Cold Stone Creamery, Darren Mitchell Illegally avoided paying me for hours worked. Augusta Georgia

This is a complaint about Darren Mitchell, the owner of Cold Stone Creamery in Augusta, Ga. I worked for Cold Stone Creamery on 2 seperate occasions: July 2003 - February 2004, and July 2004 - December 2004.

When I started there the first time, if any money was assumed to be missing from the register (usually caused by someone hitting a sale key by accident and forgetting to adjust it), Darren would take the money out of the employees' checks and list it as an "adjustment". This went on for quite some time until one of the general managers finally brought in a lawyer. IT is completely illegal in the state of Georgia.

When I started working there for the 2nd time, I was given a key to the store right away and immediately began training to become an assistant manager and team leader. I was promised a raise as soon as I was "certified" in my training, which basically just means, as soon as Darren acknowleged that I had become proficient enough at it to run the store to Cold Stone Corporate standards. The entire 5 months I was back, Darren would not certify me, although I would close or open the store every shift, and had all the responsibilities of a manager. I had the key to the store and all the safe and alarm codes, but I'm still not qualified to be certified, and paid minimum wage? Bull.

I was paid higher when I worked there the first time with less responsibility. I was also told many times by the general manager at the time that I was a favored and trusted employee. The last time questions about the raise came up, Darren's response was "You're still listed as a trainee, why should I pay you more for doing your job?" I later realized he just would not certify me as an excuse to not pay me more. I also began to notice in my time back that I was not being paid for hours I worked. If I clocked out after my "scheduled" shift, I would have to write it down. I later found out these pieces of paper were often thrown away. For instance, I might be scheduled to leave at 11PM on a closing weekend shift, but closing always takes more than an hour, and Darren knows that, so anytime I worked after 11PM would not be paid to me.

I also began to notice that my time in the computer for total hours worked during the week would go down. According to the computer, I might have clocked in for 3 or 4 minutes one day when I know that I clearly worked a seven hour shift. When I addressed these concerns to the store managers, who in turn addressed them to Darren, nothing ever happened. I specifically reminded them for over a month about a day when I did not get paid for working an hour over, and to my knowledge I have still never been paid for that day. Darren would change the times in the computer, then have the general manager throw away the sheets of paper so that no one had any evidence against him.

The first time I worked there he and the other owner, who is no longer with him, used to buy cocaine from some of the employees, and I have noticed a tendancy to bring in outside people, especially the tenants from a house he rents out, who know nothing about the business, to be the general manager. I have seen this happen on 2 occassions. A lot of the people he brings in from outside to be managers also coincidentally or not tend to be cocaine and or methamphetamine users.

He fired an employee he'd had for 3 years, who was pretty much the acting general manager, to bring in an ex-meth addict who had never worked there before, the week before I quit. When I worked there the first time, Darren was in the army, and he was pretty big and buff, and now he is extremely thin and looks very messed up. Numerous other illegal things like the aforementioned go on all the time at that store. To beat firecode about having stuff on the top shelf, they hide stuff up in the ceiling, on top of the little tiles that lift up. Also, the store barely passed the last health inspection because of the new GM's ignorance, and it would take me all day to write down everything illegal Darren and that store do, so I'm going to end this here. DO NOT WORK FOR COLD STONE CREAMERY IN AUGUSTA, GA. You will be cheated out of your money at every chance Darren can get.

m
Augusta, Georgia
U.S.A.