TLDR: Manager has me working alone with a brand new employee while we are insanely busy; even when both Saturday workers are trained-in, we can barely run the store.
Not sure where else to post this, but my story is certainly an example of why antiwork is necessary.
I work part-time at an eye clinic, and mostly sell glasses, although I do have other obligations as well. Honestly, I don't mind the actual work I do. I get paid what would be a living wage if I wasn't in school, and generally speaking the job itself is pretty rewarding. I've had issues with management before, but not in the past year or so (I've been at the clinic for over two years now). In the fall, I accepted an internship offer at a local law firm, so now I only work at the clinic on weekends and the occasional weekday if too many part-timers request that day off. On weekends, there are only two part-time employees, since we don't have any doctors in. Still, we have to do every order that comes in, prepare all of the patient info charts for Monday, and deep clean the whole store.
We hired a new part-timer at the beginning of the month. The clinic had always required that all employees be college-age, largely because the training period is so long and it is difficult to be trained in smoothly if you're only working a handful of hours each week. Because the new hire's mom is friends with the doctor/owner, that requirement was forgone. Since she was hired, she has only worked about twenty hours. Understandably, she can't do much yet. It took me probably 200 hours to be able to sell a pair of glasses smoothly without any help, including going through the insurance authorization/calculations process.
You could imagine my surprise when I look at the schedule for March and notice that the new hire is scheduled with only one other person for two Saturdays. Even worse, she was scheduled with the seventy year old, who I will call M. M helps us out by working every other Saturday (M can't do a whole range of things and, understandably, works rather slowly). I am pretty close with M, so when I came to work today I talked to her about it, and she said she had told off our manager about it. I then look at the updated schedule, and realize that the new hire's weekends had switched; she was now working alone with me, starting in the first weekend of March.
For context, our Saturdays are pretty busy. We probably average ten glasses orders, ten contact orders, and management recently re-activated the phone lines. I worked last weekend, and the phones were ringing non-stop; we were only able to pick up maybe 20% of the calls, since we prioritize the customers in-store. I legitimately had twenty minutes within my six hour shift where I was not actively helping a customer or on the phone with one. Keep in mind, this was with a co-worker who has been working there for almost five years.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, I've been used to doing the job of a person and a half. My pay was adjusted as a result, and honestly it has been doable. But I cannot do every single order (glasses and contacts), put together all of the patient info for Monday, answer every single phone call, do every adjustment and pick-up, and do the cleaning. This is not to mention the fact that I'm also supposed to be helping train in the new hire. I don't even get paid commission (which, in a vacuum, I actually like; I feel like I'm able to be more honest with customers), so my pay will be the exact same as if I was working a regular weekend.
I'm unsure how to proceed. Honestly, I know I have leverage here. When I started my internship, I made it clear that I while I wanted to continue working at the clinic occasionally, it was not my priority. When M met with my manager, she reminded her that she could just stop working Saturdays whenever she wants, and I might do the same. While the extra income is nice, I could pick up hours at my internship or start doing food delivery if needed, but I don't think my manager is in any position to stand her ground if I ask for her to fix this anyway. There is quite literally no other person who would/could take my Saturday shifts.