(this is gonna be a lot of context so it will probably be a bit long)
After a month and a half of job searching I(19f) finally got a new job working as a server at a restaurant in my college town and I actually was really starting to enjoy it. It was fun talking to people, I was on the overnight shift so it was way more relaxed than any other shift and all the coworkers and managers were pretty cool. Or so I thought.
I noticed after about 4 days that there were two servers (M and B) that the other overnight servers tended to talk about a lot (keep in mind most of the servers are college aged: 17-23 so maturity isn't necessarily to be expected). Called them lazy, “slow”, and a lot of other things. But after working with those servers I have come to find out they are absolute sweethearts and I really didn't understand all the hate they got, they each do their job and honestly go above and beyond and several times I've gotten to leave early because they are so quick at getting the side work done.
There was a new girl (let's call her A) who started around a week before I did and I immediately noticed some favoritism towards her. The two aforementioned servers have been here for months and when a new trainee was brought in, the managers wanted the new girl to train him even though she herself still didn't know everything about the job yet.(obviously that's not really a good display of favoritism but just hearing the way the managers talk about her in comparison to M and B…)
I thought it was slightly weird but honestly didn't think too much about it and went about my shift. Given that it's summer and lot of college kids go home and I'm on the overnight shift it's not always busy and theres usually only 2-4 servers a night depending on the night. We get tables based on who comes into their shift first and go based on that (so if I come in first, I get the first table of people to walk in so on and so forth) so as the night progresses the nearby bar let out around 2am and so there was a fair amount of people who came in to eat and at one time we got a table of 10 people which happened to be M's table. All through the night A was only getting tables of two or three so we collectively thought it would be a good idea for the trainee to go with M while she took the 10 people's orders so he could get a grasp of taking a larger table.
One of the overnight managers saw that the trainee was with M and came over to me and A while we were near a server station and the conversation went like this:(word for word)
Manager: why the fck is he with M? I wanted him with A
A: we thought it would be better to have him go with M so he can see what it's like having a table of 10
Manager: she's just being fcking lazy
Keep in mind our server stations are not far from customer tables at all and he said it loud enough that customers could hear it. To me that's unacceptable behavior from anyone no less a manager.
Here's where I feel I might be in the wrong but I told M what he said. I feel like if I was in that situation I would want someone to tell me so I can decide what actions to take. She was obviously upset and wanted to talk to someone about it. For sake of keeping this story shorter something else happened later in the night with the same manager and B that ended in B getting a write up so both of them were quite pissed from the nights events. As well as the fact that the manager cut all three of us around 4 and kept A when M and B we're supposed to leave around 6.
M and B collectively decided to stay until 6 when the overnight manager left and another manager came in to talk about what happened during the overnight shift and I wanted to back them up since I was essentially a witness. When we went in at 6 A was still there and saw us go in. We talked to the manager and asked if she could pass the message to the general manager who we thought was gonna be in that day but that didn't happen. Later on the next day I had to work but it was just me and A that night.
Right before I walked into the kitchen after clocking in I hear the overnight manager say to the mid shift manager:
OM: “You know what A told me earlier? That all three of them (myself, M, and B) came back in the morning to talk to a manager about what happened last night.”
Which made me uncomfortable to know that that information was spread but whatever. Near the end of my shift after clocking out the overnight manager comes to me and says:
OM: you know if you don't like me or whatever you don't have to talk to me or you could put your two weeks in or stop showing up, I don't care but if you have a problem don't go to (the manager we went to) you need to go to (general manager) but I don't see what y'all's problem is since y'all are so disrespectful.” And he just kept going and I honestly tuned him out at that point and just left.
M and B both said that they may just quit and look for new jobs but searching for jobs in this small town is hard, so many jobs around here have left me hanging or posted job ads with no real intentions on hiring and I genuinely like the job I'm doing right now and I hate the idea of having to leave now because of this one ahole manager. I talked to my aunt about it and she advised that I go to the general manager about it and tell her I'll take it to court if need be but honestly I don't want to do that either. I'm stuck in a rock and hard place right now.
TL:DR: my manager has quickly made me hate my job and idk what to do about it