I'm (female) a 27-year-old with high-functioning autism and a learning disability (possibly having gained anxiety and/or depression w/suicidal thoughts from time to time on my worst days).
I'm working at a certain grocery store bakery (wont say the name but the first and last part of the name ryme and you just have to change the first letter), and have been for three years (4 in August). When I first started at the age of 24, I was a naive worker who believed that I'd be rewarded for paying my dues and working hard. So I was hired and worked about 3-4 days a week part time 6:30 – 1.
I first started working with a co-worker and a manager. A few months after co-worker left on the spot and I was left to man the bakery all on my own. My manager was running around taking care of things that I did know how to do while I did the most basic tasks and slowly learning the ways of the area. I was working About a year in I was offered full time, 6:30 – 3 six days a week since I was alone for the most part with benefits and all that for I think $11 an hour.
I asked if I could learn cake decorating things as that's what I really wanted to do as part of the condition of working full time, and they agreed. So after talking it over with my family (who also pushed for full time because of money). I stupidly agreed, thinking I'd get rewarded. Spoilers: I didn't. They pulled a few people around the store excluding myself to learn under a professional cake decorator and wouldn't let me learn even when I offered to or expressed my interest or dropped hints or the like.
Then came covid, I was manning the bakery and could open and close easily without having to worry about getting things done since I was able to manage my own time. What I couldn't do my manager did. Working in front of a hot oven, running around with a mask, trying to keep my head up. But in all honesty, I was no longer enjoying my work and dreaded every morning when I had to get up and go, only to be super happy when I was done for the day and had a day off.
Then came them deciding that instead of promoting me (which even I admit that I wouldn't want because I was already exhausted with what I was doing), they pulled someone from the deli to manage me. She was much older than myself and stated that this was probably going to be her last job before retiring, so in my eyes I felt like I was in trouble. She knew nothing about the bakery, wanted to do everything in one day just because she loved to bake and claimed to have no hobbies outside of work, and just generally left a mess around, ignoring my advice/knowledge unless she needed it, and enjoyed barking orders if things didn't go her exact way. But yet she was always super sweet when she needed something from me.
Then months later, we brought over a very slow co-worker who only listened to teh manager, refusing to do as I ask and just in gernal ignoring me. To make things worse, she LOVES to slack off and just stand around if given the opportunity to. Manger sees nothing wrong with this and in fact yells at me when I'm trying to help her around by giving advice. And she loves to take a week off frequently to “visit” loved ones or whatever (this is her claim). So instead of the managerworking by herself for certain days, I get pulled to work more days which stresses me out since I help on the family farm after work, so hardly any rest, just like this week.
I tried to quit after she went too far, but even after explaining my side to my parents, they refused to hear me out, and I was forced to go talk to the store manager who admittedly didn't do much but make it worse by giving me false promises whe I foolishly relaid my issues. Things haven't gotten better and I'm trying to look near that bakery to see if I can find another line of work in the same area or even try to look closer to home.
But what I really want to do is stay home and just work on my novel, or even try to do silk dying for a living. But my parents think that it's just being “lazy” and that they think they know better. Neither of them really had any jobs in the current day and age, so I'd love to see them do what I do and NOT be upset at the conditions. I guess I'm just posting this here because I'm not sure what to even do anymore.