I work for Speedway, a gas station that was recently bought out by 7/11. I've been there for almost 4 years. I'm a lead. I have worked every goddamn shift. Night shift, opening shift, closing shift, fucking opening shift after closing shift on only 2 hours of sleep, doubles, come in on days off. I've volunteered for all of this and done it willingly, because I was relatively okay with Speedway's management. After this 7/11 takeover, I've been getting increasingly more fed up. After this, I'm downright enraged.
7/11 has begun doing these “stings.” Not to make sure employees are following laws, nothing so important. To make sure our “customer service” is up to their exacting standards, at minimum wage.
I had been working a Saturday night 9 hour closing shift. Completely alone. The entire fucking 9 hours. Single-handedly running our very busy store with no break. It was 7 pm. I had been there for 4 hours straight, again, with no breaks. I had to go to the bathroom very, very badly for about half an hour and had not been able to because it was so busy. I had a line, so I was not interrupting my current interactions with my customers in line to greet the “secret shopper” the second he walked in the door.
Strike one.
The secret shopper got up in line. I had just finished cashing out one of my favorite regulars, Mark. Mark is deaf. I do not talk out loud to Mark, because he is fucking deaf. I sign “hello” at him, he signs back, he inputs his rewards card, which i do not remind him to do because my sign language skills are not THAT good and he never forgets anyway, he signs asking for a receipt, I give it to him, he signs thank you, I sign you're welcome, have a nice day, wave to him, and he leaves.
“Secret shopper” saw me not speak a word to Mark and assumed it was shitty customer service! Haha. Cool. Strike two.
I say hi to secret shopper. You can see my fucking lips move in the video that they took of me without my knowledge, with a hidden body cam. Still, I am marked off as not fucking greeting him, once again. Strike fucking three apparently.
I really have to go to the fucking bathroom, like my guts are cramping. He's the only person left in the store. I am not about to try to sell this stranger a fucking rewards card right now and spend precious minutes explaining and going through the whole spiel when any second now someone else could walk in and I could lose my chance to use the bathroom. I have to fucking go.
Strike four.
And then they post the video to the fucking website, and my manager shows the video to the entire fucking store. He and a couple of my coworkers have a good fucking laugh at my expense at my “deer in headlights” look (I have no idea what they mean because, um, again, I had no idea I was being filmed. The camera was hidden. Maybe that “look” is actually my “I am going to shit my pants” look.) And use my discomfort and distress as a “learning experience” on proper customer service.
I'm fucking outraged. At no point in time was i EVER told I was going to be filmed like that. I was only told that there were secret shoppers. I can't even have a fucking bathroom crisis in private anymore, I had to humiliate myself explaining why I did not offer a rewards card, when understandably I was already being put through a very rough, stressful, long solo shift.
Isn't this fucking illegal? It's one thing to have video surveillance in stores, it's another thing entirely to have a HIDDEN BODY CAM FILMING ME FACE TO FACE and SHOWING THE FOOTAGE PUBLICLY. What the actual fuck? Is there ANYTHING I can do about this? It's so humiliating and dehumanizing.