So I got chewed out by my boss today. Surface level: I’m in the wrong. My shift was at 10AM and I called out at 10AM. I know it’s bad, I know I shouldn’t have done it. Unfortunately there’s layers to it that make me wanna off myself.
Yesterday I called out too, and did it correctly. I woke up with a migraine. I have chronic migraines and sometimes they get so bad that I can’t walk right and I vomit. This migraine was one of those ones, so I called out. I was opening, so it wasn’t a huge deal.
Today, I woke up at like 2AM, another migraine, more vomiting, stress crying bc I was mad that I was sick, couldn’t sleep until like 8:30. I woke up ten minutes before my shift and started having a panic attack because I knew I’d get in trouble for calling out, especially because I was scheduled for a “closing” shift. (A “closing” shift at my job is actually a double. Not including your only break, a mandatory unpaid 30min, the shift is 11hr. More if you close how they want you to close and don’t take shortcuts. I’ll get to that later.)
I worked up the nerve to call out at 10AM. My manager leaves me on read. My direct supervisor calls me out in the group chat for no-showing because he has no decorum. Two hours later I get an email from the owner that’s a formal warning for no-showing. I explain that I did call, it wasn’t a no-show. Bc my manager did not answer me until he was CC’d on that email, I technically called out at 10:02, when I texted. So then I get chewed for my “complete lack of regard for anyone, my coworkers, and the company.”
I fucking lost my mind when I read that. I still am struggling to not cry thinking about it.
I’m 25, I have worked at stupid companies that mistreat staff, but it always seems to be on another level when it’s a “small family business”. This is a small chain of food stands in nyc, there’s eight stores in the city, and a plan for two more. You don’t work at one location, you technically work at all of them. You’ll get the schedule literally one day in advance of the week (usually like 5pm on Sunday) and you’ll be scheduled all over the different boroughs. One location is 20min from my house, another is 2hrs. I am lucky in the sense that I mainly work at the one close to me.
(If ur wondering, no, they do not ask which is closest to you, nor do they consider it.)
The thing is, 90% of the time, I am alone, working these 11hr shifts. They’ll sometimes schedule someone to work a couple hours with me, but it’s only for lunch rush. I have to close by myself. Surface level, it’s not busy? Like I’m usually just standing there reading. But once it gets closer to close, there’s a rush of orders for dinner, and also the closing duties.
The last hour is absolute hell. We are not allowed to gradually close the stand in any way, shape or form. We have to wait until exactly 30min before we close. In this half hour, the apps (Uber/DoorDash) are still taking orders. And we have TooGoodToGo pickup orders that starts then. And the inventory delivery comes then. And I’m supposed to be taking out the meat from the warmer and letting it cool from 175 degrees to 40 degrees so I can put it away at 8pm. And I have to grill the rest of the uncooked meat. And clean the equipment it sits on, which itself takes about 30min. Except I’m also supposed to be cleaning the grill at this moment. And random people are still coming up to order food. Do you see the issue? I’m the only person here. This is what I’m supposed to get done from 7:30 to 8PM. All of this. Then more cleaning at 8pm, like taking down the salad bar, mopping, all of that. I’m supposed to clock out at 8:30.
I keep getting in trouble for trying to make the process efficient. I cook the uncooked meat earlier, so that I can clean the equipment and the grill earlier before the delivery. I got in trouble for preparing TooGoodToGo orders ahead of time. I got in trouble to not taking orders while I was putting away the delivery. I had a meeting with my manager and I was like, “listen, if you really want me to accomplish all that, I need help. I need another person to help close.” He tells me “oh, we can get someone to help until 7 or 8.” I’m like, “we’re not doing anything then. I need them to actually close with me.” He said it’s “not done”. What? I tell him I’m completely overwhelmed and he says he sees that. He says he’ll “work on the project”.
I tell my supervisor this, who feels similarly because he went through the same thing, and he says they’ve “been working” on staffing for months. All the locations are like this, they’re all skeleton crews.
My manager tells me he’ll start helping with the delivery now. Or at least, he’ll put it away so I can keep taking orders. Except that happened once. So nothing has changed. And because he’s established he’s coming with the delivery, he’s basically going to make sure I’m not “closing early”. (Me doing things efficiently, and not standing around for six hours while I wait for hell hour, is considered closing early.) Soooo when I do stand around, and I close as I am supposed to, I consistently leave at LEAST 90min past my scheduled time.
I’m paid $16 an hour. In New York, this is $1 above minimum wage. This was a raise I got from when I was originally hired. When I was hired, I was told that, “at the moment, we allow you to keep all cash tips”. My location is the only one that really gets cash tips, tho, and it’s only a dollar or two a shift. Mostly, we get digital tips. Our digital tips are divided among the entire staff of the entire company. (Ex: if you are paid “$15” an hour, you’re actually paid $11, and the rest is tips. I recently listened to this podcast, “Megacorp”, about Amazon stealing tips, and I was like Jesus fucking Christ this sounds too familiar. But idk how to check that. I don’t think there’s a way. And that feels mighty intentional.)
When I was hired in September, I noticed that, besides the manager and the owner, no one had been here longer than six months. I knew this was a red flag, this is not my first rodeo, but I was desperate for a job. There was a week where six people left. Definitely less than 50 ppl work here, but probably less than 35. A location should not come to a grinding halt because ONE person calls out, but it happens every single time. (There was a time my supervisor called out when I was at a location in another borough doing a double. They made me close my location, clock out, go to the other location, clock back in and close. He called out again a few weeks later and I refused to stay, so they did the same to another girl. It took me an hour of travel time, and they still made me clock out for lunch, so I lost about 90min of wages to do them a “favor”. Which wasn’t a favor bc I wasn’t given a choice.)
Their turnover is extremely high bc they run ppl ragged for minimum wage. They’re at the point that they offer supervisor positions to everyone who shows up. I was offered one and more than one supervisor said they regretted it, so I didn’t take it, even tho I honestly can’t afford not to financially. I just REALLY cannot afford it mentally.
Then there’s the fucking schedule. I have submitted my availability over and over again, clarified it with my manager so many times. I’m Jewish. I want flexible scheduling on Friday and Saturday to observe shabbes. That’s all I want. In a perfect world, I would have these days off, but I get it! I’m too poor to deserve religion in my life, so I ask that I open on fridays, leave by 5pm, and don’t come in until 1pm on Saturday. Every time, my manager is like “sounds good!” And then schedules me outside of my availability. But only on Saturday. (So it’s like I know he knows what my availability is, he’s just fucking me over.) I used to be scheduled for 11AM on Saturdays. After every talk, it’ll change to 11:30, or 11:45, and gradually go back to 11AM. Meaning, if I go to services, I’ll be consistently two or three hours late. If you’re not Jewish or religious, it’s hard to explain why it matters so much, but I haven’t been able to go to shul since I moved here and started this job and I feel like I’m dying.
I also asked to be full time and work 40hrs. I work 45 most weeks, and that was when I could “close early”. I suspect it’ll be closer to 50 now. (Side note: I had to fight my manager to have two days a week off. Originally I was scheduled for six days a week, 10/11hr shifts.)
When I go home, I don’t have the energy to cook, and I love cooking. I used to cook every day, and on my days off I would bake from scratch. Sometimes I don’t eat and I have this awful thought of “well it’s not like I can afford to anyway!” (I did my taxes the other day and like, I know I live below the poverty line or whatever, but it’s amazing that I’m not dead in a ditch somewhere given my income level.) More often than that tho, I’m so stressed and anxious that I just come home and take a bunch of edibles. Sometimes it’s the only way that I can eat or sleep. And if I’m sober, i “doomscroll” but like applying for jobs. If that makes sense. On my days off, I don’t do anything because I’m exhausted. I’m in school, trying to do my best so that I can get into grad school. It’s online and asynchronous but I’m too exhausted to do anything, so I have a bunch of missing assignments. I’m too tired for any of my hobbies. I don’t have any friends because I don’t leave my house because I’m tired. And then I’m depressed because the only people I interact with are customers or my coworkers, and I’m not really a fan of either.
TLDR:
Honestly, I could keep going on and on. The company basically functions on the premise of: everyone above you is being fucked over, would you like to fuck over the person below you and pass the buck, or do you wanna take it? But there’s not even anyone I could pass it to, so everyone is just passing their shit to me, and because I’m one person and I can’t handle it, I feel myself breaking. And then I get yelled at because I haven’t taken it with enough grace.
I dream of a stupid 9-5 office job. My last job was doing stocking at a hardware store, so like manual labor for 40hrs a week, and I ended up fucking old injuries and making them worse. If I look back, every job I’ve had has given me physical or psychological trauma. Like, is this living? This is what I was put on earth to do?
I’m in survival mode all the time and I just wanna be able to live a real human life.