Okay this is kind of long but this is my dilemma. I used to manage a small boutique and we have very limited staffing so I wasn’t always able to finish certain tasks when I had to be on the floor. It was holiday season so things get kind of crazy especially in a retail setting. I don’t have much experience and I had only been working there for a month, but when my boss offered me the position of assistant manager I was ecstatic and accepted immediately thinking that it would be the perfect opportunity to grow professionally (since I do not have a degree I’m really starting from the ground up).
An important piece of the story is that I have had a very rigid experience with anxiety, depression and ptsd so at times I would be very anxious about getting my tasks done. I also have had a hard time finding access to medication so it’s very intense for me when it’s flaring up. Honestly looking back on it, I probably would not have accepted the position if I had known my anxiety would be so bad during this period of time. But anyway this particular coworker of mine, we will call her Sarah, is someone every one gets along with and is someone you would definitely call “the life of the party” and she is usually at the center of the conversation. We were friends at first and she seemed cool, but sometimes she would take little jabs at me in different ways. There were times I did my best not to take it personally, but then she started telling me I was in “crisis mode” when I would be visibly frustrated or anxious. That’s how it started. It was once in a while starting out but then it became a running joke for her any time I was uncertain about something. That and she would constantly tell me that I’d be over thinking while I go through my creative process. Sarah would even tell me I was in crisis mode if I commented on the fact that I wasn’t in love with my outfit that day. It became especially frustrating to be around because she would occasionally do nice things for me like give me a ride home or the time she gave me a beautiful fruit danish on my birthday. I started to feel very conflicted about whether or not she was really being dismissive and rude or if I was just taking it the wrong way. My boss is really big on being all inclusive with staff and making sure everyone has a voice which I really respect, but Sarah would oppose me when I would ask her to do simple tasks or make suggestions as a manager. She makes sly comments about my personal performance (honestly going down the toilet at this point because my insecurities were really getting the best of me) while she really half asses a lot of her own projects and looks for ways to get out of doing work. Sometimes I’d have to come in on days I would be coming down from an anxiety attack/ptsd episode and claimed she understood and even knew people who also had ptsd but would continue to act dismissive toward me like I was making her uncomfortable by being there.
Also an important side note about my boss: She and I were also growing closer around this time because I was spending a lot of time working for her outside the boutique. She was extremely easy to talk to and believed that we (her staff) should always create space for one another to share how we feel and communicate about it in an ethical way. This would later become a problem since it’s a small boutique with only women working there lol.
I began to feel extremely anxious at work when I started to notice that it was viewed an inconvenience for me to go into the office to work on managerial duties rather than being on the floor. It would take me a while to get things done sometimes due to me being easily distracted, but I explained to my boss and my coworkers many times that this has always been a struggle for me and I am doing the best I can with what I have.
At a certain point I was so stressed out from the work load, my boss’s tendency to remind me that I’m only the assistant to the manager but then treat me as if I am the manager (she’s a Gemini btw), and the regular jabs from Sarah that it began to affect my mental health even more than usual. I wasn’t taking care of myself at home and I dreaded going to work. My heart was breaking because I genuinely loved my job at first and I thought it was a perfect place to be creative and grow professionally, but as holiday season was coming to an end I decided to step down as the assistant manager.
Once I told Sarah the news she of course began to go on about how it’s really for the best and she’s so happy that we will all get to work on marketing together (this was my ONE JOB). She seemed to care at first and would ask me how I’m feeling about it all, but she wouldn’t stop talking about it even after I had asked her if we could talk about something else since I was pretty bummed out. She would occasionally bring it up off and on to other coworkers about how much better everything will be now that I have stepped down. She would always claim that other people felt the same way she did when we would have conversations about why everything went downhill but I just couldn’t believe her. Idk why.
After about a week of me being back as an associate I came in early one morning to clean (I had permission to do so) and when Sarah and the new new manager came in I had told them that everything was ready for opening and if they would mind doing the daily display we create every morning so I can run upstairs and do my make up really fast — big big mistake lmao. My manager came up to tell me that I was not allowed to come in early any more since I have already been going into overtime, and I can’t put on my mascara on the clock because “it’s just not right” LOL. I understood and that was that. Throughout the day I kept my head down and stayed busy. I wasn’t interested in talking to Sarah and our new manager who had become friends almost immediately (shocker). I felt grounded about it and didn’t want to put off any weird vibes but I did pretty much stay quiet. This job is kind of weird like that. When you work in retail they expect you to be bubbly and talkative to each other and the customer 24/7 at least in my boss’s mind. It’s girl world over here and I was in the process of checking out. But later that day Sarah decided that she wanted to have a say in what apparently happened that morning. She proceeded to scold me saying that she couldn’t believe that I would have the “audacity” to ask them to create the display so I could do my make up, and that me coming in early to do extra tasks (because I never had time when I was a manager) was “weird” and me choosing to stay quiet was “weird.” I didn’t even hesitate. My response was “are you fucking kidding me?” I was furious. She has been disrespectful to me for months and I chose to be passive because I thought it wasn’t that big of a deal but now that I’m not the manager anymore she is really going to treat me like a problem? I was belligerent. I didn’t hold back but I did. I was tearful. Completely unprofessional. But I had had enough of her.
I went to my boss later that day to ask her for help and have a moment of honesty with her about how I reacted. She agreed with me that I had every reason to be upset but told me I needed to work it out with her because we can’t coordinate schedules so I don’t have to see her and she will not have a toxic work environment. I went to Sarah and apologized for how I reacted. I literally gave her the benefit of the doubt. Since then we have had a couple more rigid interactions with each other and now all I can do is keep my head down and just take her bullshit. I talked to my boss a couple of times about finding a different job but she has expressed that she needs me to stay. I just don’t see how I can continue to let myself stay in this toxic situation. And finding another job already has me freaked out because I have had such bad anxiety and this whole experience was a nightmare. I want to stand up for myself but I know it won’t go over well.