I work retail in a small owned business with 4 stores (2 in my county and two others in other counties in the US) I’ve been at this location since November ‘21.
I previously worked for this company in 2018 for about a year until I quit. The reason I quit is because I was traveling a half an hour to work, closing up late nights in a seedy area as a woman alone. Initially the agreement upon my hiring was that eventually I would be transferred to the store closer to my house. But it became evident that that wasn’t going to happen when they kept hiring people for that store, Insisting that everyone loves me at work and they needed me because I was such a valuable employee to this specific location. They even transferred someone I trained (family friend of the owner) to manage a store near my house
Eventually some of the staff tried to get me back but unbeknownst to me the hiring manager ( the owners mom) Had blacklisted me from working with them anymore and said that she had fired me.
Don’t get me wrong I love the place where I work, Which is why eventually I applied to be an apprentice (didn’t know I had been blacklisted yet) when I saw that they had an opening in the warehouse. Honestly the whole hiring process was crazy. They “lost” my application and information. The owner eventually got me in & I started work march ‘21 and loved it. I made more money because it was under the table and I could come in for as many hours as I wanted. I didn’t learn much as I was pretty much shop bitch which was fine because I had access to the studio at whatever hour I felt like it. I didn’t have to work weekends if I chose not to and could work from 4am-noon if I wanted. It was actually pretty nice.
Fast forward to November and apparently the season for productivity is slow. My company gets me a little job on the side doing manual labor for about two weeks which I made a decent amount of money on. They tell me they don’t need any people in the shop anymore and don’t want to just let me go, so they have an opening in our retail location they would love for me to transfer over to. They said I would still have access to the shop & use of materials anytime I want to use it. To me that sounded wonderful since the retail store was down the street from my house. I was assured I wouldn’t be working weekends and I would be getting paid more than I got paid at the shop. I assumed I was getting a decent deal. Eventually found out that everyone was getting paid the same as me and it’s still below minimum wage because it’s a small business and they’re allowed to do that. I now work all weekends & and they change my schedule at the drop of a dime whenever they feel like it. When people quit at the other locations they just send people from our location there and make me work extra hours. I’m always being asked to come in early or on a day off. The place is trashed when I don’t work and I haven’t worked since Friday.
I guess I’m posting this today because I just got a message from my manager saying we’re neglecting our duties as staff members. Mind you every single employee works alone, no breaks because no one else is on shift with you. It’s a retail store so people are coming in and out and you have to stop to help them. I clean that place like a mfer. I’m literally always cleaning, yes I might take a minute and sit down, because we don’t get any breaks. And now they’re telling us that we need to clean upstairs which is the office area and mop up there, which is kind of impossible unless we lock up the store. The buzzer doesn’t always work so if someone came in and stole shit I wouldn’t know and it’d be on me. Also haven’t been able to use the shop key since I’m always working at the store
Then again, I don’t know maybe I’m in the wrong and I’m getting a great opportunity handed to me here with the access I get to the shop, even if I haven’t been able to make time to use it.
Thanks for listening y’all