Let’s get this out of the way: I am proud to be the owner of a San Francisco small business. I generally like going to work, I think the counselors at Pet Camp are amazing, I am blessed with a management team that lets me take time off and allows me to be creative with new profit centers, and I like our clients (dogs and cats always, pet parents probably 90% of the time). But none of this negates the fact that running a small business in San Francisco is hard.
You could blame the government (federal, state, and local) for this hardship. Frankly, they are the cause of some of it. There are an unbelievable number of rules, regulations, paperwork, taxes, fees (which the government says are different from taxes), and bureaucratic mazes. But blaming just the government doesn’t look far enough back on the blame chain. The real reason running a small 
I have 4 kids in their early 20s. One of the rules in our house is: if you are off from school for the summer, you either get a job or work for me. As you might have guessed, most summers they all got jobs elsewhere. My youngest son is the only one still subject to this rule and this summer he got a job at a shoe store in Hayes Valley (a trendy neighborhood in San Francisco). Watching the way they have treated him this summer makes me think that maybe we (San Francisco small businesses) are our own worst enemies when it comes to government rules and regulations.
Here’s what they have done:
- They hired him to work full time over the summer and then reduced his hours to 2 days a week plus “pop-ups” (that have yet to be scheduled) and then were “surprised” when he picked up a second job to get more hours.
- They have sent him a “contract” to classify him as an independent contractor and not an employee even though he in no way qualifies as such.
- He has worked 5 weeks and still has not been paid (he tells me that he has finally gotten paid via Venmo).
- They have scheduled him to open and close the store (a 7-hour shift) but have not provided him with either the required 10-minute paid break or 30-minute uninterrupted unpaid lunch break to which he is legally entitled. Because he has yet to be paid, it is unclear if his pay will include meal and break violation payments (they didn’t).
- They have scheduled him to open and close the store but seem to be requiring him to work unpaid the time needed to actually open and close the store (probably about 10 minutes on either side).
- They do not have ANY of the legally required employment notification posted anywhere in the workplace.
As a father I find this behavior unbelievable and as a San Francisco small business owner I am beyond frustrated. I completely appreciate that being 100% compliant with the plethora of rules and regulations is impossible; no matter how much you try and dot every “I” and cross every “T “you are bound to screw up somewhere. But not being able to be 100% compliant is no excuse for blatantly bad behavior and blatantly bad behavior leads to a government response in the form of more rules and regulations.
My son has asked me not to do anything about this situation. He doesn’t know about this blog. But as a kid who grew up at the table of small business owners, he does know a bit about labor law and how to reach the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards Enforcement.
Thanks for reading and for letting me vent.