For ~7 months, until last Thursday (technically Monday), I worked a 12hr shift factory job. I would love to name it but they only have one plant in my state and I’d rather not doxx myself. Like with every job until now, I became the well known “yes man” there, and the one to push all extra tasks onto. There was never a complaint about me and I never complained about anyone else despite being borderline harassed by all around terrible people.
I had coworkers who snuck off the bathroom to do drugs. One ended up breaking her arm on shift and refusing to go to the hospital just so she didn’t have to do a drug test (it was honestly pretty impressive). A coworker who watched porn while working machines. A coworker who openly bragged about baby trapping a minor. A coworker who cussed out another coworker over not being allowed to borrow a broken fan; she was simply moved to a more well ventilated area. A coworker who split her arm open because she wasn’t wearing safety gear and was rewarded with a promotion to “Head of Safety”.
Towards me, I was constantly taken advantage of by coworkers who belittled me. I had to leave early Once because my brother got in a nearly fatal car crash. When I came back the next day someone asked what my emergency was. I told him and the guy said “my brother died and I had the common decency to finish my shift. Now come ‘ere and break out my girlfriend we need a cigarette”. That guy and another lady I’ll call C (the one whose ego I was fired to protect) forced me to go in a machine that wasn’t locked out once because they “didn’t feel like waiting for maintenance”. Him, C, and ~5 other people are all friends from the same class at the local high school who still haven’t realized school ended 20+ years ago. Most things are set to cater to their group. When C is mean (all the time), 6 other people are ready to jump in to say “she’s just like that it’s just the way she is”.
Well, last Thursday, I was put with two new coworkers (their 3rd day, my first working with them). One was C’s daughter. The other was some girl (B) who looks like she belongs on a white couch with a couple teal pillows. She openly refused to follow ANY rules; she must have sucked a dick or brought proof of a DNA match in management to get in because even the shift supervisor folded after a couple minutes of trying to get her to follow protocol. Just said “fine, do it how you want just for today” and walked away.
She was already rude, which in itself whatever, but she took this as “I am above you” and started acting accordingly. There were two stations and she chose to work with me just to be able to push my buttons. She was snatching stuff from me, ransacking my work station, calling me a bitch, and at the end of it didn’t even get anything done. As always I kept my head down and worked… Until the last snatching straw (4th time) where I told her to get her own station if she was gonna act like a bitch in mine.
It was the first time I’d ever snapped at work so I went to step outside and then give C a scheduled break. I was ~15 minutes early for it so I briefly explained with “sorry, I got a little heated at my station and came to see if you wanted a break”. She went OFF on me about “you better not be talking about my daughter, that [other] girl’s my daughter and I don’t want to hear a single word” etc etc. I just said “oh no no, I don’t have a problem with her. I had a little problem with the other one but it’s fine”. C said “you’re being way too argumentative, I’m going to tell the supervisor about your attitude issue”.
As always, her 5 minute break was a 20 minute and lo and behold at the end of it, the entirety of upper management comes to walk me to the offices. I’m sat down in a conference room with B and C. C straight up LIES about what I said to her (“oh she came over cussing up a storm” … I didn’t use any profanity with C). B sugarcoats it to shit kicking it off with “first of all, I am so sorry you guys have to be dealing with this so early in the morning. I hope you can continue to have a relaxing day soon”. I gave my side of the story and C even said “… well yeah, that does sound pretty accurate. BUT I didn’t like the attitude. I don’t know, I don’t care what else happened”.
They said they would look into the issue, had me write a statement, and sent (only) me home. I was told I’d receive a call with their decision the next day (Friday). I was supposed to come back Monday at 7am, so on Sunday when I hadn’t heard anything I texted my boss to ask if I was good to come back. She said she’d get in touch with the plant manager as soon as she could. Monday at 10am, I get a call. They say they “think it’s best to relieve me from my assignment, but I’ll get no bad recommendation from them and I’m a great worker who they’re sure will have no problem finding another job”.
If I’m such a great worker, why fire me? Using profanity once? Then why not fire the girl who used it first on top of refusing to follow any of your precious protocol? Why not fire the lady who cussed out an old woman because she couldn’t borrow a fan that ended up being broken? Firing me was the only way to keep C happy when she claimed her ego had been affronted, and still haven’t ruled out my earlier theories about B’s employment. My boyfriend still works there and said B and C were transferred to work together.
Either way, they were willing to risk two people’s entire livelihood on preserving the ego of one terrible employee and another good but consistently very rude one. I’m now jobless because my company bent over for someone who openly refuses to follow rules and someone else who pretends to be incapable of basic human decency/throws a temper tantrum if they convince themselves someone else is acting the same way.
But hey, I get a good recommendation from them. Lucky me.