I apologize if the timeline seems all over the place. I’m not really good at remembering what details went where, and I’m also not the greatest at writing stories. I at least hope you get some enjoyment out of this.
So two years ago I worked at an amusement park. This is in Pennsylvania, and it’s necessary to know as all amusement parks here are in a partnership program where the workers can attend either park for a few days each season (I think so, it’s been so long and it might vary between each park). It’s a key detail, and I promise you it’ll come up later.
I worked almost full-time and was paid pretty damn well. I wouldn’t have minded this, as I liked busying myself, had I not been given the shittiest jobs ever and had the worst manager on the planet earth.
Since I was one of the only 16 year olds in my unit, I was basically tasked with doing all the dirty work that the 14-15 year olds couldn’t do. Whether this be manning the fryer, working the pretzel oven, yada yada. Not only did I have to do this, but I had to do prep work and take care of the register as well. Yeah, not fun, especially during the busy days when orders were flying in at every possible second.
I’m pretty sure my manager hated me because I was basically the only one who had to do this. The other 16 year olds usually had someone helping them when it came to this job, but nope, I was the Lone Ranger and had to bust my ass when it came my time to do it.
Towards the end of the season my manager was getting even pissier than usual. It wasn’t like we were busy, since during August people were getting ready to go back to school and had no time for the fun and joy of an amusement park. I was getting ready to take a much needed vacation, only for about two days, and it was to another amusement park in our state. Great, right?
During closing time, me and my co-worker were busting ass so we could get out earlier than usual. I finally took a minute when everything but the dishes were done, as I had to text my mom to come and pick me up. I was waiting for her to get the message when miss manager came up to me and yelled that I had to do something or clock out and leave because ‘everyone else was working hard’ (the boys were fucking around and not getting dishes done, and she’d just been sitting on her phone for the last 20 minutes so). I said ok, left, and sat outside for my mom.
End of story, right?
I’d asked for a few days off the next week, too, because my school was getting ready to start and I’d had no time the prior few weeks to actually go school shopping. My manager had even asked us if we needed time off because of this, as everyone was school students and she knew we needed time for this.
What does she do? Schedule us the full week, even though we’d all asked off on different days so that she could have an easy time with scheduling.
At least I knew I wasn’t alone in her little bitch fits.
Anyway, I was getting ready to quit but then remembered I’d lose my park tickets if I did. So I held off, and the moment I got ahold of my tickets for a total of two days of fun, I sent the email to HR saying I quit bc I didn’t want to give them the time of day either bc they’d so far been ignoring all the other complaints placed throughout the park.
I laugh at this story now, but during that time I’d been in a really hard spot mentally and couldn’t take it anymore, especially since I felt that my manager was favoring my other co-workers over me. I may have more stories about her and the shitty co-workers she favored if I rack my brain hard enough, but I don’t have the mental capacity to nor do I wanna make this story more complicated than it already is.