I'm a manager in a deli in a grocery store, today everyone called out, one played hooky (they posted on social media where they were :/ , the others are sick, 2 with COVID, 1 with Strep.
Upper management has always been pretty good about giving our department leniency as we have always had staffing issues. Today I was alone and upper management told me to shut down the hot foods side of the deli (this is common practice in short handed scenarios for us so that the one person there only has to deal with the counter and clean half of the deli) which I did.
Today I had to clean the whole deli however, hot and cold foods side, rotisserie oven, fryers, slicers, utensils, you name it.
Customer comes up and asks me for a whole pizza, under normal circumstances it's no issue of course.
I explained to them the situation, they respond “It looks slow, so why can't you make it?” I then explain all the equipment that I'm cleaning and how I only have time to stop for cold meats and cheeses and salads to assist customers with and assure him management gave me permission. He turns around and walks away saying “That's a load of bullshit, you are slow enough as it is what's 15 minutes for me.”
Frankly I see a lot of posts about bad management here and bad management is surely abundant. Customers are equally as bad, they treat my staff like shit and there's nothing I can do about it because the invisible laws (rules) of not arguing with the customers from both the customer's point of view and the media's.
If customers had to abide by as many rules as we workers did that would make things go much more smooth.