Sorry for the long post, I'm not sure how to cut it down. Thanks for reading if you do.
J = Overnight boss I have a problem with; A, C, M = daytime bosses; R = between bosses and me
I'm a cart pusher at a chain grocery store, and we've been closing by about 10PM ever since the pandemic got bad in March 2020. I work evenings, so my schedule usually ends then. A couple daytime managers are there when I get there, and the overnight manager, J, comes in at 9. Since we're only there at the same time for about an hour, we don't usually interact much except when he locks the doors.
The thing is, the past few months (since maybe mid-September 2021) it looks like J has been looking for reasons to get me in trouble. He's done a couple things earlier than that – he told me I have to get done by 10 instead of staying late, and he said not to talk to my friend on overnight shift (off the clock) for too long. He said he can't have people talking to them all night (which I wasn't) and distracting them (which wasn't happening), and one time after he said that he stared at me until I left.
But it kinda ramped up around mid-September. I was taking my break after 9 bc I didn't get a chance earlier, which is normally no problem. I'm working for the same amount of time either way, I know how long things take me, and if anything there's less to do that late bc it's slower. But he asked me why I was sitting there, and when I said I was on break he said that R, the coordinator (position between managers and regular workers) said I shouldn't be on break. I asked her about it and she said she didn't say that (I believe her), so I went to finish my break. She came back and told me that Jim had checked and found that I didn't punch out for my break, which was true. I hadn't been punching out for months bc the time clock is far away and they're paid breaks anyway, and nobody really cared. But R said I have to punch out, then the next day J told the daytime managers (M and C), who told R, who told me about it again, then the daytime managers talked to me themselves. I started punching out for about a week and then stopped, and a week later someone checked again, so now I always do.
Now I used to stay after work about 10 minutes most nights so I can focus on carts more while we're open and do indoor stuff like trash compacting after the doors lock. I'd usually punch out around 10:10, and since I was tired and had to walk home I'd go to the bathroom, buy some graceries (we have a self-checkout line that they leave on for the overnight shift), and sit in the cafe until around 11. I'd been doing that for a year anda half and it's never been a problem until early October when J said I can't stay so late bc he doesn't know where I am or what happened to me. I didn't understand that, since I work there and I wasn't bothering anyone, but he was serious about it – about a week later he talked to me again. He said “I thought we talked” and I told him I was waiting out the rain and would leave after I finished what I was eating, and he made an “If you say so” face and left.
Around then I was helping a customer who needed something we were out of. I was holding her groceries for a minute while she made a call to ask what to get instead. It was close to closing, but I knew I had enough time to finish what I needed to. J saw me, and when I told him what I was doing, he told R, who told me to go back to my regular job.
A couple weeks later, A tells me someone's been staying late and the overnight crew wasn't saying who, but if I want to buy food I have to do it on my break, and after hours I can be in the cafe but nowhere else. I didn't believe they weren't saying who it was, bc why else would he tell me that specifically? But I started going to the bathroom in the cafe after I bought groceries instead of before so I wouldn't be in the store so late. That seemed to be the end of it, until a month later (late November now) when C called me into her office and said not to stay in the cafe anymore either. I didn't take it seriously at first bc she's the kind of manager who always talks down to you and says corporate will fire you even when nothing ever happens. And since A had already said I could stay in the cafe I kept doing that. (Also the written policy is just “no loitering”.) J confronted me again about it, pretty rudely this time – he did that thing where you close your hand in someone's face to tell them to stop talking.
Then just before Thanksgiving, the higher manager, M, threatened to fire me for something unrelated (I was eating food while I was working, which they unofficially let us do, but I'd save the package and pay for it later instead of buying it on my break or before my shift). Later that night, she also told me I couldn't stay in the cafe after hours, and she's usually been the one who at least tries to be nice to us and not give empty threats so I was kinda afraid of getting closer to being fired. I asked HR about it, and she said that the new policy is that we can't stay after hours because of an incident she can't talk about.
So basically I want to know what I should do about it? I've started punching out on time instead of working late, and I've gotten a bike since then so I don't have to rest as long before going home (that's not the reason I got it but it helps). I usually rest by taking my time in the bathroom after I punch out now, and it seems to be a compromise everyone's OK enough with, at least for now. But my original fear was that J is the kind of person who will keep pushing you if you let him, and it kinda turned out to be true – he hasn't commented on me staying late since then, but he's told me and the other lot person to “catch up” when we were already visibly caught up, plus I'm not the only person he's done this stuff to. He got on the case of someone else who's actually scheduled past 10, so much that their manager had to write him a note, and he's gotten mad at someone whose shift starts after 10 because he has to go let them in, and I've heard there are others. I kinda feel like a bitch for not standing up to him more – I mean, I don't leave exactly at 10, but I leave earlier and don't work late as much bc of him, and now I talk to my friend so little that we're not really close anymore. I'd try to stand up to him more, but I have bad anxiety and he's VERY uncomfortable to be around on top of that. I kinda subconsciously go into self-defense and can't think of much except what I can do to get away. It's not that I'm not WILLING to stand up to him if I have to, I just don't have the mental energy. How can I effectively oppose power hierarchies or be revolutionary in any way if I can't even stand up to my authoritarian boss? I swear this has been eating away at me for like 4 months. I've been trying to find a place to live and make a positive impact on my community, but I can't focus on it bc there's always this shit in my head. I haven't even been able to type this out and ask for advice until tonight bc I build up tasks like this so much I get burned out and can't do them. Can anyone please advise? Thanks very much if you can.
tl;dr: My boss has been trying to get me in trouble for things I'm not doing wrong, “reporting” me to his equals and even a subordinate of his, and he may have taken it higher to get the rule changed when nothing came of it. He's been like this with other people and I don't have the knowledge or mental energy to do much about it