My experience working at Hong Kong Express in Knottingley – staff treatment and food-handling practices I personally witnessed
I recently finished working at Hong Kong Express in Knottingley. Since leaving, I have been thinking about whether I should share my experience.
I want to be careful and clear: I am only describing things that I personally experienced, witnessed or heard while working there. I am not asking anyone to harass the business or its owner. People can make their own judgement.
How I was spoken to at work
For some time, I felt uncomfortable with the way the owner spoke to me.
He told me that I had a bad memory and said that I was basically “only suited to studying”.
On my final day, one of our delivery drivers accidentally called the restaurant landline. I answered, but there was no sound from the other end.
Drivers normally call after finishing a delivery, so at first I assumed he had finished and told the owner. The owner questioned how he could possibly have finished so quickly.
I then texted the driver directly. He replied and told me that he had simply called the restaurant accidentally.
I passed this information on to the owner. Instead of leaving it there, he continued questioning me:
How could the driver call accidentally?
How would he know the restaurant’s landline number?
How could he search for the number while driving?
The restaurant’s phone number is publicly available online, and the driver is also related to someone who previously worked as a driver there. But more importantly, I had already contacted the driver directly and told the owner what the driver himself had said.
After this discussion, the owner told me that my attitude was very bad.
I accept that my first assumption about the phone call was wrong. What bothered me was that after I had checked with the driver and clarified what had actually happened, I still felt that I was being repeatedly challenged over something that had already been explained.
Food handling that concerned me
There were also food-handling practices that made me uncomfortable.
I regularly saw approximately six portions of egg fried rice prepared together in advance and then kept in a rice cooker for later orders.
I am not claiming that batch-cooking rice is automatically unsafe. I am simply describing how I personally saw it being prepared.
What concerned me much more was the handling of the salt-and-pepper seasoning.
I personally witnessed the owner mixing the seasoning with his bare hand.
More concerningly, I saw him put a finger into the seasoning to taste it, put that finger into his mouth, and then continue putting the same hand/finger back into the seasoning and mixing it without washing his hand first.
That personally made me extremely uncomfortable from a hygiene point of view.
Other comments at work
There were also conversations that I found inappropriate in the workplace.
While female staff were present, the owner spent a considerable amount of time talking about a news story which he described as being about a Japanese man who had supposedly slept with around 4,000 people over ten years.
I am not saying that this story itself was true — I have no idea. My point is that this was the sexual topic he chose to discuss at length in front of female staff, which I personally found uncomfortable and inappropriate for a workplace.
I also personally heard him refer to foreigners using the Cantonese term “gweilo” (鬼佬) while the business itself serves and earns money from many non-Chinese customers.
I found that uncomfortable as well.
Why I am posting
I am posting this because this was my personal experience working there.
Some people may think some of these things are minor or normal. Others may not. I would rather describe exactly what I experienced and allow people to decide for themselves.
For anyone who has worked in UK takeaways or restaurants: would you consider these workplace and food-handling practices normal, or would they concern you too?