First time posting here, sorry if I don't format everything correctly. Also, it'll be long, sorry.
The cast (these are all fake names for privacy):
Me: J (27F) – I've worked there for 7 months; mainly on the register but sometimes clothes
Miss Renee (66) – worked there for going on 14 years; mainly register but sometimes clothes
Darren (70) – worked there for several years but not longer than Miss Renee; mainly register
Miss Martha (40s or 50s) – worked there about 4/5 months; mainly register, sometimes clothes
Tara – (19F) worked there 6 months; half time register, half time clothes
Pat (50s) – store's GM
Beth (40s) – various store's DM
Suzy (probably 30s-40s) – another store's AGM
Other various coworkers
So I work at a thrift store that is exclusive to my home state. At this thrift store, we have a way of running things that have worked great since I started. Some important info first: we have an app that we can go in and request time off/use our accrued sick/vacation hours and in the stores, we have 4 codes:
Code 1 – drop (too much money in the register)
Code 2 – need change
Code 3 – return
Code 4 – manager to the front
When I started, I only had experience with one retail store before, about 8 years prior. I was a substitute teacher, because I'm going to college to be a teacher, but the thrift store actually paid more and would work around my life (school schedule/doctor's appointments, etc). When I started, Miss Renee trained me on the register, and on how to hang and tag clothes the proper way. She'd been there for 13 years when I arrived, longer than anyone else in the district, she knew her way around everything.
Pat was always very accommodating. She's got an abrasive personality, but she's also very kind and understanding when she needs to be. Once while I was out on the sales floor, I was talking to her because we weren't busy, and she mentioned to me that corporate told her she was “too nice” to us. She then went on a mini rant about how her job isn't as important to her than her humanity. How she's a human and so are her employees. She said she'd rather lose her job than treat us like animals. She said they can fire her for all she cares; she's still got her job so apparently they like her enough.
Well, last month around the 15th, we found out Pat was going to be temporarily transferred to a store an hour and a half away. While she's gone, Beth, the DM and Suzy (Suzy is the AGM from a store 30 minutes north of the small town I work in) are going to be there instead. I thought, “great,” because Beth is a tyrant who puts on a facade of the “down to Earth manager.”
Because we're a thrift store, we have printers that print tags with prices on them for a general type of item, stickers for wares items and hard tags that get barbed on clothing. When a customer brings something to the register that doesn't have a tag on it, used to, we'd hit the “back” button on the phone by the register and it would call the back of the store and we could tell them to bring a tag up to the front for whatever it was we needed the tag for. Some cashiers would have “dummy tags” that were basically tags the were some of the base prices, like $4.79 for a women's top, $1.32 for a cheap wares item, etc. These tags would be kept by the register and they would use them whenever a customer brought up an item that didn't have a tag, rather than call the back for it. I didn't do this, because a few months ago Pat told us we weren't supposed to, so I stopped using them (even though had only used them a few times to begin with, I didn't mind calling the back).
Since Suzy started making the schedules, no one is getting off the days we've requested. The standard request has to be put in two weeks in advance, and we were guaranteed that day off… when Pat was making the schedules, at least. Suzy doesn't look at the days people request off, and just schedules everyone for whatever day she feels like. This is really inconvenient for people like me and my coworker H, who have pain problems and have doctor's appointments often. I always make sure to get my appointments on the same day as to not inconvenience my bosses. Suzy can't be bithered to extend the same courtesy to me.
With Beth there frequently now, she's changed our way of getting tags when we need one at the register. Instead of calling the back and telling them what tag we need, we have to call over the intercom, “code four for…” either wares or textiles. Then, someone from clothes or wares is supposed to come from the back to the front, grab the item that doesn't have a tag, go to the back and print a tag and put the tag on it, and then bring the tagged item back up to the front and then go back to the back and continue working. It's a huge waste of time and frequently makes the customers wait longer, and say they don't need it anyways, so it's actually losing us a sale (which I don't care about, but I wonder why Beth doesn't?). Not only is it losing a sale and wasting time, it interrupts the person's time who has to make the two trips up to the front of the store. We're not a small building.
Another thing is numbers. When working in wares or processing clothing, you're supposed to get to 400 pieces a day. This number is attainable for wares, but difficult for processors. Pat was content for them to get 300 a day, and that was more reasonable (because all the clothing is donated, it's not all good to be hung and sent out; we can't send out dirty or ripped clothes, also sometimes the bins the clothes are in have dead mice in them, or H found a bed bug in one the other day; in those cases, we toss the whole bin; but we also can't put out anything with a phone number, year, website, or non-famous names on them). Another coworker, Juan (a good friend of mine I met at work), usually gets 300+ a day, but Beth and Suzy started telling him that if he didn't start getting 400+ pieces a day, he was going to get a write up every day he didn't hit it. That really upset him; he's usually a big goofball who sings and carries a trail of tags behind him when he's walking to the front. He was silently fuming when I went in the other day, and only told me once he had calmed down.
I got written up for not having enough sick hours to cover a shift. I came down with a fever of 101.1F (~38.4C) and I couldn't move without great effort. I called in that Saturday (the day Icame down with it), and went to express care. They told me it was a bad upper respiratory infection plus a sinus infection. So I put in sick hours for Saturday. I tried to go in the next day, but I couldn't do it, so I went home and put in sick hours for Sunday. I was off the next two days, so when I went back on Wednesday, I got written up by Beth because I didn't have enough sick hours to cover Sunday. Suzy condescendingly said, “I had to clear them out because you put them in but didn't have them.”
But shit hit the fan a couple days ago. We open at 10, but we have to go in at 8:30 when we have the opening shift. So me, Miss Renee and Miss Martha were all in the front of the store, straightening and finding something to do when Miss Renee was called to the office. I looked at her, she looked at me and we both shrugged. About 15 minutes later, Miss Renee and one of our store managers were walking to the door. Miss Renee had her coat and belingings from her locker, and I was startled, and asked if she was okay. She said no, the manager let her out and relocked the door. This manager and I get along really well, so I asked if Miss Renee was going home for the day, and she said she can't talk about it. Throughout the rest of the day, almost everyone who worked there got called back. I wasn't one of them, though. I asked Miss Martha what was going on, but she said she can't talk about it. Even Tara and Darren were called in on their day off.
At the end of the day, I texted Tara asking her what was going on, and while she was hesitant to talk about it, she sent me a screenshot of a note she wrote that said it was mainly about the dummy tags. Apparently it was being labled as company theft. When I went in yesterday, I noticed Miss Renee's time card was gone. I mentioned it to Miss Martha, and she went looking through every time card, and I noticed that Darren's was gone too. He didn't show up yesterday.
Since Beth and Suzy showed up, since Pat has been gone (since January 22nd), three people have quit, Miss Renee and Darren were fired, and many of us are considering looking for a different job. I have my associates, so I'm looking in to being a teacher's aide while I complete my bachelor's, but I'm going to wait and see how it ends up when Pat comes back. I miss her. I can't stand Beth or Suzy. What do I even do? Miss Renee worked there for almost 14 years!! They fired her over something stupid. I'm worried that someone will find this and recognize it and I'll get in trouble, or fired. What do I do? I'm so stressed about everything.
Edit: Formatting