Trivia Mafia Company Policies and Procedures
The ins, the outs, the what-have-yous of being a Trivia Mafia employee.
PTO and Holidays
Paid Time Off and Holidays
PTO
All Trivia Mafia employees (full or part time) accrue Paid Time Off (PTO) at the rate of 1 hour per 28 hours worked.
Employees may use their PTO for any shift they had the reasonable expectation to work. Took a planned vacation? Site cancelled due to schedule conflict or weather? Dog ate your phone and you had to get a sub? All good reasons to use PTO!
Any PTO balance over 80 hours of banked time will be automatically added to the first paycheck of each new calendar year. If an employee leaves Trivia Mafia (either voluntarily or involuntarily), any accrued PTO will be included in the final check.
To view your available PTO balance, please visit your profile at Gusto.com.
To use PTO hours, employees must send an email within seven days of the applicable date to payroll@triviamafia.com.
Trivia Mafia is a Minneapolis-based company and our PTO policies comply with the sick-and-safe policies of Minneapolis and St. Paul (which are applicable company-wide, regardless of where an employee works). To view those policies in full, please visit these links:
Paid Holidays
Any Trivia Mafia employee averaging 35 hours per week or more qualifies for paid holidays. These holidays are: New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, the Day After Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, plus one floating holiday.
Holidays with No Trivia
Trivia Mafia does not run any regular, public games on the following holidays: Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, or New Year’s Eve. If a host would have had a shift on one of those days, they may use their accrued PTO by emailing payroll@triviamafia.com.
Subbing
Getting A Sub
If you know you are unable to keep a shift, you are going to require a substitute host to run your regular trivia night, and it is up to you to find and confirm that sub host in a timely fashion. Many of our hosts stay on the lookout for extra shifts!
Utilize the Sub Form to Request a sub (it creates a post in the #sub-needed channel in the Host Slack), or DM/email/text people you know directly. The On-Call staff can help get you ideas on who might be game if you don’t know anyone!
When you secure a sub, fill out the Sub Form (under Notification): triviamafia.com/subform. This allows us to make sure your Sub gets the questions that day, and to make sure our payroll is accurate.
When you complete the Sub Form, both you and your Sub will get a confirmation email, which includes any notes you wrote in the form and a link to the folder of In Case of Emergency (ICOE) forms. An ICOE is automatically generated for every new site and should be updated within your first few weeks as the host; contact the AV Expert Davis for support with finding/filling in the ICOE.
Verify that your Sub has the necessary materials! You are responsible for ensuring your Sub has (access to) a PA (if applicable). Notify the On-Call or Host Manager immediately if you’re unable to get them supplies in time for your scheduled shift.
Ideally, start looking for a sub a week or two before it’s needed. However, we understand that a sub may be needed on short notice. We consider emergencies to be situations related to illness, family issues, transportation — not the results of poor planning. If you do not feel you can safely get to your site due to weather or other external issues, let us know! Your safety is more important than running a game.
If you find yourself in need of a sub within two days of your trivia night, please reach out to the On-Call or Host Manager in addition to posting your sub request to the Slack group. We can not guarantee a sub for your shift if you have not allowed more than 48 hours notice and it is not an emergency. We can and we have cancelled trivia with the customer if no sub is available, but it's the last resort - that can damage our relationship with the customer (and, ultimately, remove your job there if they end their contract with us). Post early, post often.
NO-CALL/NO-SHOWS ARE UNACCEPTABLE, AND ARE GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE TERMINATION.
Regarding Sub Frequency: We strive to provide a consistent experience for our players and our bars, and the best way to provide that is with a regular host. Our trivia players develop positive, personal connections with their hosts. When hosts frequently sub out of their shifts, turnouts decline and the customer may end their contract. We monitor for trivia nights that use a sub more than once a month. When we see that happen, we will reach out to the host and caution them that too much subbing can be problematic for the ongoing health of a trivia night. If you feel you need to take on that amount of substitutions on a routine basis, a weekly trivia night might not be the best fit for you and we may look to explore alternative options, like sharing the site with another host or shifting you to another location.
Long-Term Sub Needs
If you will need a sub for more than three weeks, that would be a Long-Term Sub situation. Talk to Mary Kate to arrange for that! (Three or fewer would be on you to find coverage for each shift.) As much as possible, we try to find one person to take the full run to support consistency for the site and players.
Subbing In for Someone Else
If you pick up someone else’s shift, thank you!
Please make sure that you know the vitals details for their venue (i.e. scope out that ICOE sheet), especially if it will be your first night working at that particular location. If you do not have materials for the night, check with the person who you’re covering for, the On Call, or the Host Manager to get you the materials you need. If you do not see the questions email by 3:30 PM on the day of your event, post in #general on Slack or email Sophie. You should get a confirmation email when the Sub Form is submitted as well.
If you are traveling more than 20 miles round-trip, you can fill in the Reimbursement Form and we’ll pay you up to $25 as a bump for doing this solid for your coworkers and the company. It’s valuable to us!
Please consider taking sub shifts, particularly last-minute requests. Not only does it help out your fellow hosts, but it’s also great way to get mileage under your hosting belt, accrue more PTO, and build some karma for when you find yourself in need of a sub!
However, no host is required to be a sub outside of their regularly scheduled gig.
Glossary
Here are some of the frequently used jargon, terminology, acronyms and abbreviations used internally here at Trivia Mafia, LLC.
| Term/Abbv | Simple Definition | Longer Explanation |
| IGL | Initials Game Live | newest offering from Trivia Mafia, partnership with KFAN host Cory Cove: three rounds with one initials set each that has five items; customers get full staff and marketing support |
| PE | Private Events | one-off or limited series contracts for wide variety of clients, from corporations to birthday parties to fundraisers; clients can do content-only or get fully hosted programming of nearly any length, with customizable content; typically TMC |
| PTB, TPTB | the Powers That Be | referring to the Trivia Mafia leadership; specifically Chuck, Brenna, Sean, but generally the admin people who run things |
| QB or QB!! | QuizBang!! | a sister brand, utilizing vetted content that is scaled to be more accessible, and delivered directly to customers who run their own shows. Trivia Mafia does not provide staff, online presence, or social media support, just the questions and marketing asset templates. |
| TMC | Trivia Mafia Classic | the original flavor format of Trivia Mafia: eight rounds, ~two hours; customers get full staffing and marketing support |
TMC = Trivia Mafia Classic = the original flavor format of Trivia Mafia: eight rounds, ~two hours, with full staffing and marketing support
IGL = Initials Game Live = newest offering from Trivia Mafia: three rounds with one initials set each that has five items; customers get full staff and marketing support
QB!! = QuizBang!! = a sister brand of trivia, utilizing vetted content that is scaled to be more accessible, and delivered directly to customers who run their own shows. Trivia Mafia does not provide staff, online presence, or social media support, just the questions and marketing asset templates.
Event = a single instance of a trivia game (as in, a theme night is an event, a regular Tuesday game is a schedule event, a one-time special game is a Private Event, etc)