“Just Quit” or “Then fucking leave” comments aside.
I hate my job, mostly because it is retail and the coworkers and myself get treated like objects, like just numbers who are required to do certain things to please the managers. I know in every job we all have bosses and we have to follow rules and we must follow them if we want to keep the peace. I been working there 3 years, gone through 3 different general managers who all say the same bullshit about “hey no worries when ever you can work is cool with me!” … Me: Ok well in about a month school is starting so i will only be available thu-sat. Them:”WTF MAN YOU NEED TO SERIOUSLY THINK ABOUT OPENING UP YOUR SCHEDULE, WE CANT WORK LIKE THIS MAN, WE NEED TO FIX THIS” Me: Sorry school is more important, not my problem.
One specific story recently really pushed me to want to take my new job search more seriously. I have now graduated school, most of the week i am at my new internship, working on freelance projects, and taking extra trade classes at a community college, two days a week i still work at this hell hole. Mainly just to have a stable pay check from a work place near my house. Now, again i remind you, i am there two times a week, things change, we have sales, things that i am not aware of occurring at this place. September 14 (this is imporant), sunday, i don’t work Sundays, i am helping a close friend with a project most of the day, all related to my career field and we don’t end up finishing it, no problem. We talk it out and plan to meet in about three weeks. October 3, Friday, i work, one of the two days i do work… Sunday 5th is the day i help my friend finish his project… Now, I get to work Friday at 530 pm (i close), and i hear something about a sale going on this weekend, (the 20 percent off sale is a sale we have every 3 to 4 months, i am never told in advance when these are by the way, some assistant managers every now and then are nice enough to remind me a week or two ahead, again keep in mind i don’t work Sundays so its not my problem to worry about when these sales are) these sales get crazy and the store needs all the hands they can get to work, i would normally agree to work if being asked ahead of time, if i am not busy Sunday i would gladly come in and make some extra money. So worried that i work Sunday, i check the schedule, sure enough i was scheduled for Sunday 230-1030. When i started this job, they were very big on “no union here, unions are bad, blah blah…IF YOU DONT FEEL COMFORTABLE TALKING TO A CERTAIN MANAGER, YOU CAN TALK TO ANOTHER ONE” In other words, sometimes one manager might not be in the best mood, so you are free to talk to another one about a issue and sort it out, so i did, a good friend manager of mine i went up to him and said “Hey, our GM looks pretty stressed and i dont want to bring this up to him because i dont feel like he would listen, i just found out about this sale right now and you guys do know i dont work sundays, any other time i would, but i have a project sunday that i have had planned for 3 weeks” He looks at me with a panicked face, he asked me if possibly another co worker who only works friday and saturday might have also not been told, which TELLS ME.. that they are fully aware that they dont tell people when the sales are, they just expect us to show up. Later i am confronted by our GM and asks why i cant come in “i wont be in town” i said “we are going to be swamped” he says “I am very sorry but was not aware of this sale ” i say “its your responsiblity to know when these sales are and its been the break room all week: he says ” i am only here twice a week” i said. Then i tell him , just to shut him up that i might be able to come in for a few hours in evening…
Now, lets go into a little detail on this project i was working on with my friends. These are all close friends i made at my university, they are still taking classes and need my help. In our field, our professors couldn’t stress enough the importance of not burning bridges, making friends, be kind to all, give out business cards, smile, make people feel good in your field because you never know they can get you a better job. Plus on top of that my parents have always stressed the importance of having my part time job be the at the bottom of my priority list. 1.Faith 2. Family 3. Career/school 4. Friends 5. Everything else
That being said, we worked on this project most of the morning and ended up going through 5pm or 6pm, around the time i said i would go to work, i realized that being that i was not in town and would not make it to work on time i decided to stay with my friend, we were exhausted and had little energy. I felt bad for not calling my work and telling then but i eventually did. Like expected, my boss yelled at me calling me irresponsible and ruined the night shift because they don’t have enough people (Again not my problem).
In conclusion the thing i learned that day, i am not responsible for keeping others happy, i am not responsible for something i am not aware of, i am not responsible for caring how much sales a retail store makes on any given day. I am not a retail worker, I work in retail park time. I say again , I am NOT a retail worker, i am a human being who happens to work in retail twice a week.
PS Again all comments aside of “well just leave or quit”, i been job searching for months now calling and emailing people, trying to move up, i have a internship right now that is awesome and has a respectful environment and maybe some day i will start getting paid.
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