Looking for a little advice on how to handle this situation I find myself in, also, I'm on mobile so sorry for bad formatting, I hope it's a good read at least.
I'm really stuck in a hard spot for me. So I work in a small cocktail bar chain in the UK, in a very small and run down town, it's not the type of upperclass place you think when you hear cocktails, I'm not claming to be the best at my job or even great, but I'm great with talking to people and “guest obsessed” like the company always instructed me to be and up until recently i really enjoyed it, everything was fine, the company has some issues like underfunding us, like leaving the bar itself broken and warped and wallpaper peeling from the walls, but we made do, my manager and coworkers are wonderful people and it was always the idea that dispite us being part of a chain, our bar was ours and we consitantly showed head office that we knew what we were doing, and more importantly enjoyed what we were doing, not that they seemed to notice or care as long as money was still coming in.
Another thing, I wear a hat all the time, rain or shine, hot or cold, it's a black slouch beanie that keeps my long hair in check, it's like a comfort blanket of sorts, I found that if im wearing it, my anxiety just goes away, it also helps with my sensory issues, I've been wearing beanies for years prior to this job and my manager knew this before taking me on, assuming it was a non-issue untill recently, they decided to inforce a uniform policy, which I didn't mind, they were some black t-shirts with the company logo, the contract I signed mentioned nothing to do with hats so there was no issue from me.
Originally the problem was that my hat wasn't uniform and wasn't branded with the company logo, so I had some pins printed with the logo so the logo would show on my hat, but after a recent staff meeting my manager said that head office mentioned that we wearn't following the uniform policy like they wanted and he had told me I had to lose the hat.
I really tried, I really really tried, but I've noticed I've been close to tears almost every shift, I've been trying to interact with guests the same way but I have no confidence, and my anxiety is going though the roof with every interaction with guests and coworkers, it's making me not want to go to work, I thought about just wearing it anyway or finding a “malicious compliance” type way of dealing with it, but the problem is I like my manager, it isn't his fault he's got to inforce the policy, he was actually really understanding but has his hands tied, and by rebelling like that, my manager will be chewed out instead of me.
I want to be happy and enjoy my work, I'm good at my job and although it doesn't pay the best, bartending has always been a part of my life I really enjoy, but with this I've sort of realised that the company as a whole doesn't care about me, or what makes me happy, and I don't know what to do other than look for a new job.