About two or three years ago I worked for a coffee shop chain that shall remain unnamed and I wanted to share my favourite memories from that time.
We were a small team of less than 10 people, including the boss, and people were dropping like flies. New hires would usually leave within less than 6 months and the longest serving baristas hated the boss with a burning passion. The boss was a youngish woman with anger issues who'd make life a living hell with her unreasonable expectations. Her “second in command” so to speak would make sure to make HER life a living hell in return. He provoked and bullied her on a daily basis to the point where she would lock herself in the (one and only) staff bathroom for hours to presumably sulk.
We were paid minimum wage (obviously) and the higher-ups decided to save money by not hiring a cleaning crew. So once our shift was over we had to clean the store and customer bathrooms on our own time. The bathrooms were about as gross as you can imagine. As the newest hire it was always me who had the honour to clean those.
It was tradition for all the staff to go out to dinner once a year around Christmas, paid for by the company. The higher-ups came up with excuses as to why that wouldn't be possible anymore and if it hadn't been for the persuasive efforts of one of the oldest staff there we wouldn't have been given the money to go.
I'm a trans guy and I was continuously harassed by customers yet the boss chose to turn a blind eye since she didn't want to risk upsetting loyal customers. I've always had panic attacks but they got so much worse while working there. One time I was groped by a customer so I calmly walked into the backroom, had a panic attack, and threw up into the sink. The boss was in the same room and didn't give a single shit.
After that I was shaken and I called in sick the day after because I was in a constant state of panic that I couldn't break out of. That same day I ended up on the psych ward. When I informed my boss that I was in the hospital all she wanted to know was when I'd be able to come back. I told her I didn't know and she went silent after that. A week or so later I received the letter that I'd been fired. Not once had she asked how I was doing nor had I been given any warning about getting fired.
When I finally got out of the hospital months later I saw that the coffee shop had closed down.
This may not be as severe as some of the other stories here but I wanted to share it nonetheless.