT of crazy people. We had customers scream at us, and throw things at us, call us names, threaten to kill us, even hit us... yet still we stayed and did our job because we loved and enjoyed working for Tim Hortons.
After Michel went bankrupt, TDL took over the store until the new owners came. Phillip Adans was our store manager, and everything was great under his run. Phillip was a great boss, everything was going well, we had no trouble at all.. and he settled whatever was wrong.
We were then doing things by the laws of Tim Hortons (ex: throwing coffee out every 20 minutes, so it is 'always fresh', and taking the temperatures of products, and actually watching all of the employee training videos (we are both at 100%!))
But then Phillip gave us the news that the store had been bought by Richard Espinos and Alexandra Daas. We never wanted Phillip to leave, but we knew he had to go and we hoped that everything would go as well with the new bosses as they were running at that moment with Phillip.
We were wrong.
Everything in the store fell apart, and the bosses did not care about anything. All they wanted was the profits. They told us to keep the coffee for hours, erasing the time on the coffee pots, and then when you see them changing colors, to put them into the ice coffee... including the decaf coffee!
The store manager, Andrei Odorico yelled at me one morning and told me to 'shut up, and stop wasting money' because I said that I did not find it right to serve customers Ice coffee that was decaffeinated, so I poured the decaf coffee in the sink.
Andrei also yelled at me another time because I asked him a question as to why he handled something in the manner that he did. He yelled (infront of customers and coworkers) "why don't you just mind your own business and stop telling me how to do my job Belinda? " to which I replied "I just asked you a question" and he walked away without answering.
Thinking from a manager's perspective, if an employee asked me a question I would answer them, that way they can learn from what I did.
Yet because he was giving free bottles of water away to homeless people who were harassing all the customers and who threatened to kill us, he did not want to justify why.
Also, the new bosses told us to forget about taking the temperatures, they don't care if anyone watched the training videos, and they don't want to cross-train anyone at all. None of the employees help anyone else, and none of them do their jobs properly.
We, as the oldest employees left (after everyone else quit because they were fed up of Andrei's attitude) (I have proof of this through emails) were told that we would be made Night Shift supervisors.
We were the hardest working employees in that store. We did everyones job, and every single day we told the bosses that the 3-11 shift don't do nothing and that we had to do all their work.. and every day the bosses told us they were 'busy' or that they 'had a meeting to go to' and that they'd 'look into it'.. yet never did.
Coming in at 11pm every single day, the store was a mess. I have pictures I took of garbages outside OVERFLOWING to the point where people were just throwing their trash on the ground. They never in their whole shift passed a cloth on the counter. Hard ice cap mix was stuck to the counter and spinners, the French vanilla/hot chocolate machine was FILTHY and had never been cleaned, and EVERYTHING was empty!
I had to spend the first 15-20 minutes of my shift refilling things so that I could serve customers, meanwhile leaving my coworker in a rush by himself (we were only 2 employees at night so the boss could save money).
There was no coffee, no sugar, no French vanilla, no hot chocolate, no box with bags of coffee, no cream, no milk, no creamers, no milkers, no filters, the sandwich fridge was completely empty, no straws, no stir sticks, no cups, no covers, no napkins, no filters, no smoothtim or ice Capp mix in the machines... no nothing.
So we refilled everything every single day, and spoke to the bosses every single morning, even though they didn't care. I even made them lists as to what was empty, which they took and hung on the wall in their office, but it never went further then that. We were left with unworkable conditions, yet every day we did everyone else's job.. as well as ours.
We would even find English muffins, breakfast biscuits, and hash browns still sitting on the counter when breakfast finishes at 11 am. Yet WE would throw them out and wash the trays when we came in at 11 pm! No one in 2 whole shifts could have done that! And in the other shifts they were alot more employees then just 2!
So we kept on doing everyone else's job, every single day. Meanwhile the bosses would yell at us in the morning that the bathrooms were 'filthy' (after sweeping up 3 pieces of toilet paper and spraying air freshener she said that they were 'perfect! '), and telling us to go and clean the windows outside of the store, and yelling at us for dumping coffee in the sink after the 20 minutes were up.
They would ask us how our night was and when we started talking they would say 'oh, that's nice. I'll see you later.." and cut us off.
Then we started seeing someone from the 3-11 shift and 2 from the 7-11 shift become green shirts. They had promised US we would be shift supervisors.. and we were the ones doing everyone else's job, yet they were promoting other people instead and leaving us to do all of the work in the whole entire store.. while everyone else got the credit and promotions?
It was unfair.
So we spoke with them again and they ignored us and said they had to go.
My coworker told the store manager that he'd see what would happen if everything was empty again because he was fed up of doing the work other people got the credit for (Ronald has been there for almost 4 years and everyone he trained became managers and he was overlooked every single time for a promotion because 'of his race'.. which were Michel Masse's words exactly).
So the next night we started our shift. The 3-11 supervisor (Usman) was in the back, there were only 2 employees on the floor.. and one (Marie) asked Usman to help, because there was a HUGE crowd! Usman said "who cares? In 2 minutes it's Belinda and Ronald's problem.. just leave the customers there for them". Everything was empty, the store was a mess, the bathrooms were a mess, everything was filthy, and the garbages were overflowing.
I was VERY angry, yet still started my shift anyway. Ronald, on the other hand, came with all his stuff and told me he was leaving. He was fed up of doing everyones work and he was leaving the store. I said "you can't leave me alone" and he said "then come! "
Back when the owner was Michel Masse, my coworker walked out one night and I was left to work COMPLETLY alone. As a young woman, I did not feel safe and was worried the whole night about my safety, yet I worked anyway.
This time I was NOT going to serve all the crowd of people (that the 3-11 shift had left for us!) so I took my stuff and followed Ronald to tell him to call Andrei (store manager) so we could get the situation settled.
Ronald told him that the store was in "unworkable conditions". And that every single day we did everyone else's job while everyone else got the credit. Andrei asked if we would go back that night and Ronald said "if they clean and fill everything that they were suppose to, then yes! " and Andrei said "I understand. I'll call you in about an hour and let you know". So me and Ronald sat for 3 hours outside and Andrei NEVER called. Finally, we both went home and the next night I was leaving for work when Ronald called me and told me that another employee had heard the news that we both had "quit".
I texted Andrei (because he would NEVER answer the phone, you could only text him!) and asked him why he told people that. He wrote back "bring back your uniform". I said "I never quit! You never called us back and we waited there! " he said "you walked out on your shift, so you quit". I walked out to bring Ronald back and because I didnt want to work alone again, like I had to once before. I was afraid for my safety.. and customers would be angry and would be yelling at me because the service would be slower then usual.
So I asked for my bosses number, and he said that they "didn't want to speak to us" and I called the next morning and Andrei answered the store phone and said they STILL didn't want to talk to us. So I emailed them the truth, that I DID NOT quit.. and said that it was unfair to fire me or assume that I had quit when no one ever even spoke to ME.. they spoke with Ronald.
And Andrei as a store manager asked if we would come back, Ronald said in an hour, Andrei said he would call us, and then he never did! He can't make it seem like we CAN come back in an hour, and then say that we "quit" because we walked off our shifts! We wanted to come back. We wanted to work. But we really wanted safe and workable conditions!
We don't have a union at Tim Hortons, so it's every employee for himself. Unions plan walk outs and strikes all of the time. The one time my coworker walks out because he is fed up, and the one time I follow because I'm afraid for my safety, we get fired, even after the store manager said we could come back and that he'd call us?
I find this very unprofessional and unethical.
I finally DID get to speak to my boss the next morning, and I told her everything. I told her I was afraid for my safety. I told her it was unworkable conditions. I told her what Andrei did. She didn't care. She told me I was "no longer employed there". She also told me that crying on the phone (I was VERY upset!) would not make her take me back.
I was devastated.
And now I lost the job that I loved the most. I was proud to work for such a great company. I have no friends in my life, other then the coworkers and conversations I had with the customers.
Now I have absolutely nothing.
I have no money and am trying desperatly to get by. I have no friends. I have no more confidence. I have nothing.
And why? Because I was afraid for my safety and left that day and then was lied to by the store manager that we could come back and then he told everyone that we quit when he fired us.
This is extremely unfair and I want everyone to know the truth.
I want my job back.
I very much enjoyed working for this company and I really want to continue working for you and to make Tim Hortons a long term career.
Even after all of the emotional, verbal, and mental trauma we suffered, we would still like to return to work.
Thank you.
Belinda Blake
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