I don't work for pizza!

[Worker-Intellectual]

Imagine your store had a lot of Christmas decorations to set up. They could pay someone to do it on company time, but they are too cheap to pay someone minimum wage to do it. What do they do?

Christmas decorating, 6:00 Sunday. Pizza will be served to anyone who helps out.

The sad thing is most of the store showed up, even people who weren't working that day.

And they wondered why I didn't come... yeah, after working 6 hours on a Sunday, I am not hanging around for another minute. Maybe if I got paid in cash like I usually do when I work, maybe.

I didn't know it was legal to pay employees in food instead of money...

[JustAGirl]

I guess as long as they ONLY do decorations pizza would be ok. the moment they'd want me to do anything else though I'd hop on the clock and they'd have to pay me for the time there.

I wouldn't do it though.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Did this happen after close?

If so, I might go for that if it were done at my store. As long as I can show up in street clothes and don't have to do anything except put up decorations.

Also, by "decorating" do you mean putting up decorations in the break room, or putting them out on the floor?

[Worker-Intellectual]

Also, by "decorating" do you mean putting up decorations in the break room, or putting them out on the floor?

On the floor... I'll have to see what they did tomorrow

[Lehk]

i don't know about the UK, but i am quite sure even asking people to show up off the clock, even for decorating, is illegal here in the US.

[BrassCowboy]

yeah - i would never do that either. Imagine if you fell off a ladder whilst decorating. I mean, what could you do? I can only imagine the convo with the lawyer.

"Well I came in on my day off to decorate because they said they would pay me in pizza!"

Lawyer:

[Greenday]

I doubt this would be illegal. If anything, it's completely voluntary. That's like asking a friend to help you put up and decorate a Christmas tree or something and being forced to pay them.

[digilight]

I don't see anything wrong with this under the right circumstances. If it is a good shop with a good management and staff then it could be a good team/moral building exercise. If the staff is given free range (within reason) for decorating it would give them a sense of ownership and pride in what they've done (and make it even more painful when SC's F**k it all up.

On the otherhand I could see a lot of management using this as a cheap way to save on payroll and trick staff into thinking they are getting a free party and sneaking in some actuall work. Oh yeah lets put santa's sleigh where the half ton lead weight display currently is, We need you to first move all that stock into the back room and to stack it ontop of a crate of light bulbs. *Cut to staff teaming up and turning the manager into the angel at the top of the tree, hmmm yeah, thats a good place to put the christmas tree's, do you think we can fit anymore.*

[CaroPhoenix]

The Social Committee at the Library puts up the Christmas decorations and they have food/sodas/desserts/etc. as an incentive to help out. This is the County Library - they have no money - tax payers and all are stingy when it comes to decorating I guess. (*tongue in cheek*) As someone else said, this is voluntary, it's not like they said "If you don't show up, you'll be fired ASAP".

[Spiffy McMoron]

The owner of my old store did that one year-asked for volunteers, bought some pizza and beer, and we were allowed smoke on the floor (Some of us bought cigars for this very reason) and we were allowed to put on some of our music on the store speakers. Being a hungry student, I would not turn down a free meal-especially pizza. It was a great time, I got to know my co-workers better, and the store looked fantastic!

The next year, we had a similar deal, except we were paid, but we were actually putting out stock and setting up the plan-o-grams for the Christmas sections. I was washing glitter off of my face for a week...

Incidently, it was for the same company that you work for, IHCT, so maybe they are asked to try the "carrot" before bringing out the "stick".

[digilight]

I was washing glitter off of my face for a week...

For some reason this makes me think of Beavis and Buttthead

****GLITTER WAR****

[MystyGlyttyr]

Up here at the paper, we compete between departments (Editorial, where I am, Classifieds, Circulation, Retail Advertising, Business, and Ad Comp). Almost always, it comes down to Editorial and Circulation in a Simpsons-esque battle for one-upsmanship. We have resorted to dressing our 6'7" reporter as Santa and our "little person" reporter as his elf, not to mention having no less than SEVEN Christmas trees and over 100 hand-cut paper snowflakes hanging off the ceiling in the newsroom to try and win the thing. Don't even get me started on how much time I spent sitting in the floor untangling what had to be a mile of Christmas lights.

So, we usually pick a weekend which is when most of them aren't working, and a bunch of us show up to decorate anything that holds still long enough. We're motivated by pure competitive spirit/vengefulness/pride. Last year Classifieds won and we do believe we were robbed (ROBBED!), so I imagine this year we will stop just short of creating real snow in the room.

[Zombi]

*Cut to staff teaming up and turning the manager into the angel at the top of the tree, hmmm yeah, thats a good place to put the christmas tree's, do you think we can fit anymore.*

Because we all know the story of how the angel ended up on top of the tree, don't we, kids?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Because we all know the story of how the angel ended up on top of the tree, don't we, kids?

I sure do!

Involves Santa being really cranky and an angel asking what he should do with his Christmas tree.

[TNT]

Decorating employee-only areas is one thing... but decorating the store seems like company business to me and should be paid in money -- along with the pizza. Otherwise, the company could dream up all sorts of "events" for volunteers -- Spring Cleaning Day, etc.