I know this probably won’t go anywhere, but I just quit my job after barely being there for a week and a half, and this is the message I sent to HR due to the shitty nature of my District Manager. Information has, of course, been redacted to protect privacy. I will admit, I got a little snotty in this, but I had already quit and was VERY heated when writing this email, plus I know HR likely won’t do anything about her regardless. Anyway, here goes.
Hello,
My name is u/OkuroIshimoto (Employee #1234567). Up until today, for the past two weeks, I have been helping to set up the newest Bluenotes store in Lindsay, Ontario as a Team Lead Supervisor. (Keeping this in in case anyone lives around there. You should know how they treat their staff.) During my interview with District Manager (DM), the subject of this report, I mentioned two key details. The first was that I was unable to commute to Peterborough for our first training shift. The second, and most important, was that I have a Non-Verbal Learning Disability, which has various impacts on my everyday life, some good, some bad. Psychologically speaking, at least in my case, it would be accurate to compare it to High-Functioning Autism, and it is on the same spectrum. The biggest impact, as it pertained to this job, was my fine motor skills, or lack thereof. While my hands are very effective tools for things like typing, they routinely struggle with things that require lots of minutiae. Tying knots, doing up buttons, folding, etc. This does not mean I CAN'T do these things, what it means is that I need to take my time and be a bit more methodical in how I do them, and they may not look the best, especially with things like folding and tying. This was during the interview around late October, and shortly before DM took a week-long vacation to Cuba, she called me to offer me the Team Lead Position.
My first day was on November 14th, easily the most physically taxing day out of my entire time working there. We had a lot of boxes to be moved, and as one of the first people in there at 8:00AM, I got the brunt of it. The task Manager 1 and I had was fairly simple; Move the boxes off of the skids and stack them in the back end of the store. I know you don't know what myself or Manager 1 look like, so I'll go over some key details. Manager 1 is a short-statured woman who was carrying boxes larger than she was, and probably heavier. I'm very tall and lanky, so reaching up high is a strength, and I can even pitch in on my fair share of heavy lifting. What I can't do is constantly lift heavy objects for 8 consecutive hours. DM, during this time, stood behind the counter with a piece of paper and pencil writing down the numbers on the boxes we brought down. I get it, someone had to do it, my issue lies with what happened next. Despite all of this, we managed to get about half of it done before any other Employees arrived. After completing our first skid, which had boxes stacked high enough to be over 1.5x my own height (Around 6'2), DM came over and told us that we weren't moving fast enough, and “Demonstrated” how fast we should be moving…by taking a few very light boxes off the top of the next skid and tossing them off to the rest of the pile before we could log the numbers and going back to her counter while we dealt with the heavy stuff, saying “I'm 65, if I can do it, you can too.” I'd also like to note that we weren't even moving slowly, it took maybe 10-15 seconds depending on the heaviness of the particular box to call out the number, mark it off, and carry it to the rest of them. We were about halfway through when more employees showed up, one of which DM berated for being late when they were really 15 minutes early, and we were able to finish off the other half within a couple minutes, which we still got berated for going too slow. After the boxes were stacked, we then needed to remove the contents and move them to the appropriate sections of the store. I wasn't sure what went where, since it was my first day, and assumed I'd be allowed to ask, but after two or three questions I was told “Look at the codes,” and all subsequent boxes were opened by DM, since she still refused to lift anything, at least from what I saw, and she'd simply say “This is a insert code here” with zero explanation. I know it means something to her, I know it meant something to Managers who have a few years of experience, and I know it was eventually supposed to mean something to me, but I had no experience, no training, and no idea what anyone was talking about. They gave me a brief explanation, odd numbers are for women, even numbers are for men, and other numbers determined what wall they went on. I tried to retain as much as I could, but my disability makes it hard for me to retain information after just hearing it once. I need something written or recorded to use as a reference until such time as I have it memorized, which shouldn't have taken any longer than a couple of hours. I explained this and asked if any such written material existed, figuring Bluenotes had SOME kind of training document that I could use as a reference. I was told there wasn't anything like that. I asked if a Manager could give me some sort of written guide to help me memorize the codes and their meanings, which I likely could have done overnight. They explained it all verbally in a few seconds, surely it would take just as long to text me something. I was told that was no problem, and that I would get something. To this day, I have received nothing, not that it really matters anymore. As I'm sure is no surprise to you, the cardboard boxes themselves were not what was heavy, rather the contents of them. Between regularly wheeling discarded cardboard out to the dumpster, I now had to carry heavy bags of things through all corners of the store with an already aching back, arms, and legs. Still, I could put all of that aside, knowing it's an aspect of the job, if I didn't have DM constantly in my ear about how slow I was apparently going. In an effort to increase my speeds, I wound up carrying twice the amount of bags as normal and tried to walk as fast as I could, which both wasn't good enough for DM, and ended up with me nearly buckling under the weight of some bags I was carrying. Once that was done, all I really did for the rest of that day was hang up coats and wheel out cardboard, albeit with a very sore body with DM still coming up periodically to chastise me about how slow I was going, though it was less frequent than it was in the morning. I wound up working from 8-6 instead of the 8-5 I was scheduled for, though that was my fault, I had misread the schedule and thought I was on for an hour later than I was. At around 5:30 I noticed this, and since my ride home wouldn't be there for another half hour, I asked DM if I could just stick around and help out, and she said yes. While I continued working, one of my coworkers asked me “Wait, you were supposed to be done at 5?” and I responded with “Yeah, but I don't mind staying. It's another $17, that's lunch for a day!” She didn't address this until just before I left, but she did pull me aside and quietly tell me I wasn't allowed to talk about how much I make, and how it was against the Confidentiality Policy and grounds for possible termination.
(Side-Note: I didn’t bring up the Ontario Pay Transparency Act because, to my knowledge, it got put on the backburner when Ford took Office, but if anyone knows of any other ways I could get ‘em on this, that would be appreciated.)
I left the store that evening with bruises on my arms and legs, multiple blisters on my feet, and could barely walk without tripping over my own feet. Again, I would have been able to write all of that off as being part of the job if it weren't for DM incessantly badgering me to speed up when I had already worked for 9 hours well beyond the point of exhaustion.
That was just Day One. Buckled in yet? Good.
The second day, November 15th, was a bit easier than the first. The heavy lifting was basically done, all I really did was move more cardboard, take the things we moved out of their bags, and hang them up. I was moving slower than normal that day, in no small part due to my body still aching all over and the multiple blisters on my feet making walking itself a challenge, never-mind quick pacing. Still, when I stood there hanging tops, I did so pretty quickly and efficiently, despite my weakened state and disability making them a challenge. When it became time to hang pants, I struggled a fair bit more. The pant hangars had clasps that needed to be moved open and shut through little levers on them, which was challenging for me due to my disability. I still got them hung, some of them just needed an extra try or two, especially early on when I was still getting used to it. Some additional challenges were presented in the hanging process that also made me slower. First, most tops needed to be hung with felt hangars to keep them from falling off. The problem was, we were given boxes of mixed up hangars, some felt, but most regular. We had something to put felt on the regular hangars, but when I asked about it I was told “Just use what's in the boxes for now.” Every time I went to hang a top, I needed to feel around for felt hangars, and then when I found one, it was usually tangled up in a mess of other hangars which I then had to untangle. Untangling those things is a pain for everyone, but for someone with fine motor skills issues, it's even worse. The pant hangars were new, and sorted properly, but them being new meant the levers were much stiffer and harder to move, which made my job even harder. Again, something I could look past as a struggle of the job if I didn't have the District Manager coming up to me every five minutes telling me how I need to be moving “5x faster.” Eventually she brought me into the back room to talk with me, after I was given a key at the start of the day, then asked to return it. When I was asked to return it, it was through the Assistant Manager (Referred to hereafter as AssMan) who lied right to my face by saying “I accidentally gave you Manager 1’s key, could you give it to me?” I complied, but was not given a key of my own. I asked AssMan where I get MY key, she told me to talk to DM. In the back, DM essentially threatened me with a demotion, saying that, while my title and pay would stay consistent with the Team Lead position I was hired on for, she wasn't going to train me at the same rate as the other team lead, because she wanted to see me move at a faster pace and have more energy. I said I understood, and apologized, explaining that I was exhausted from the day before and had nearly buckled under my own weight. At first I thought she was trying to be compassionate, saying “Well, we don't want our employees to hurt themselves,” but then immediately flipped it into “But I'm 65 and I was there from 7 until close, so how do you think I feel?” My internal response was “Probably a lot better, considering I spent my time lifting large, heavy boxes and wheeling out carts of cardboard that stacked higher than I am tall, whereas you spent yours either standing behind a counter or micromanaging your staff, particularly me,” but I held my tongue there, took it on the chin, and went back to work. She was there a total of 3.5 hours longer than me, and even if she spent every minute of that time doing the work I had been doing, it's still not even remotely comparable.
November 16th and 17th were largely more of the same thing. I did the tasks assigned to me, I got berated for going slowly, I explained how my disability works, and I was ignored. However, on the 16th she made an excuse akin to “My insert family member here or insert friend/coworker here has insert some other disability that has no relation to mine and they could do this faster than even I could!” Which really just shows that she has no idea what she's talking about. Even if she knew someone with the exact same disability I have, the beauty of neurodivergence is that it's different in a lot of ways for different people. I'm sure there's someone out there with the same disability I have that could run circles around me, and I wish you the best of luck in finding them, but for a company who boasts about being accommodating to employees with disabilities, I haven't seen a single instance of that. Not. A. One. Which, by the way, is a violation of the Accessibility for Ontarians With Disabilities Act, which states “If a selected applicant requests an accommodation, the employer shall consult with the applicant and provide or arrange for the provision of a suitable accommodation in a manner that takes into account the applicant's accessibility needs due to disability.” I requested accommodation multiple times, and was either deflected or outright ignored. If DM were just some random person who was ignorant of people with disabilities, I could move past that. The fact that she's a manager, and has been for numerous years, and either hasn't been educated on how to deal with employees with disabilities, or has been and is choosing deliberately to ignore them, is appalling. Both on her part as a person, and yours for giving her the power she has for as long as she's had it. On the 17th, I was sent home early, leaving at 1:00 instead of 6:00, being told by Manager 1, who got picked on by DM almost as much as I did, that it was because we were overstaffed and didn't have much else to do. This time COULD have been used doing the training I had missed out on in Peterborough, teaching me how to work the POS, something I have years of experience in, but that was refused. After I left, I learned that at the end of her shift, Manager 1 handed the other Team Lead her key, told her she wouldn't be coming back, and left. Between her, me, and [REDACTED] a Sales Associate who handed in his resignation after the first day, that makes 3 out of the 6 people hired for this job who quit before the first two weeks were up, with me lasting the longest so far at 10 days. All of us have cited DM as our primary reason for leaving, and now that we're not there for her to target, it's only a matter of time before she moves on to someone else and they leave too, and to be quite honest with you, I don't know a single person who could blame them for that.
I had the next four days off,which gave my body the time it needed to properly rest and recover from the first day. I came back on the 22nd, the day we opened, only to return to more of the same thing. My first task was to hang jeans on an empty hook. Simple enough, though DM felt the need to speak even slower and more condescending than normal whilst explaining to me that the number 8 was higher than the number 6. I didn't even have them hung up in the incorrect order, so I don't know why she felt the need to tell me that. Once I had that rack filled, DM pointed to a rack with pajama pants on it by the door and told me to swap them with the jeans I had just hung up. Why she made me do it this way instead of just moving the pajamas to the once-empty hangar and then hanging the jeans up, I'll never know, but she spent that time training other Management and Supervisors how to do things I should have also been trained how to do. After spending most of the day scan-tagging while my peers received training, I decided I'd had enough. I went on my lunch, came back in, and told DM I needed to speak with her. I noticed she avoided me for most of that period, and didn't come to speak with me until I was on my second break and she was getting ready to leave for the night. In the short amount of time I had to talk to her, I explained that I felt I wasn't being treated fairly in terms of how quickly everyone else's training was progressing whilst I was stuck doing menial task after menial task every day I was there. The week we were setting up, I could understand. After that, it's just outright refusal. She made a few fair points, namely that since the other Team Lead was able to make the commute to Peterborough for training, that she was 6 hours ahead of me in the training process. She also said that since Manager 1 left, she needed to either promote our current Assistant Manager, or hire a new Manager. In some aspects, that's fair enough, but Other Team Lead and AssMan were two people being trained on the POS by a collective three or four people while I stood there in the corner scan-tagging for seven hours, hours that could have been spent getting caught up by at least ONE of those people. I made it very clear well beforehand that I was unable to commute to Peterborough, measures should have been taken THEN to get me caught up, not weeks later. She also said she would “Re-evaluate next week where everyone is placed.” Speaking of next week, not that it matters now, but my original schedule was one 3-hour shift and one 4-hour shift. I was told my hours would increase when I got my training done, but people kept REFUSING TO TRAIN ME. A 7-hour work week barely gives me enough money to cover the gas it would take driving to and from work. I would essentially have been coming into work just so I could pay to come into work. Capping off the short conversation, she told me “I would also caution you to be mindful of how you react, because earlier today you rolled your eyes at me and when I handed you a badge you took it from me as if you were mad.”
I don’t remember rolling my eyes, I will stipulate that her behaviour seems designed to have created frustration for me so I won’t discredit it as being untrue. As for the button, I don't know where this whole “Swiping” nonsense comes from. One of the only times she didn't feel the need to walk right up to me was when she was handing out buttons to make us more recognizable as staff to customers. I was in the middle of working, and I didn't want to give her any more of a reason to berate me for moving slowly, so I quickly sprinted over, grabbed the button, and ran back to my menial workstation. I am not 5 years old, nor am I a bandana-wearing cartoon fox. I don't swipe things from people.
Now onto yesterday. DM wasn't there to begin with, and I guess she delegated her incessant hounding of me to Manager 2. I was scan-tagging for most of the morning, folding and stacking shirts and sweaters. I honestly did better than I thought I would, but it didn't look the prettiest, I will admit. Manager 2 told me that they needed to be neat, and giving her the benefit of the doubt, I explained how my disability worked since I don't recall having that conversation to or around her, despite the MANY times I've had to have that conversation in my short time working there. Manager 2 didn't even attempt to plead ignorance like DM did, she just said “This is the expectation we have of you, and it's what we pay you for, so…” I responded with “And my expectation is that the people paying me understand how my disability works, instead of deliberately putting me in places where it will inhibit my abilities.” Instead of understanding, or listening, I'd even take a well-worded counter argument, she just said “It's not a good idea to back-talk management.” First of all, expressing frustration that said “Management” isn't taking my disability seriously is not back-talking, I have every right to express my needs as many times as is needed until it gets through to them. I responded first by saying that, and then explaining my disability AGAIN, this time in a firmer tone. Not raising my voice, which will come up a bit later, but speaking firmer and clearer so I knew I was being heard. Again, since she had no actual response, she went to the back and called DM, who came in not too long before my shift ended. It's worth noting that, during this time, I got taught how to use the POS! What three people spent an entire day teaching two other people how to do, I had figured out and was able to process my own transactions within about ten minutes, even figuring out how to do returns, something I had no training on how to do, entirely on my own. Not to mention the fact that I cleared out a line that nearly made it to the front door in just a few minutes singlehandedly. I thought I would be praised for that, finally being able to show off an area where I really shine and bring a lot of value to the team. Nobody said a word. Eventually, DM came in, and shortly before my shift ended she and AssMan brought me outside into the main hallway of the mall to sit down and talk with me in front of anyone who passed us by. DM told me that I was being written up for “Insubordination” both for the alleged eye-rolling and “button-swiping” the day prior, and for the discussion I had with Manager 2 earlier that day. I explained what happened yesterday to DM AGAIN, I explained how my disability works AGAIN, and I expressed my concerns that I was being unfairly treated, AGAIN. The write-up in regards to what happened this morning wasn't even about what I said, I suspect either because she hadn't actually been listening to a word I said or because she had no way of refuting what I said. Which, considering what I said was the fact that I have a disability and needed accommodation, in accordance with the AODA, there was no counter-argument to be made anyway. The write up, as it pertained to that morning, was that I “raised my voice at her.” I know whoever is reading this has never met me or spoken to me before, but as everyone I know can attest, I'm a fairly soft-spoken person, especially in public. I spoke in a firmer tone with Manager 2 after having to explain the exact same thing several times, but my voice did not raise even a single octave higher than it normally was. DM, who wasn't even there, oh-so expertly proved me wrong by telling me that Manager 2 told her that AssMan heard me “yell at her.” What I find interesting is that AssMan was on the other side of the store, and couldn't even tell me what it was that I supposedly “yelled” at her. I told DM that that assessment of the morning's events as relayed to her through Manager 2 and AssMan was incorrect, and she responded with “So you're telling me that my managers, who have been with me for years, are lying to me?” The short answer is YES, that's EXACTLY what I'm telling her. The long answer is that it's fairly common for Managers and Supervisors to tell or corroborate falsehoods about Employees, if for no other reason than to remain on their good side. Despite AssMan being right there across from me, she remained quiet and made zero attempts to corroborate anything DM said, despite being her only “Witness” to an event that she herself was not even present for, yet insisted she knew all the details of. AssMan also, as I mentioned earlier, has a bit of a track record of lying right to my face, so she already wasn't a trustworthy source of information, especially on issues pertaining to me. I then brought up my short shifts, explaining how they barely gave me enough money for the commute, and she told me that it was “My choice” whether or not I came in for those shifts. Not because they were optional, just that I had the free will to pull three consecutive No-call No-shows and get my employment terminated. I asked if those short shifts would be training shifts so that I could get caught up as a Team Lead, and she simply deflected by saying “Every shift is a training shift” and that “I needed to be moving faster if I wanted more hours.” At this point she handed me the write-up to look over, and I took a picture of it on my phone, not without issue, though, as she attempted to swipe (And yes, I did say “swipe” because that's exactly what she did, and I know how swiping works) the clipboard from me. I still have the picture, though, clear as day, so it was a nice try on her part. She told me that she would give me a copy if I wanted one, but after being told I'd receive numerous things on numerous occasions for numerous reasons, I think I'll just stick with the original copy I've got. If you want to send me something digital, by all means, go for it, just know that I've got a copy of the original write-up in case you decide to make any alterations after reading this email.
I then brought up, for the umpteenth time, that I was being unfairly judged on my ability to perform tasks that are inhibited by my disability, and DM snapped at me saying “I don't treat you any differently than any other employees.” She'd said that in our meeting the day prior as well, and my point remains, that that isn't entirely untrue, but the aspects in which it IS true are a problem as well. She's not treating me differently in the ways she's SUPPOSED to, i.e. accommodating my disability, and instead treats me differently by micromanaging me to the point of harassment and leaving me to do menial stuff while other people were being trained, and thus were able to do the tasks that I can actually do well, and then harassed me on my ability to do things that she knew I couldn’t do well, and denied me the opportunity to do things I could do well. I mentioned this to her, and she said, verbatim, “We have expectations, and I am going to CONTINUE MICROMANAGING YOU until you meet those expectations.” It was very clear targeted behaviour that I feel was meant to make the experience untenable. Redirecting, training, and coaching are one thing, but there's a fine line between that and micromanaging, and DM is so far over that line that she's crossed the border into harassment. The fact that she was so open about the fact that she planned to micromanage me further than she already had speaks volumes about her character and her abilities as a manager, and told me everything I needed to know, and I hope it does the same for you too. I responded with a very clear “No, you're not.” To be even clearer, that was not me being defiant or insubordinate. This was me trying to explain to her “All that does is freak me out and make my focus waver on tasks that I need to put 100% of my focus on in order to do them properly.” I didn't get a chance to say that, though, because DM kept interjecting by saying “Yes, I am.” After a couple rounds of what basically equated to “Nuh-uh!” “Yuh-huh!” I decided that I'd had enough. I got up, announced I was quitting, skipped merrily through the store to collect my belongings, and skipped just as merrily out. I don't think I've ever felt a greater sense of relief than I did leaving that store with the knowledge that I would never have to work under that woman again.
Overall, the job itself wasn't that bad. I got to help open up a brand new store at the mall, I made some new friends in my coworkers, and I learned a lot more about my rights than I knew going into this, which will help me deal with any future DM-esque Managers I may encounter. Given that we’re halfway through the 21st century, presumably there won’t be any more who remain that far in the Dark Ages. But the way the Managers in that store, particularly the District Manager, who has domain over ~20 other stores, treats the people working under them is nothing short of revolting. It's bullying, it's harassment, it's outright abusive, and it's cost them half the store's initial workforce within the first two weeks, and the store has barely even been open. I hope that you take this report seriously, and either relieve DM of her current position, or at the very least, provide her with the education on how to properly treat her staff, particularly those with disabilities, as many times as is necessary for it to get through to her so that the next person who works for her who dares to have a disability isn't subjected to the same awful treatment that I was. As it stands now, she's not fit to manage anybody, never mind an entire district.
One more thing I'd like to sprinkle in here, since this happened pretty much every day, was DM constantly reminding me what the cell phone policy is. To be clear, I never had my cell phone on the floor apart from the first day because the back room wasn't set up yet, and even then kept it in my coat pocket behind the counter and only used it on my break. The first time she told me “Remember, your cell phone has to go away when your break ends,” I could understand, because our temporary break area was just behind the counter, but she continued to tell me this whenever she passed by me in the back room while I was on my phone on my break. I find it very funny how she feels the need to give me little reminders on things that are not only common sense, but I've also worked plenty of retail and customer service jobs with the exact same policy, and I've never been in violation of that. I did, however, see multiple people, particularly Managers, on their phones on the floor with customers around. I understand that they have certain tasks they can use their phones to perform, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say the AirPods in their ears weren't part of those tasks.
I expect a response to this report no later than December 1st, 2023, one week from today. I also was unable to fill out the Direct Deposit form and was given no instruction on how to do it properly, so I expect to receive the proper form and payment deposited or, alternatively, have my paycheck mailed to me also no later than December 1st, 2023, one week from today.
Happy Holidays,