*Posting this on behalf of my younger sister who doesn´t have a reddit account but wanted to share this here. All of the following text was written by her:
Hi guys. This is my first post ever and I don't really know how to use Reddit, but I've seen some videos about people using this website to vent and connect to people who have similar life experiences (and in this case Weird-Ass-Job-Experiences)… and I thought “Well, why not?”
*All names are fake btw and ENG isn't my first language so sorry for bad writing!!!
So, let me tell you about my last job.
I got into it in march 2023, I was hired as a Museum Assistant. I wasn't really looking for a job at the time because I was having a hard time with mental health and my family wanted me to stay at home and dedicated to college. But I received a dm on instagram from an old “friend”, whom I trusted at the time because we went to the same college and even had a little-super-duper-stupid-small-nothing-serious-affair in 2019 (this may be kinda important to the whole story unfortunately), telling me about the job. She, who I will call Courtney, was being promoted at the Museum, and needed someone to took her place. She knew I was hard working – her words- so she thought about me. On the ig message she told me a little about the job, about the wage (it was more than a minimum wage and had some cool benefits) and told me to go to an interview. I honestly got excited, I was really depressed and felt like a burden plus I always wanted to work in a Museum because at the time I was getting my Visual Arts degree. I went to the interview on a Tuesday morning at 10am and left about 10h30am. Got the message telling me I was approved at like 11h20am on the same day.
My working hours were reasonably strange, I worked from Wednesdays to Sundays and all holidays (the place's proposal was to be open every day**)**. My shift started at 8h30am and ended at 5:30pm, but due to public transport I had to leave home at 7am and only returned home about 7:30pm or even later. Due to this I happened to be away from a lot of friends 'cause our schedules didn't match up. And well, about friends: I wasn't the only one who joined the Museum as a Museum Assistant, I found out later that almost the whole team before us quitted or was fired and that's why when I started the job, Joe, Chris and Zoe (fictional names ofc) started with me as well. I won't tell much about them because this isn't the point, but they are nice people and I appreciate them a lot. Also, we were in seven assistants when it all started.
Anyway, about the Museum: it isn't an Art Museum, it is an Historical one. I can't give much details but, its story is about a really important person for human kind, who helped a lot of people and made a lot of charity around the world. It has a deeply connection with catolicism and that's why when on my second week of work when we had to pray and sing to God I was just a little bit weirded out but not enough. On my second week I also started to notice something was off. But first I need to tell you a little more about what exactly I was hired for: as a Museum Assistant, I was hired to mediate the exhibitions. That meaning, I had to study the exhibitions we had there and worked as a “tourist guide” to the group of people we received, mostly schools of children and pre-teens, but to be honest we would mediate to Any kind of people. The Museum itself is known to be extremely family-friendly and during the interview my (thankfully) ex-boss said “you're not a nanny, you don't have to take care of anyone's children, don't worry about that.” And that's why (on my second week of work) when she called all of us to a meeting on a Friday morning very angry and Literally threatening to fire all of us because we weren't interacting and taking care enough of the children I got, WELL, Really Confused to say the least. That was the first threat I received to what would become a daily thing. But just so you know: on the 4th or 5th week Chris quit the job because he was going trough a divorce and he coulnd't be in a place that was so unstable (he is fine and stable now <3 ). Funfact: on the Saturday after this first meeting a guy who always visited the Museum (it's common to have the same visitor because it was a very huge and cool place to children) came up to me and Chris and said: “You guys are new here… right?” we said “Yes” 😀 ” he then proceed “Why does no one stays in this place for so long?” while walking away not giving us a chance to answer – not that we would answer, because honestly what was there to say?
I think this is getting too long, so I will try to resume it. We had three supervisors: Courtney (she was a lot of things including a pain in my ass), the boss I mentioned earlier who only stayed with us for three weeks then got out of the picture because of health reasons (she is okay) and Ashley who took's the boss place while she was gone. All women btw. There was also this girl Mia, she was in charge of social media for the place. She didn't have a degree or any basic knowledge about photography, editing, montages, anything that could really leave her with the Social Media role. Nothing except for THAT ONE THING that I later found out was something extremely common in the place: nepotism. I really did not fucking care about the way she would manage social media, but I would care about the fact that she was always talking shit behind our backs. She would talk about the way we dressed, the way we talked, the way we ate lunch, would look at us up and down, screamed at us, laughed at our face, talked about our bodies (nothing nice ofc) and would constantly threaten us about always being watched by the cameras (everyone had this habit but with her it was worse). “They are watching” she said “They are not happy with the wat you guys are working”. I do not fucking know who is They. And now it actually sounds stupid, but having to hear this everyday… like believe me when I tell you guys that everyone there was paranoid. Like, for real.
Now… Things can always get worse. And I have to advise you: this next paragraph will have a violence description against a disabled person. Nothing graphic, it is more of a verbal and power abuse, but it did happened.
Ok. There was a Staff member, some really really really important old guy that I won't even give a fake name because I don't think he deserves a name AT ALL. He was one of the owners of the place and has connections… anyway.. a dickhead. And we had at the time a disabled person working with us, he used some kind of wheelchair (he could stand up but he couldn't walk for too long, and it wasn't that kind of wheelchair which the person sits on it but the ones which they use as a support). I don't want to give the victim a name as well, not because I want do dehumanize him please don't see it like that! I want to preserve his identity the best I can. I hope you understand. Anyway, he worked at the reception and his wheelchair was besides the table. Believe me when I tell you the Staff member came up to him, pushed his wheelchair away, laughed and said “Now go pick it up.” He stood up and tried to go after it, but he fell and hit his head on the ground. In front of a lot of visitors and other coworkers. This was the last day I saw him at the Museum. I didn't see it with my eyes, but I did see it on the cameras later. Everyone did. But we couldn't talk about that, our supervisors obviously threatened us. I went home that day feeling like a huge piece of shit, cried a lot on the bus. I searched all over the internet what I could do to help but it turned out that wasn't really anything. After I quit this fuckass job I found out he searched for justice and won the case against the Staff guy, so it was a relief and now he is okay. But we were always working under some weird stuff.
I will finish this post finally talking about Courtney, there are more things I could tell (like animal abuse, function desviation, unhealthy working condition, even some haunted ghost shit and if someone is interested maybe sometime I can go back to these topics) but now I will talk about her.
As I said in the beginning of the post, Courtney was the one who offered me the job and we did had a small affair in the end of 2019 I will be honest and say I kinda liked her and she did ghosted me, but I was 18 years old and it was really not a big deal. When I started at this workplace I was in talking-stage to my (now) girlfriend (yuppiiii) and had zero interest in Courtney – and even if I still had interest, it was common knowledge that she was dating a guy for like almost 3 years. But why am I talking so much about this? Well, because she was talking weird things behind my back – and I only got to know these things now almost 2 months after I quit. She kept telling our coworkers that she felt “a romantic tension between us” and that she wanted to flirt with me again (yes, while dating). I always felt like something was up so I never really told anyone (just Joe) about my girlfriend, I didn't want anyone to know my personal stuff. Everyone respected it, except for Courtney. There was this one day she kept asking me about personal information (about my family, my older and awesome brother) and I said I didn't feel safe talking about that. Everyone in the room said “It's okay! Let's change the topic!” and she kept quiet for a few minutes and then got back to the topic. My friends noticed my discomfort and backed me up, but it was always like that. I don't think I mentioned it before, but I am a lesbian woman and it was a conservative workplace so there was REALLY no reason at all for me to open up about anything.
There was this one time, almost three months at the job I think. Courtney was crying because, well, at the end of the day she was also a victim and the others supervisors would mentally abuse the shit out of her. I was worried 'cause she cried in front of all of us and it was a very unusual thing for her to do (I had no idea she was already talking weird stuff about me). I thought to myself “when I get home today, I'm going to text her. I think she needs a shoulder to lean on.” But coincidentally, she asked me out after work to vent and I accepted it. She vented and cried and I cheered her up. It was the only thing I did since I got there, stood by her side. And she repaid me by not respacting my space, humiliating me, talking shit behind my back and fetichizing all of my relationships with women as if I was some kind of predator. We had other LGBTQ+ women coworkers and she would provoke me about them, I literally couldn't even stand next to them that she would malicious it, making fun of me and trying to let everyone know I was a lesbian which I absolutely did not want to happen. I just felt humiliated and disrespected all the time.
I will end this post here. I got tired and still get really anxious talking about these things. As I said, there are some other super weird things that happened and well, I am just grateful my family and girlfriend helped me to get out of there. The mental abuse I was put under made me feel super uncapable of leaving, but now I am healing and hopefully will be better soon. Almost all my friends quit and aren't near there anymore, they also went through some weird shit and are recovering.
Thank you for reading!!!! and if you are going through something similar I hope you can get out soon and take care!
working sucks!