This happened recently. This is also my first ever post on Reddit. I already typed this out and sent it in a channel in one of the Discord servers I’m in. For context, I work part-time as a front end supervisor in a retail chain that originates in Rhode Island but has yet to expand into every state (just New England so far). Also, I’m 23F and autistic. Anyways, here is what happened:
On Saturday, I did the opening shift at work (8:30-4:30). I was asked to train a new cashier as I have been at our store the longest of the cashiers that worked that day. I end up having to hop onto my register and my trainee is just watching me. After finally getting the lines down, we both went on break. Prior to us going on break, my coworker who has the same job title as me (I’ll call him Tom for anonymity’s sake) would add his two cents in and give her advice/tips. The tips he had given her were a reiteration of things I had said already combined with things that were not procedure. This is relevant to what happens on our break. Back to us finally going on our ten minute paid break, another coworker that works on the floor is on break in the break room when we get back there. This is important. I start explaining to the new girl/my trainee how Tom would say that he has a full time job and that it isn’t this job whenever customers would ask questions or a situation would be above his knowledge level. I explained that when Tom says this, I get the impression that he doesn’t take the job seriously. Trainee steps out to use the bathroom while my manager comes into the break room. I reiterate what I said just moments ago to my manager and she takes it as a serious concern. I then start heading leaving the break room while the coworker from the floor returns from her break and proceeds to talk to the manager in her office. I get stopped by one of the assistant managers outside the office doors and get talked to about how I need to communicate better with Tom because he had paged me to my register while I was on break despite the fact that I had told him we were going on break. It is after that conversation that the manager pages me and the assistant manager into her office. Turns out the coworker that was on break when I had first entered the break room had told my manager how I had voiced my concern about Tom in front of my trainee. My manager then proceeds to chastise me about that claiming that I just sabotaged the store because my trainee would see that there are problems between two of the supervisors and that we can’t get along. I told her that that wasn’t my intention, that I was just informing my trainee of my concern seeing how Tom had tried to step in on my training session, and that I tried to carefully choose my words so it wouldn’t come across as complaining. She didn’t see it that way and reminded me that we are hurting for employees telling me that if my trainee quit, it was going to be on me. I left that conversation feeling like shit cause I was going to be in trouble if I didn’t do something to help get my trainee to come back. We send her to work on the floor to get away from the stress of busy registers, and the assistant manager from before starts going over things with her. Fast forward to our joint thirty minute break, I inform my trainee of our store policy for performing bag checks whenever we leave the building. She gets shocked and appalled at this, so I explained that it was to make sure nobody was stealing from the store. After our break, we have her ring on my register for practice and she seemed to be doing good. She left at 2:30 and was very eager to leave. That’s that for that day. I go into work the following day for my shift (8:30-5) and am greeted with the female assistant manager pulling me into the office. She explained that my trainee had showed up for work just to give back her vest and quit. She told me how she had to call the store manager to inform her of it. My manager had apparently been extremely upset and told the female assistant manager to tell me that there would be consequences for my actions. Fast forward to the next day (Monday) and it’s a rough shift as we had multiple call outs on top of my trainee quitting. I did my best to manage the front end but there was still a ton of put backs left at the end of my shift. I am asked to stay later to help with the stuff leftover from my shift and I agree to only stay for another thirty minutes. As I’m rushing to put away as many items as I can, my manager walks by and asks me why I let it get that bad. I explain how it was extremely busy and no one was listening to me when I asked them to do put backs. She informs me that she needed to have a serious conversation with me and I accept that because I want to get as many items put away as possible. Skip to yesterday. I had a very good shift and was waiting to be called to the back for the conversation. Close to the end of my shift, she walks by and says she is leaving for the day. I respond by saying that the conversation wasn’t happening that day. She asked me when my next scheduled shit was, I tell her Saturday, she says it’ll happen then unless the previously two mentioned assistant managers have the conversation with me instead (they didn’t). She also tells me that it’s going to be a very serious conversation. The rest of my shift went swimmingly and I left at my scheduled end time. I am fed up with waiting to hear what my supposed consequence is and with how the conversation keeps getting postponed. Was I in the wrong?