For a reputable bakery owned by the winner of Masterchef, you would think that this company would hold themselves up to a standard of professionalism. But during my entire time working here, I never once met any of the management team. Instead, they communicated with me only through Whatsapp, and they would watch me during my shift through the CCTV and then text me telling me that what I was doing in that exact moment was incorrect. This made me very uncomfortable and it was slightly creepy knowing that I was being surveillanced by people I had never even met.
They also totally disregard the wellbeing of their employees, which is made very apparent to us right from the get go. The amount the staff is actually paid is nowhere near worth the amount of work that goes into running the store, as for the majority of the time, only one staff is scheduled to work the entire day. When I had voiced my concerns about the need for possibly more staff or at least split shifts, management responded by saying that it was not possible due to their "low sales", and they could not afford to have more staff working there. Then I find out a few weeks later that they were in the middle of expanding their locations and that they were opening one in Richmond Hill. And so their inability to hire additional staff was not due to "low sales", but because they were trying to cut down on labor costs so that they could open this new location.
Despite there only being one person to work on most of the days, the staff are not given tips. During the period that I worked there, they brought back the option for customers to tip for like 4 days. But they quickly took it away and I was never even given the tips that I had earned.
They also try to juggle you to work in the Scarborough location for "training" even though their store is completely different than the one in Kensington Market. I had been working at Daan Go for close to two months, opening and closing the shop by myself everyday, and they suddenly decide that I needed more training and that I would need to go to Scarborough for that. I feel like they do this because the managers are too lazy to come and train us downtown.
They also took away my shifts for like two weeks without giving me a reason. And I had to find out from another coworker that he/she overheard management saying that they didn't really like me. But nothing was ever communicated to me directly, and I would have appreciated the opportunity to improve. But because they never told me what I was lacking, I did not know how to. I also felt a little disrespected knowing that things were said about me within the management team behind my back, without them trying to talk to me about it first.
And after two weeks of not really being scheduled, I had assumed that they were going to fire me. But all of a sudden, they come back asking if I was willing to work 40 hours a week. I had said yes because finding a job during the pandemic was very difficult. But when I had come back after not working for a while, the entire store had changed. My first shift back was, of course, another entire day where I was to work alone. But while I was away, they had completely changed the POS system, everything in the store was moved so I couldn't find anything, and they also had two new cakes on promotion and was given only a picture and barely any instructions to try and recreate them. I am by no means a pastry chef, and I had to blindly try to recreate cakes that were selling at 50-60$ each. I felt bad that customers were paying so much money for cakes that I had to try and wing, and it was also a very stressful situation as I had to try and figure out all the new changes while needing to complete all of my other duties.
They put in their job postings that working at Daan Go means an opportunity for growth, but anytime an employee voices their concerns and tries to stand up for themselves, they are almost immediately viewed as incompetent and are let go. It is also very stressful and lonely to go to work where you are going to be the only one there, and when any minor mistakes happen, there is no-one to fall back on to support you during these situations. But management still views this as incompetence without any grace in being able to understand the fact that we are working alone most of the time, in a highly popular store.
I really hope Daan Go can find better management, and that they start to value their employees as much as they value the products that the sell. Many of the employees are young and are just trying to make ends meet, and it would be of a financial interest to invest in their employees because that would translate into the quality of service the customers receive.
