i work in a clothes shop in my city's only mall (uk), its the most popular store in the mall so it's busy like 95% of the time & it's ridiculous on weekends & over the holidays. fortunately im part time so i only work 3 days a week, im contracted to 4 hour shifts but i'll do 7/8 hour shifts if i can get them (their overtime availability is stupid but thats another story lol).
when i work weekdays i finish when the store closes, on my one weekend shift i finish in the afternoon. when i first started (over a year ago) the managers told us they could legally keep us for 15 minutes if there are still customers in the store, which there always is bcs customers dont seem to understand what “we're closed” means. i rely on public transportation, so i have to set off 2 hours in advance & get the bus & tram. the only issue is theres only one bus that goes near my house & it becomes hourly at the same time we close, so if i dont leave on time i miss it & it takes me a lot longer to get home. this is especially annoying bcs as a young woman i dont wanna be stood in town waiting an hour for a bus when its really dark. i expressed this to managers in the beginning & asked them if i could leave on time & they just said “we're all in the same boat” even tho most, if not all, of the managers drive afaik.
eventually i got fed up of asking & just started leaving w/o asking. sometimes i'd get stopped, but most of the time i wouldnt. at one point they started getting a manager to stand at the clock in machines to stop anyone leaving on time lol. sad. then i started asking again & surprisingly most of the times they said yes & i actually got to leave on time.
however one manager in particular is really giving me a headache ab it. at first he would tell me to ask him if i wanna leave on time. i'd ask & he'd tell me to serve one last customer, even tho my shift had already ended, & the customer would always end up having a bunch of stuff to buy which was rlly frustrating bcs i would end up missing my bus. then he told me he couldn't let me go on time anymore bcs apparently other staff had complained ab me leaving on time (im not the only one who gets permission to leave on time), so he told me to speak to p&c ab it. i did & they said i could leave on time due to my circumstances. i told that particular manager this & he went & told another manager & the other manager said he would speak to p&c himself, but for now i have to wait like everyone else. i got rlly annoyed & told the first manager that he was the one that literally told me to speak to p&c & i was following his advice.
ive complained to my work friends ab it & theyve just told me to leave on time even if they try & stop me bcs they cant physically stop me from leaving. ive decided i probably will do that, but i also dont want to kick up a fuss & cause the manager to act even worse towards me bcs he already treats me badly. its so frustrating bcs they have ppl that finish an hour after me so why cant they go on tills & serve so that we can leave? are they allowed to keep me? like i feel kinda bad for leaving when others r still working tbh, but i am leaving when my shift ends. that manager also called me disgusting for leaving on time yesterday so that made me feel worse & im just wondering whether im actually in the wrong here.
honestly the whole place is so ridiculous. we're so understaffed, yet they cut how much overtime we could do by half & there never seems to be any left. theres barely any managers & the majority of them either dont know how to do their job or just dont care. theres no aircon throughout the store & hasnt been since before summer started so it was absolutely awful, someone ended up passing out & they still havent done anything ab it. company earns over a million pounds per week but cant get any aircon…
sorry ik this is a loooong read but this job genuinely makes me so miserable i just needed to rant somewhere. its my first job too. ive been looking for other ones but theres not exactly many options, & the pay here is actually pretty good for me so thats also making me hesitant to just up & leave. props to anyone who actually reads all this lol, again apologies for the length & for any mistakes im tired