Sorry if this is a bit of rant and long but man I hate working in a circus and need to get this off my chest.
I(25M) work in an sub shop that I’d rather not name, and the past 2 and 1/2 months have been an absolute circus. It started with me getting to be friends with somebody that I work with, and then randomly telling another coworker something I said, and it being complete interpreted wrong, and a HORRENDOUS rumor spread around about me. The next day I got into a shouting match with a coworker (19F) who loves to gossip and start drama and that mess. Definitely something she learned not to do again after, she started being nice to me after it blew up and the owner scolded her. Because the original girl I was talking to didn’t intend this obvious fire to spread, she backpedaled and claimed I was sexually (verbally) harassing her, among other things as well. Luckily I’ve hardly heard about this, basically only from the owner, people also somewhat know she is off or something. But my reputation was somewhat tainted after that, people can’t help but to see you as somebody who possibly can do bad things after that. I had to talk to the boss about it and he wasn’t very pleased with the situation but it was somewhat alright, but more drama would look bad for me.
That’s when my GM started something with me. I was conversing with him and he decided he could take advantage of the fact that more complaining and drama would look bad for me and threatened me over just normal conversational cursing. It was painfully obvious to me that it was done intentionally, especially as time passed. It wasn’t an easy decision, but I decided to go to the boss about it (owner). He was on vacation at the time and had the response I was afraid of; something along the lines of me having more issues and to consult a lower manager that he’s related to (21M) and frankly inexperienced and a bit socially odd. Said manager was originally seemingly going to be helpful but didn’t follow thru on anything he said he would do.
So fast forward, I’ve been for the past weeks since dealing with my GM’s passive aggression and dick headedness, nothing enough to report especially with past incidents of complaining about drama. I’ve been recording my time at work out of fear that more fire would spread or start. There were some other instances that were useful, like somebody that witnessed my GM threatening me saying that it was uncalled for or unexpected, or my GM cussing during conversation (which he claimed he NEVER does). Or coworkers talking trash out of my earshot (which I was told wouldn’t be the case when I expressed concern about it after the horrendous rumor). Basically everything I was doing and saying was being disregarded when I voiced concerned. It was good to have that proof.
And that’s when a coworker happened to see my phone recording today. It went thru messaging loops to the few managers and such as well as the other restaurant location for about 20 minutes before I was confronted by the GM and demanded to delete them. I did so, knowing there’s a deleted recordings file. It’s legal in my state to record, and EVERYONE acted like I just committed a felony. Like literally saying the words “that’s a felony”. It apparently is policy to not record tho and I didn’t know until right before I left.The owner to some extent knew I was recording at times. But with all this mess, it looks like I’ll lose my job, when I definitely need it. Maybe the way I’m putting it sounds like I’d be okay, but man with this drama, it seems beyond possible. I’ve been looking for a new job before now, but I’m a bit socially awkward with small talk and haven’t secured anything.
So now I’m faced with this awful mess and I just can’t afford to lose paychecks. I hate working in fast food. Sometimes it ok but man it’s the worst so much of the time and I constantly have to worry about things I shouldn’t have to worry about. I have to worry about people accusing me of things I didn’t do, managers threatening me and fighting me, I have to worry about being fired over other peoples problems. It seems like anything I do is just kicking over the first domino in the chain. I know I make mistakes and am not perfect, but nobody deserves to have truly disturbing rumors spread about them, have seemingly decent friends betray you out of saving face, and be threatened by a dude that’s literally been to prison and is way over you positionally, and then absolutely nothing happen in result except I have less credibility to the expression of my issues that should be able to say something about. I’m tired of being taken advantage of, and being figuratively slapped in the face when I step out of line or make a bad judgement call. Or even when it seems I’m not even doing anything wrong. And VERY few people are willing to see the reality in it, and often don’t want to get involved in the shitshow. It sucks, and it really fucks with me mentally. I just want to feel more normal. I just want people to understand I’m going through a human experience and need decency or just something that’s not being fucked over. Not to mention just working there at all and the typically stress of customer associated service.
TL;DR: My coworkers suck and make the job constantly a shit show.