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Antiwork

Finally quitting tomorrow because of a panic attack at work

For the past several months I've worked at a movie theatre because it's the only place that has even looked at applications. Never stopped applying to other jobs because 14/hr is horrible when a living wage in my city was 24/hr back in 2015. Thankfully I'm still living at home so I don't have many expenses. On average, they've given me 10 hours a week, no matter how often I requested more. I also tend to get more hours than most of the people working there, and am often working the concessions stand alone for hours at a time. I would also continuously be scheduled for 60% more hours than I actually was able to work, because on closing shifts I'd generally be out at least 2-3 hours before the scheduled time, so there would be weeks where I am scheduled for 16 HOURS and am paid for 10 after…


For the past several months I've worked at a movie theatre because it's the only place that has even looked at applications. Never stopped applying to other jobs because 14/hr is horrible when a living wage in my city was 24/hr back in 2015. Thankfully I'm still living at home so I don't have many expenses. On average, they've given me 10 hours a week, no matter how often I requested more. I also tend to get more hours than most of the people working there, and am often working the concessions stand alone for hours at a time. I would also continuously be scheduled for 60% more hours than I actually was able to work, because on closing shifts I'd generally be out at least 2-3 hours before the scheduled time, so there would be weeks where I am scheduled for 16 HOURS and am paid for 10 after getting out early and mandatory breaks. Every single day that I've worked, I've come home with a new cut or burn, some of which still haven't healed despite being from November. What a fool I was to try and stay here until I found something else.

The management is incompetent to the point of near hostility. Back around the start of the year, I told them that my availability was changing so that I wouldn't be closing anymore. The next day I was at work, the general manager came up to me and told me in these exact words that my “request” would not be accepted. “Hey I saw your message about availability, that's not gonna work.” And then he just fucking left the building. I constantly messaged him and one of the other managers and they read every single one, yet never responded. I was told that they would be there on certain days, and they never were. Only saw each of those two managers once between the time I sent that message and when they each left to work at other theatres or positions in the company, which was about the space of 2 months.

Now that new managers have come in, I tried this again last week. Last night I was called up to the office to talk with the new GM and she tried to pull the exact same thing, then gave me a lecture about “professionalism”. This is coming from the company where it is standard to give less than 24 hours notice of a new schedule that is only one week ahead and never communicate any policy changes or even management changes. I find out everything 3rd or 4th hand from others and am constantly told conflicting things from different managers. She told me not to look down on the job that I'm paid nearly minimum wage for to sell overpriced bags of greasy air. Give me something to appreciate then, you stuck up asshole. I was trained at one point to prospectively be a manager and literally all the do for most of the day is sit in the office on their phone. They get up to check things every once in a while and tell people to go on break but that's about it other than reconciling the cash drawer at the end of the night and receiving inventory once a month.

As I went back down to keep working after that meeting, I went into a severe panic attack because of how aggressively they were speaking whilst being aware of my anxiety. Literally crying behind the register and shaking to the point I couldn't swipe a damn credit card and they didn't care. I had to show them how bad it was before they let me even just sit down for a few minutes. I ended up going home early because I was struggling to breathe and they made me stay almost an hour off the clock(not doing work, just on the premises) before they let me leave. I have a right not be be given fucking panic attacks at work, especially since I disclosed anxiety and depression my application, among other things. This isn't the first time either, in the past I was just lucky enough to have it happen on days that weren't busy. This was the last straw. I would never go back there even for more than thrice the current wages and I'm even considering switching my regular theatre to another one in the area, it'll depend on how long I keep the free employee tickets.

I still have one day scheduled to work, tomorrow, and I'm debating on whether I should even come in, because I know I'll likely be working alone and leave before 10pm despite being scheduled for 1am. I'm turning in my resignation by tomorrow night at the latest and wanna make sure I don't miss anything to say in the email, so I could use some advice from y'all on that. I plan to ask for every pay stub in printed form and demand that my last paycheck be delivered no later than the 17th(every two weeks and the last one was the third, this week is the last one for the next paycheck). Anything else I've missed?

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