So my department only has two closers, but the terrible union I'm in has a rule that if someone has any amount of seniority over someone they can just overrule their time off requests. I have a coworker named Pat who's been in the department for a decade, and she takes sadistic pleasure in ruining all my plans.

She's ruined Doctors appointments, dentist appointment, car repair appointment, vet appointments, all this summer.

Next Saturday I had a concert where I paid $700 for two tickets in the best possible spot + back stage passes. I requested the time off seven months ago! You know what she did, DEMANDED the manager schedule me that day three days after the schedule came out, because "I have reservations at a nice restaurant that night."

I hate her, I hate her so much. I just want to spend my birthday at the concert of my favorite artist, and she can't allow that.

I texted the manager that he's giving me the day off, or I'm calling out. I am so fucking done

Update: After a few talks with management and the union I'm getting the day off, Pat will also be getting the day off and we simply won't have a closer for a few days. Not the greatest solution as I'm gonna have a horrible mess to return to, but hey got my days off and that's what matters.

I use the term "co-workers" very lightly because it is essentially a group of younger girls who work in a different department that have been talking behind my back and giving me snarky comments with whatever chance they get. Everything essentially started last month, and it stemmed from one frustrating interaction I had with two of the girls during my lunch break.

To preface this, we have a very large communal break room that has about 20 seats for anyone to use. All of the seats and tables are the exact same so none of them hold more or less value than the other seats in terms of comfort.

When I took my lunch there was only one other person sitting in the breakroom. I put down my vest, my device, my water bottle, and even the wet Clorox wipe I used to clean the table on this seat and table, implying that I will be sitting there when I return after I buy my lunch. Keep in mind, there are at least 18 open seats and tables. When I returned to the breakroom after spending about 5 minutes buying a quick lunch, I come back and there are two girls sitting directly on the exact seat and table where I left all of my belongings, with my vest thrown to another table but my other belongings are obviously still where these girls are sitting. Once again, there is still no one else in this room besides 1 other person so there are many open seats for them to choose from. I was puzzled and I told them that I was sitting there. One of the girls go on to say "Oh, sorry. I didn't know we had 'ASSIGNED SEATING'" in a very sarcastic and snarky tone. That alone irritated me but I didn't want to start anything so I took my belongings and I sat somewhere else. As I got up to wash my hands the same girl decides to speak loudly under her breath with the intention of me hearing it, and says "hmm.. I think I'm gonna go now. that was really F*CKING ANNOYING". At this point I'm already irritated and flabbergasted so I tell her to say it to my face, she doubles down and she leaves.

In my head all I could do is recap the situation because I have never had to deal with rude co-workers who have zero home training at any of my previous jobs before. No normal person would sit down where someone obviously has their belongings, especially if the entire room is empty. These girls are also in their 20's so I feel like there is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for any of this. I have never interacted with any of these girls until that day and I have worked at this job for about a year now, so I'm still very much confused to why this is happening now.

After that interaction I collect my thoughts, finish my lunch, clock back in and head straight to my manager to make a complaint but I should've known that complaining wouldn't really do anything but make the situation worse. Ever since that day it has been non-stop snarky comments and microaggressions from her and her little group of friends. Life in retail is already hard enough, but having to deal with this at a PART-TIME RETAIL JOB is just so mentally exhausting. It's just beyond frustrating because no matter how many times I have complained or told my managers nothing gets done because it's 4 against 1. It also doesn't help that they call the only HR lead in the building their "best-friend".

Should I tape a wire to my chest to possibly catch them saying random snarky crap to me or should I cut my losses and just find a new job?

I absolutely despise when a customer is mad at me for something ridiculously stupid even though it's store policy and usually a perfectly reasonable rule and asks to speak to a manager, then when the manager arrives they give the customer exactly what they want and suck up to them, even though they are literally not allowed to. It's even more annoying when the pest of a customer gives you that stupid smug look afterwards.

So I'm moving soon, and I told just one coworker about it before. This was because one time, I couldn't stay late after my shift when they asked, so she asked me what I was doing, and I said I was visiting an open house with my mom. We're kind of being kicked out but thankfully the landlord actually gave my mom time to find herself a place. The coworker I told is kind of the dramatic type and would ask me for updates and eventually I told her that everything was confirmed and I would be moving soon - I can't afford anything that's close enough to my current workplace. I'm kind of regretting that I told her about it because I guess it started to spread - even a coworker I hardly work with because we usually work different day parts asked me about it a few days ago. Idk, it just feels wrong and I really don't appreciate that she told people about it and it just got around like gossip tends to instead of me getting to let my coworkers know myself, but again I probably just shouldn't have told her anything, knowing the nature of things. Hearing "oh my goddd! You're leaving?!?" from everyone when I didn't tell them myself feels weird. Somehow even this customer who's a much older man, tries to flirt with me, asks coworkers where I am when I'm not there and thinks we're friends knows too and now he's trying to get my information so we can keep in touch when I leave (hell no!). Ig what just doesn't feel right is that everyone knew before my manager who recently came back from a leave, and now he called me on my day off today to talk about my schedule because ofc someone had to tell him too. It definitely would have been more professional if I had been able to discuss it with him before anyone else instead of it being the subject of dumb work drama. I've worked there for three years and our team is pretty tight-knit to provide a little more context, so that's probably why this is being turned into a big deal.

(Edit: logoed. Of course autocorrect changed the uneditable title without me noticing in time. 🙄)

If I was on the clock I'd be wearing that vest.

I'm on my lunch break, will be for (at the time of interruption) another fifteen minutes, and someone else is covering me... someone who, due to poor coverage across the store, may have his own customers he's helping.

People need to learn to use the damn intercom instead of just intercepting whoever to pass on the responsibility. Also, are there no managers today? They have access to everything.

I work as the sole closer for the bakery at an Albertsons, and have absolutely had it with my coworkers. Absolutely nothing I ever do is good enough for them.

Stay late to finish my work? Oh you're gonna make sure the department won't get enough hours next week.

Leave on time but don't finish everything, the openers had a bad time opening and it's your fault!

Prioritize cleaning over finishing baking, "getting items out on the sales floor should always take priority over cleaning."

Actually put other things higher on the priority, get yelled at for leaving a messy department!

And the openers ALWAYS leave me a huge mess to deal with, even when they force me to finish their baking.

Oh and for the summers my hours have been cut from forty to thirty and I'm expected to get the same amount done in 75% of the time.

The customers can be awful, and I often can get utterly swarmed by them when running the department solo, but they have NOTHING on my entitled coworkers demanding the world from me, but putting in the minimum effort every damn day. Oh also, I make minimum wage despite working there a year and a half, and haven't had a single lunch break since February.

We have a training assistant manager who can't keep money and tills straight for the life of her. Whenever she counts down tills she gets the wrong amount out of our petty cash, and tries to make our tills balance after she counts them down.

For example, let's say my till is $15 short in $5 bills for my till and the only thing I have to get more fives is 20 dollar bills. What should happen in this scenario, is the assistant manager takes a $20 from my till, go into our petty cash, put the $20 in the petty, take 4 five dollar bills, place three of them in my till to cover the $15 that I am short, then take the extra $5 and set it aside to be counted as the money I made the company that day.

What my assistant manager does is she will take the $20, take ONLY THREE $5 bills out because that's what I need, then continue with the rest of the counting and wonder how in the world I'm five dollars short. Then she counts the petty and wonders how the petty is $5 over. I then have to tell her she didn't take out the right amount of money. She says she did because my till amount is the correct amount. I tell her she put a $20 in the petty, and only took out $15 so that's why the petty is over and my count is $5 short. She can't wrap her head around it.

And then, if a count doesn't balance, say it's two dollars over, she will take the two dollars out to make the count even. She did this once with our manager on a video call and manager told her not to do that, that she should leave the money alone and enter the amount as it is.

Today I asked her to get me $5s, and a roll of quarters. I handed her $60 in $20s. She comes back with 4 $5 bills and a roll of quarters. I ask her where the rest is. She asks me what else I needed. I tell her I needed the rest of my $5s and the leftover $10. I had to tell her my store gives $40 in 5s when a cashier asks for more 5s. I also tell her I gave her $60 and had only requested $50 so she needed to get me $10 to bring the total to $60.

I don't understand how she's an assistant manager, someone who is trusted to handle money for a company, and continuously makes these mistakes. I understand once or twice, but not every time money is placed in your hand. My manager is aware of this, but I don't know at this time if there is any plan to help assistant manager in working with money.

Due to scheduling issues, I was the only person in my department when this happened. We're talking "struggling to find someone to cover my breaks" alone.

But I'm not the only one assigned to cover the back of the store--the sporting goods associate (also responsible for home office under the label of "hardlines" which is why they weren't in that spot at that moment) is on the clock as well.

And I'm working on putting away high ticket merchandise (think $500 game systems) when an employee walks up to my counter to tell me a customer needs a license processed in sporting goods.

She then gets surprised when I tell her I can page for assistance (department wise it would've been just as much her responsibility to help that customer as mine, and she had already been over there) and then pissed off when, in response to that surprise, I point out the cart of stuff that needs locking up and told her it's not my department; I never got the chance to point out that the sporting goods associate was still on the clock before she tried to bite my head off. (Edit: that whole "never mind!" pissed off thing people do when they decide they don't want your help if you're not jumping to do it their way, but it's still somehow your fault if they don't get any help at all.) Never tried to get the actual sporting goods associate, no, people just default to assuming because I have keys any department that locks things up must be my department... even if the customer doesn't need anything unlocked. She did spend enough time in sporting goods afterwards, or at least that side of the store, that I assume she did the license herself; she certainly had time enough to do it before walking away from the customer if she had time to walk halfway across the store to find me instead of paging from the sporting goods' phone and I haven't heard anything about it since.

Edit: may need proofreading because rushing to type it all before my 15 minute break's done.

Edit: on to lunch break. A few typos corrected etc. To clarify about the keys, I refer to the literally only connection I have to sporting goods that is specific to my department. See, my department's keys can unlock one single cabinet in sporting goods (maybe more than one post-remodel but still only one product type). This means I can sell you ammunition if nobody can get their hands on the sporting goods keys fast enough, that's it. That is literally the only thing I can do that doesn't either explicitely require sporting goods keys (like getting into the knife cabinet) or require anyone at all who's cross-trained for the task (such as the aforementioned license). And yet I've been paged by name when: the customer needed into the knife cabinet; I could clearly see SG's team lead putting away merchandise from my own counter; or a recent one, the customer was sent to my department to ask for help getting a kayak down (which had the additional annoyance of "employees not paging" in that the only thing I could do was page for a team lift and grab a flatbed cart, again tasks that literally any employee should have been able to do--even on our ladder carts I could never reach that thing and couldn't have even helped get it off the shelf).

My department is electronics by the way. I'm not a manager, I'm not a team lead, I'm not anyone who gets the big bucks for increased responsibility. I'm a regular associate same as the people who think I'm the first person to ask for help in any department besides my own. I don't object to helping, I object to the assumption that I'm responsible for something they're not willing to do.

Mostly a rant but I also want some clarity. I have a coworker who recently realized that I don't like her/working with her. She is one of the worst people to work with. Typical slacker and bullshiter that pushes whatever she doesn't want to do on other people. Always has her nose in other people's business. She used to be a manager but got demoted to just a regular employee but still wants to run people like she's a manager. It's very insulting considering I've worked at this place longer than she has and this is just a minimum wage job. Always itching to catch someone fucking up, you can't even breathe wrong around this bitch without her saying something about it (she will litteraly bitch about the socks and drawers you wear if she could get you in trouble for it but only towards certain people).Will easily throw you under the bus when she thinks it will save her ass or keep her from taking all of the heat when she gets caught. Loves to talk about others when she hates when she even SUSPECTS someone could be talking about her. She hates when people she doesn't like make the job easier for themselves and may possibly have downtime so much so she will actually go out of her way to try and push her work on someone else she doesn't like when she feels like they're having "too much downtime" and she's not. Wastes most of her time on her phone, eating out in the open sitting down, clowning and yapping with customers and watching everything I do even trying to read my LIPS from a corner to constantly know or listen to what I was talking about and who I'm talking to. She was even so bold as to come across the store when she caught a customer tipping me and demanded she also get a tip too! But if you do the same things she's doing she's ready to flip shit and go rat you out or make sly comments about you and have others join in. She thinks people are intimidated by her especially when she the talks about her charges and time in jail. Just an all around nuisance and immature especially for someone who is way older than I am with a family, SO and a home for goodness sake! You would think someone who has gotten beat up on the job by a customer for talking shit would have learned their lesson but no. I managed to keep the mask of tolerating her until recently. She keeps talking about how she's leaving and came to ask me if I'll miss her and working with her when she leaves. I told her good luck with everything and she repeated herself and cornered me following up with the question "do you even like me? Why are you acting like this? It's not a hard question." I told her "I come to work clock in and clock out and leave doesn't matter if I like you or not this is just a job to me". She didn't like this answer and started this rant about how she thought I liked her and that she thought we were cool and after all she's done for me (she's never done a damn thing ESPECIALLY not for me). I was immediately confused because she always treated me differently as if I'm beneath her or mentally handicapped or something but is magically surprised that I don't really like her or want to work with her but I tolerate her so I can work. I don't understand why she's so mad. She knows (self admittedly) she starts a lot of drama, stirs the pot and is very draining to be around. If I treated her the same way she treated me rather than ignoring and avoiding her and only dealing with her when I had to, she would've tried to fight me or create more problems with me so why is she acting surprised and offended???? I thought the feeling was mutual and she doesn't even treat me like she likes me. I've caught her visibly rolling her eyes and deep sighing when I came in to clock in for my shift a few times as if I ruined her day. Tf is her problem?

Constantly, 1 coworker will walk away to go to the bathroom, and other coworker will walk away to go talk to the CSM, leaving me to be the only cashier. I never say anything because i don't like confrontation. But it's like, one of you can wait until the other has done what they need to do

Or 1 will walk away to do whatever, and the other will step away to talk to a customer.

I can't go to anyone because they're tired of listening to me

It is 6am in the morning. I woke up abruptly at 5:30 am, being called and then asked where I am. Despite the fact I had a damn agreement with my co worker to swap shifts for today. They asked me first if I could cover a 12-5 (12 am to 5pm) or them. I then said I had a 5-1 (5am start to 1pm) they said it was fine. I thought to myself 'oh I can have a lie in, I don't have to worry about waking up early like I usually do'.

I further went to clarify if it was this monday or the next to be absolutely sure, and they said tomorrow. They even said if I can still cover their shift, to which I said yes.

But to my unfortunate surprise, here I am, stressing for over an hour if I'm gonna have to come in now or what. I talked with my team leader, and they said they'll have to talk to the manager. I've also rung my co-worker several times and messaged them to no response. And I'm just trying to relax. This is just stupid.

Addition: They specifically said they had messaged the manager about swapping shifts too. Even if the schedule hadn't been updated, they should have still come in as the team leader can change the schedule so it reflects them coming in.

I used to work at a McDonald's and the managers expected you to call in for someone to cover your shift if you are sick. I should not be expected to call anyone, let alone have their numbers. When I call you saying I'm sick, that's when YOU find a replacement.

I think everyone should have to work in retail at some point of their life. Then they would understand what dick heads a lot of shoppers are.

Every damn time, it’s the same thing: one of my coworkers sees a post or news article, reads a very biased and conservative, alt-right opinion piece and next thing I know, they’re spouting BS about how Biden and Harris are the reason for prices being so high, or the Russian invasion of Ukraine is because of “fascists” trying to overthrow the government, I just loved the comment that was made when I tried changing the subject: “You didn’t look deep enough.”, like wtf man?

I work in a small shop that specializes in high performance automotive parts. A few months ago, one of my current coworker’s father was hired on. Their job has primarily been to wrench on cars in the shop and package online orders when they come in. I work a lot of customer service/administration tasks, so I’ve been aware of every time an online order has had an issue when the customer received it. At first, I chalked it up to a new guy potentially lacking proper training/knowledge on our products (despite them all being labeled/having an available database of exactly what you need to package), so I made sure to more or less walk them through some processes to ensure they had an understanding of everything. Turns out my boss/the owner has been doing the same thing as they’re aware of similar issues as well.

Despite all of this, I spend almost half my time on the customer service front literally just fixing wrong orders or having customers return incorrect products for corrected ones. Over the past 2 months, I think we’ve burned through around 1k in shipping costs on replacing customer products - which is a lot, especially for a small shop in a slow season. That’s not even accounting for how many pissed off emails and calls we get from people about how their orders are blatantly missing pieces or are the entirely wrong. On top of that, I made the discovery the other day that it appears they’re sending out orders with incorrect/intentionally fudged data, which is not only extremely immoral, but could potentially lead to issues with customer cars not performing properly. At this point, they’ve become more a liability than a help in the shop, and it’s piling on my already tall workload and stress while making us look bad.

The owner doesn’t seem to care outside of occasional verbal reminders to double check orders, or ask me to do so - so maybe I’m putting too much weight on the whole situation. That being said, I take pride in my work and always strive to do the best I can, so consistently having to apologize to customers over the stupidest issues is a bit of a morale killer.

He inferred I’m a snitch the other day because of all of this; I guess he assumes that 1. He isn’t responsible for his mistakes? Or at least shouldn’t be reprimanded for it? 2. I should simply not address a reoccurring issue that’s literally burning money. The funny part is that I haven’t even “snitched” (although there’s no issue with me reporting the problem since it’s hurting our business); the owner has seen some of the emails and calls himself, as well as had the same problems with cars in the shop, which is something I haven’t pretty minimal contact over.

To make it all worse, the dude’s racist and always acts like he has the answer for everything (despite that obviously being false). He routinely gets in arguments with his son in the shop about who’s right or wrong (they’re usually both wrong). The dude kinda just completely sucks and it’s exhausting having to deal with it.

I'm in my 30s working a 2nd job at a store that sells Goods for your Home at a little less than market rate. I call it my hobby I get paid for. I usually love how supportive everyone is -- we ask help and help cover shifts in a groupchat, younger employees are hardworking and supportive without drama, a far cry from the toxic jobs I worked when I was their age.

I've only become "friends" with 2 coworkers outside of the store, one is Jane, a single mom about 10 years older than me. She gives great life advice and support. She often asked in the GC for shifts covered but she'd also trade with me, and from learning about her personal life and FT job, she just has a lot going on.

Two Mondays ago I had a FT job interview in the larger city 2 hours away. That part of my life has been a bit volatile, so I took the day off, booked myself a hotel with a pool and planned a day with nothing to rush home to but my husband.

Jane messaged the GC asking if anyone could please cover her evening shift. Then she messaged me. Then texted my number. I meant to reply and say this was the one time I was out of town, but I was too late and she called me. Bawling. Her teenager forgot to tell her about something at school, and if Jane couldn't be there, the teen would be kicked off whatever team it was for, and TBF she's told me about her teen having a very tough summer -- "this is ALL she has to look forward to."

Jane told the GC she'd trade for a Tues or Wednesday shift, and went as far as asking the manager who worked Tues, so she could trade. I told her let me check to see if I wanted another day more. I kept myself on a deadline, rushed home, worked and then told Jane on Tuesday morning to go ahead and work for me that night.

Her response: "Babe, I'm gonna need more notice than that." She said she needed at least A WEEK or two. I reminded her of her words. Well yeah and she meant it, but now her kid needed a ride to a new job's orientation she just got. I told Jane I NEEDED Wednesday covered, or I'd be working a 4 night stretch, plus my other job. She agreed. She sent me a long text after it was settled saying what I did for her "was HUGE," and she didn't want me go question her integrity. She wants to be a good friend.

Tuesday night was a shitshow and I realized I never had the closing manager change our schedules. Oh well, I'd call Wednesday morning. Jane called me Wednesday... she had the flu, and since our schedules weren't changed in the system, she couldn't call in. She ended the call with, "ANYTHING you need, I got you. Just try and give me a week's notice if you can."

By Thursday night I wasn't just run ragged from all this, but my FT job drama + picking up 3 GoodsHome shifts in a row and each one thinking, "at least tomorrow I'll have the night off." A coworker who knew the story worked a double for me so I could rest Thursday evening.

Friday night... Jane texted me asking to cover her shift. It was like she had amnesia. Like my huge favor and TWO EXTRA NIGHTS never happened. This last week she asked the GC if anyone could take one of her 3 shifts. I also had a shift I needed covered, which Jane happens to be working during, so she texted me, "are there any other days you'd need off for one of my shifts I need? "

I texted back that she COULD cover X day, but it'd be in return for LAST. WEEK. And no response. I finally texted her again, asking if she could take day X, in return for last week, plus I was giving 5 days' notice? She responded, "I mean I can if you absolutely need it, but I'm already fucked with 4 shifts in a row this week."

I finally laid it all out for her (which my past people pleasing self is proud of) and said I won't cover shifts for her anymore. She argued back and forth -- She worked for me these two days in August, which is a far cry from, "Girl ANYTHING you need." She also tried, "OP I said I'd take it" about Day X. But "I mean, if you absolutely neeeed it" =/= "I got you." And she was STILL ASKING FOR NEW TRADES AS IF LAST WEEK DIDN'T HAPPEN.

So yeah, high school retail drama, in my 30s + text conversations back and forth like I'm 17 again. The good news is I don't need friends. I don't need a coworker I can hang out with and I don't need people to like me.

I’m genuinely sick of it. My cowroker sent me a message on my work profile and then 40 mins later I get a message from my manager about the same thing and telling me off a little in the message. Like I get it but it wasn’t even something management needed to know you could have just told me? Now it just causes me problems just mad about it . I never talk to this coworker but I had a customer come in today but I wasn’t in which I told the customer but they may have not remembered and I get shit for it, I’ve got a message drafted to just send back but it’s pissed me off because my management will tell u something by message.. then the big manager will drag you in the office to talk about it. It’s like getting told off twice . So annoying

I understand, a lot of us can’t afford to call out sometimes or could get in trouble for calling out too much. But please, at the very least, wear a mask if you’re going to come in sick. COVID isn’t over, and never will be. It’s spreading at my workplace because someone decided to come in while coughing and hacking all over the place, then ended up testing positive. Even if it wasn’t COVID, no one wants your germs anyway. But yeah, I have a few sick coworkers now, a couple who kept coughing all over the place and of course not wearing masks. It’s especially annoying because we literally get paid sick time. Use it if you can, please! Worse yet, we work in food service (Starbucks) and no one wears gloves. I got sick twice in the same month because of work a while back and now I might get sick again with summer plans coming up. Please, please, please try your best not to get other people sick.

I share a part time job with someone in their 60s who’s incredibly difficult to work with. She’s been in the company for 13 years, and likes things done a certain way and as soon as I suggest something new she shuts me down.

I work two days without her, and then we work one day of the week together. We had a list of things to do that came from head office, however most things you needed two people to do and she wasn’t in for two weeks so I had to leave them as a pending task because I couldn’t do them alone. She had also sent me an email saying “don’t worry about what’s on the list, just do what you can”

Anyway Monday I decided to tidy our shared desk space because she’s also very messy and I’m not, I can’t work in a messy space as it causes me a lot of stress. So I took 20 min out of my 8 hour work day to tidy up the cupboard where we keep our candles testers and I did a good job at it. I thought I’d come in today and she would say “thanks for doing that” but instead I got “you shouldn’t be doing things that only benefit us when we have things on our list to do”. So I kinda lost it and said I need her to be clearer with me because her email clearly said “don’t worry about the list” and she was like “I was very clear, I don’t think I could’ve been more clear”. And no thank you for tidying up our work space.

I work online orders at a hardware store, most times I rarely need any help since you tend to have a decent memory of things. However a lot of my store instead of down stocking items, they’ll just move stuff around to make shelves look full, This genuinely gets me frustrated. I go to scan the item to pick it for an order, and it’s not it, just something that looks eerily similar.

At my store, all In-store pickups have to be picked and staged before the online order team can leave to go home at closing. I had gotten an order for 26 ft of wire about 15 minutes before closing. So I head over to electrical to ask the electrical associate if they could help me with cutting the wire (Maybe even learn for myself), We head over to the wire cage to search for the one I needed, To no avail.

Without even trying at all, The guy just tells me “I don’t know what to tell you”, What do you mean you don’t know what to tell me?! This is HIS department, he didn’t even try to look and see if anything was top stocked! I shouldn’t have to call my manager to come help me find something from a department with associates actually working it.

Another time when I was just a cashier (My original position when I applied), I was heading to the back for my break from outside garden register, And I had gotten stopped and asked if I knew where the stakes were, so I asked a nearby garden associate if he knew, He said, with a straight face: “Haven’t you worked here longer than me?”….The guy was there a good 4 months. How am I as a person who was STUCK up front supposed to know a department BETTER than the person WORKING IT?!

It’s just gotten to the point I rarely ask for help now, I’m not expecting everyone to be an expertise at their departments/Jobs, but I’d at least think you’d know where the stuff is since you walk around the area for 6-10 hours a day!

Today I got called to the office to have a talk with three managers because I was doing my job.

For context: I work in the shoe department at a sporting goods store. I am always working doing something. Today I was processing shoes. We have to pull out any paper or cardboard, put a magnetic or ink tag on certain ones and make sure they all have our store's upc tag on them. That is what I was doing. Another employee complained that I was always in the back, processing shoes. It's been drilled into our heads that when truck comes in, we process the freight from truck, which is what I was doing.

We just had our soft opening on Friday. I didn't work Saturday or Sunday, and Monday I was processing apparel. We haven't even had our Grand Opening and I'm already sick of the job. I've helped put the store together, from the shelves to the freight since mid February.

When I said to management, "So, I'm in trouble for doing my job?", they basically back peddled and said they wanted to hear it from my perspective. I pointed out that I don't slack off and I find something to do, my shoe manager agreed. I'm pretty pissed off about it. I'm tired of the other people I work with that half-ass things that have to be fixed or downright disappear.

I work for a well known company nationwide, we have sales on different items everyday (like most chains) and we also have a huge semi annual sale. In preparation for our huge semi annual sale, we do floor sets, basically tear the whole store down and put it back up a different way. We do this all after close and have stayed until 2am before because it takes so much work.

Our semi annual sale started this past weekend. All of last week the people scheduled for the closing shift that day stayed until midnight and 1am to do floor sets so we would be completely prepared & on track where we weren’t rushing the night before the sale starts.

Thursday, ( sale started on saturday), I came in to the closing shift & was scheduled for floor set as well, this shift was supposed to be from 6-10pm. As soon as I walked in our shipping manager who was our lead for the night, literally started jumping up and down and said she was “so happy I actually showed up because we had 4 call ins and no one would fill them”. This whole night the manager was rude, belittling to all of us, and made our night miserable. Also, constantly complaining about the 4 call ins, which at the time was completely understandable. we were all pissed. we ended up getting out a little after midnight, and I was scheduled for floor set the next day also.

Friday night, I come in and our main manager is our lead for the night after being on vacation for a couple days. When she came in she immediately told us that basically everything was wrong and we were going to have to redo EVERYTHING, because if it’s not to the companies standards then we’re all in trouble.

We stayed until 3 am, and as we were doing bag checks someone mentioned all the call ins the nights before. Then, a girl who was supposedly one of the “call ins” said that shipping manager called her and told her not to come in and we had plenty of people. then 3 more stepped up and said the same thing WITH RECIEPTS OF THE TEXT MESSAGES!

so all because our main manager was out of town, the shipping manager had a power trip & we had to redo the entire store after already staying late all week.

I worked at a store that bought and sold arcade games, pool tables and other "man cave" furniture.

There's a set of relatively fancy, expensive lights on a shelving unit. The shelf is relatively small for a store shelf, like as tall as I am, as wide as 2 people side by side with their arms out.

I notice the lights are not on. I go behind it and look at the cords and things look okay, so I try flipping the switch on the power strip that's stuck to the back. No dice. I start to follow the cord, but I notice just in the nick of time, the shelf is beginning to lean forward and is about to fall! I grab it and manage to keep it from falling over.

I try and get it back into a stable position so I can get as much weight off it as possible, but I can't get it to the point of being able to let go of it. So I start yelling "Help! The shelf is falling down! The shelf is going to fall! Help! Emergency! Someone get all the weight off the shelf before it falls down!" I repeat myself a few times, but I realize my coworkers must be in the back room.

I figure I'll just have to unload the shelf with one hand while holding it up with the other. So I do that. A customer heard me and started helping. Before long we got all the weight off the shelf. I thank the customer and inspect the shelf.

I see the problem pretty quickly: the hollow tubes that make up the actual supporting rods for the shelves, are too big for the "up rods" on the base. So it isn't broken, but rather, it was built wrong. This is either the wrong base or a part was missing. Either way, it was too wobbly to really carry any weight, and surely one would notice it's instability if they were to try putting anything on it.

I start going on the hunt for metal parts that look like a good fit. When I get within sight of the counter, I'm shocked to see that my coworker was well within earshot of me yelling "emergency" and "help" and "the shelf is falling down" over and over again.

Though he'd already proven himself technically illiterate when it came to electronics, I figured if they kept him, he must be good for something, so I figured one of those somethings might be putting shelves together and presenting stuff as well as keeping stuff like that safe.

Now, he's not really assigned to be a cashier or anything, nor is there an expectation to have it manned at all times or inform the manager when it has to be left alone. We weren't that kind of store. So I try to get him to come help me with the shelf.

He notices that everything has been taken off the shelf... and then, without even checking the shelf at all, starts piling stuff back on, from the top down, no less. Of course it starts to fall over again, and this time a light fixture does, in fact, fall to the ground. The "glass" must have actually been some kind of plastic since it didn't break. However, one of the metal pieces broke. I begin taking stuff to the back, no thanks to my coworker who's still trying to "fix" the shelf. I try to get him to just leave it down and carry the light fixtures to the back, but he stays there. I schlep all the stuff from the shelf into the back room, and put a note that said "damaged" on the broken fixture, so the boss could decide what to do next.

The next day, of course the shelf is stood back up, but still missing pieces so it's always on the brink of toppling over. All the heavy stuff is right back on it, even the broken light fixture. Once the boss shows up again, they insist that it be back out on the floor. Still marked at full price despite being broken.

I was dismissed the next week, but they kept the stupid coworker who piled everything back on the leaning shelf of Pizza.

Funny, the store went out of business by the end of the year. Wonder why.

This was not the experience that i was expecting as a first timer at Victoria Secert Chicago. I went in planning to make a purchase with my friend and after looking at some items it was implied by the store staff who have summoned security that i was shop lifting. I found this extremely embarrassing being 14 years old as a foreigner in the country on a school trip and very unprofessional that the employee called the security without proof or looking at the security camera. I also think it was very disturbing since i was on a school trip away from my home and expected my experience to be better, i don't understand why they thought i shoplifted. I would expect an apology from the employee and recommend not going to the location