From Yaamava' Resort & Casino at San Manuel Bartender(Past Employee - 2,021)‐ Rating 3 out of 5 — Fri, 11 Mar 2022
Pros
EMPLOYEE PERKS:
• One hour, paid lunch break. Employee dining room offered fresh, homemade food that alternated daily and was priced very affordably. They would often give away free pizza or similar items on days where there were special promotions or events. You also have the option to deduct your purchase from your paycheck, which came in hand very often.
• Ability to transfer departments, with many of the department offering valuable training for free
• Benefits, union, employee discount when you visited as a guest, employee appreciation day, etc.
• A great sense of camaraderie amongst employees, many of them beginning to feel like family after a while of working there.
Cons
WORK ENVIRONMENT:
The environment is a breeding ground for childish drama, gossip and foolishness, due mainly to the types of employees that they hire because of their extremely high turnover. A lot of the employees are very young, possibly fresh from high school or college, with no real life experience who view their job as their social circle. This leads to mounds of unnecessary drama infecting the work environment. I personally chose to resign once I had gotten wind of a rumor involving myself and another employee. With 10 years in the industry, it was not necessary for me to stay in such a toxic environment, where those kind of slanderous rumors are even being perpetuated. And that’s just one of the many things that you may find yourself dealing with, the longer you stick around.
ATTENDANCE:
As many other reviewer’s have mentioned, they have a point system. Being allotted only 12 points a year means you can easily find yourself on the brink of termination within the span of months, especially if you have an emergency that will keep you out of work for several days at a time. My advice to new employees is to immediately notify HR that you need to put on a leave, so that you do not rack up several points very quickly.
MANAGEMENT:
Like many large organizations, Management was often highly unprofessional, unskilled and unqualified to head their team. Upper management was of no real help. Meanwhile, the floor managers let the little bit of authority and power that they do have go to their heads, and acted like correctional officers and prison wardens. And if there were managers who were interested in implementing improvements, the things that would be proposed in employee meetings would essentially never come to fruition. Management from different backgrounds than the department they were hired into often led to a lot of unprofessionalism. Many managers would be described by employees as passive aggressive, goofy, clueless, militant or empty promise makers. There also was a huge issue with favoritism and work place politics.
DIVERSITY:
Though you may find yourself working amongst people from all walks of life, there does seem to be a huge sense of hostility towards certain employees. In my venue, a trans employee felt as though they had to resign because they were being targeted and harassed by one of our general managers. A gay coworker of mine also expressed the same sentiment. There are a lot of microgressions and an overall ignorance aimed towards Black employees. I reported a very ignorant and racist remark to a top level manager made by a Hispanic supervisor regarding a black employee’s hair, on behalf of the employee who was not comfortable coming forward. She was not comfortable coming for in fear of retaliation. There was no follow up to investigate, despite giving in depth details of the situation and the employees name. I also had to make a report due to a Caucasian coworker describing protesters as “those people” in the lunch room, while sitting amongst many other of his coworkers who all happen to be minorities. If you choose to work here as a person of color, a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, etc. PLEASE be prepared to be on edge, all the time.
CLIENTELE:
Despite being a tourist attraction and bringing in very nice assortment of guest from all around the world, the locals and regulars who frequent this establishment can be described as wound up, irate, trashy and ignorant. As a bartender, you see people from all different backgrounds but never have I tended bar in an environment with so many addicts, ornery and manic individuals. My venue suffered several walkouts and department transfers from many tenured employees who were tired of being berated by guests and not being backed up by management. The casino’s environment of loud noises, music, flashing lights and adrenaline pumping through the air, coupled with the frustration guests would feel when they lose money, led to a lot of random and emotionally immature blowups by guests, usually having to be de-escalated by floor managers or the casinos police department. Many guests would make you feel uncomfortable with inappropriate advances, comments and remarks. And worst of all, they tipped horribly or not at all.
Advice to Senior Management
Clean house before you guys catch a lawsuit.