Pros
My first semester there was great. The pay was great for an entry level position, and the chef I was working under was training me to eventually become a cook. I was treated with respect by the chef I worked under my first semester. Also, there were as many hours as I wanted. The pay rate I ended up with was amazing when combined with the overtime I was getting.
Cons
While working there, I was offered $500 salary to work 55 hours a week. I am more than capable of doing the math, and knew that I would only be making $8 an hour, and I could do better working at a McDonalds. Because I'd never been trained as a cook, I was offered a position at the company as a delivery driver at $9/hr with the potential to make $9.50 an hour after a two week probationary period, pending my chef's review of me. As a delivery driver, my job encompassed delivering food from production houses to delivery houses, doing dishes, taking out trash and setting up the salad bar. The chef I worked under, who was a regular employee just like me (not corporate), appreciated my work ethic and wanted to train me to do more. He also wanted me around alot more. After the first week, he asked if I wanted overtime. I told him I was hired on for 40 hours a week, and he told me that he would handle the blowback if there was any. I went from working 40 hours to working 70-80 hours a week, making more money than I'd seen in my life. I LOVED IT. But alas, all good things eventually come to an end. After my first semester with them, I got to enjoy a summer off, collecting unemployment while waiting for the summer break to be over. When I returned... it was shocking. Due to the company not providing on its promises, all of the fraternities and sororities on the top half of the campus ended their contracts. Of the four on the bottom half? Only two returned. Day one, I show up at 0600 and there's no chef. I get started doing my duties as a delivery driver, and I realize that there's not going to be a chef. I'm not the kind of employee that is willing to stand around and collect money for doing nothing, and I had no contact number for corporate to ask for help, so I did the best I could: I cooked all three meals that day. It's important to note that at that time, I had no formal training as a cook, and I was having to do the job of two people. My training becomes an issue later, but we'll address it later. At the end of the day, the regional chef, Ashleigh, calls to ask how the day went. I explained that no chef had shown up, and I did my best to cook for the clients. He told me that he wasn't aware I could cook. This conversation ends with me basically having to cook on my own over the next few weeks with Ashleigh driving in occasionally to cook for a day or two. Now, if cooking was my only added duty, I might have been able to keep going, but it wasn't. The students we worked for were absolute slobs. Frequently I'd show up to work and have to clean up literally HUNDREDS of beer cans off of the dining room floor from a party the night before. They would also break into the kitchen and steal food from our fridge that was for the two houses on our contract, not just theirs. They would trash the kitchen in the process, so I'd have to clean this. And still have breakfast out in time, or I'd be getting a call from corporate asking why I was late. I was not really supported by corporate here, basically being told to get things cleaned up and have my food out in time, despite the cleaning not being part of the contract. Now to the training bit. The contract stated that the house was to have a chef cooking for them. I was instructed by corporate to tell the students that I was a chef. I was not willing to do so. As such there was much discord created between myself, the company and the students. I was doing the best I could, but I was verbally attacked alot by the students for not being what the company offered, despite several attempts to explain that I wasn't hired as a cook, and it was supposed to be a temporary thing until a chef could be placed. That chef never came. I ended up leaving the company because of an issue with one of the students at the fraternity, and I don't blame Upper Crust for it, but my time there was so great until it was sullied by them not coming through with their most basic of requirements to run a food catering service: Have a chef there to cook the food... and not just someone with the training of a home cook.