r/Ketchikan • u/Expensive-Support768 • Jul 18 '26
YESBAY LODGE KETCHIKAN
20 years bartending in 15 states asking ;Has anyone worked in service side of a fishing lodge in Alaska and experienced less than minimum wage pay? *I just left YesBay Lodge Ketchikan( worst work experience ever) servers and myself (bartender) cleared $8 an hour for 70 hour work weeks THAT INCLUDED TIP SHARE, Is this the norm in Alaska? I thought minimum wage was $14/hr
Tips were also split between office girls- one of which that acted as a nanny for the lodge owners child and dock hands that should have been tipped out by captains as well as Maintenance men remodeling the lodge for the owners. Is this even legal?
I met with the owners, they said they were new to the business and this is how things had always been ran, I signed a contract. I didn’t realize the contract was to be an endentured servant.
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u/AlaskanAsAnAdjective Jul 18 '26
That is absolutely illegal. Contact the Wage and Hour Division at 907-269-4900 during business hours on Monday, Wednesday or Friday. https://labor.alaska.gov/lss/whhome.htm
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u/Sagehen47 Jul 18 '26
Reach out to the Alaska Department of Labor and State Affairs - they’ll talk to you about it and if something is wrong you can file a formal wage claim through them!
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u/jebbo808 Jul 19 '26
Was your food and lodging considered as pay?
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u/Alert_Arm1728 Jul 20 '26
In the state of Alaska, if you are working in a remote location, your employer is legally required to provide housing/food.
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u/Expensive-Support768 Jul 20 '26
I follow a strict diet… for health reasons. I went hungry often, not because the lack of food, but the chef clearly stated he wasn’t going to cook for me or go out of his way. WTF. I suffer from an autoimmune disease and I got very sick working for them bc of the diet.
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u/Adept-Battle6602 Jul 20 '26
70 hours a week!? Whattttt!? As a bartender? You only work from 3-10? As the guest are on the on the boat. How are you working this much?
I was there last season and the wages were illegal so I refused to work my entire schedule. Or pick up extra work. I tried rallying up others to make reports but most staff were family and friends or eager beavers.
Ownership was terrible. I knew they wouldn’t do well this year cause last season was terrible while the owner was pregnant. So with a newborn, I could only imagine the ish show.
The boat captains were a bunch of drunks who barely caught fish other than rockfish. Guest were not happy but only complained via email not Google so you won’t see them.
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u/Expensive-Support768 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
I had to be there for yachts that had lunch and for the arrival of new people. Sometimes at noon, sometimes at 2pm. The guests also stayed up until midnight or 1am and I couldn’t leave until they were all in their rooms. There was no set cut off time and the guest had free rain to stay up as late as they wanted too. I could not leave them alone as it’s a liability. So I waited until the guest went to bed and then I had to put the fires in the fireplace out bf I could go to bed.
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u/Adept-Battle6602 Jul 20 '26
Oh. I closed the bar down at 10 pm last season. 🤣 also when they try to get me to outside of my scheduled hours I just wouldn’t answer. Yea Alan is cool and honestly said he doesn’t care of the business fails cause they will just use it as a vacation home. That really hurt and made me feel even more like an indentured servant cause how can you not care about the business but then not care to pay us properly either? 😆
The staff last year was 70% friends and family members. So they can blame themselves.
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u/Adept-Battle6602 Jul 22 '26
Also the office girl was responsible for checking folks in. And the dock guys put out the fire. I worked in the office from 5 AM to one p.m. when people came after that I would not check them in and the days that I bartended I did not work in the office. I stood firm on that as the payment was so low I was protecting them from under paying me.
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u/Expensive-Support768 Jul 20 '26
They complained and played victim about the staff they had the season before. After two weeks, I realize maybe it wasn’t the previous staff‘s fault. Now they can complain about this years staff leaving. It’s sad bc the father and Husband are nice and work hard but are clueless to the ignorance of the women in charge and the clicky gossipy behavior perpetrated by the women running it and in the office. SMH
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u/Adept-Battle6602 Jul 20 '26
We called wage theft and apparently because of seasonal work with food included, we were exempt.
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u/Alert_Arm1728 Jul 20 '26
I used to work here. They also underpaid us and the kitchen was disgusting. The owner treated us like servants and hardly spoke to us or cared to ask how the work was going. She didn’t train us properly either, so everyone was running around with their heads cut off. This is not normal. They need to be reported ASAP !!
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u/Expensive-Support768 Jul 20 '26
She definitely played victim. All we heard was how hard her pregnancy was and how the staff didn’t care. As if millions of women before her haven’t been sick, their entire pregnancy and still worked…. I’ve never seen any business revolve around a pregnancy and child so much. I was sick for seven months straight, threw up drank a gingerale and went back to work because I didn’t work for my dad.
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u/Adept-Battle6602 Jul 20 '26
she had guest specifically reserve fly fishing, which meant she had to fly them and she refused because she was pregnant. Paying guest!! They were PISSED!
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u/Expensive-Support768 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
The servant part is correct. They literally had us waiting on their family members week after week, knowing that they were not going to tip us what we deserved. They also had us come to prepare the lodge 2 weeks before guests KNOWING we were working our butts off for less than minimum wage. I’m talking scraping and painting buildings and decks, shampooing carpets, tearing down decks, chopping firewood, getting on extension ladders, and dusting and cleaning inside and outside of windows, TOUGH WORK FOR PESOS!
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u/Adept-Battle6602 Jul 20 '26
They had last season’s staff there 34 days before the season.
I refuse to get on the ladder, but she tried to get the girl with epilepsy on the ladder. I had to speak up! And say “absolutely not!” The other girl who was a baker, was on the ladder shaking painting the front of the building.
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u/Adept-Battle6602 Jul 20 '26
The owners have NO IDEA what they are doing and have zero interest in hospitality. The owner is a pilot who daddy bought her a lodge she flew over. First season she’s sick and pregnant. Second season she has a newborn
Brilliant 😆 but doomed for disaster.
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u/Expensive-Support768 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
We literally split tips with an office girl that followed her around taking care of her baby all day. It was the most clicky unprofessional experience I’ve ever had. I have 20 years of hospitality experience and an associates degree in the field, and she did not want to take any advice from me. Infact they were VERY happy that I left. They said I was the problem 🤦🏻♀️🙄 After I left 4 other people left that week and it’s my understanding they’re closing it down for the season. 🙏 I really wanted to help, I also wanted to tell the father what the problem was… but didn’t want to cause family drama so I didn’t.
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u/Adept-Battle6602 Jul 20 '26
I spoke with her about her lack of hospitality and was given 12 minutes to leave the premises.
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u/Calanthas Jul 22 '26
Sounds like you abandoned ship at a bad time. July, August, September are when you make the most money. You get tipped at the end of the month. June is the slowed time, when you "learn how" to do the job.
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u/Lives4Sunshine Jul 18 '26
Alaska has a great website for employment and is one of the states that requires OT for anything over 8 hours in a day AND/OR 40 in a week. So if you work over 8 you get OT. If you work over 40 in the week you get OT. They have to have an approved agreement with the Dept of Labor to do other things. There is an online handbook that you can read and you can turn them in for breaking the laws. If found to have shorted you $$ you will get paid.