Panera scheduling me way too much as a high school student
Hey everyone, I wanted to ask for some advice from people who’ve worked at Panera Bread before because I’m not really sure how to handle this. I’m a 16 year old junior in high school and I started working at Panera Bread around 3 months ago. At first it was fine and I liked having my own money, but lately my hours have been getting increased a lot and it’s starting to genuinely stress me out.
Recently I had a lot of AP exams, so I took a week off to study. Even during exam week, I was still going straight to work after finishing some of the tests. I come back from that one week off and suddenly I’m scheduled for 20+ hours, including back-to-back 8 hour shifts on Saturday and Sunday, which basically wipes out my entire weekend.
The thing that’s really frustrating is that I feel like I’ve already told my managers I can’t work this much, but it doesn’t seem like they’re listening. I think because summer is coming up they expect me to start working more but honestly I want the opposite. I want time to take classes, do volunteering, maybe an internship, and actually enjoy my summer before senior year starts.
Another thing that annoys me is the scheduling changes. I’ll check the app and see a 5 hour shift, then check again the day before and suddenly it became 8 hours. It makes it really hard to plan anything.
I’m thinking about asking for fixed availability/set days and trying to limit myself to around 10 hours a week. Has anyone else dealt with this at Panera? Did your managers actually respect reduced availability, or did you end up having to quit/find another job? I don’t mind working, I just don’t want my entire life to become school + Panera.