Six or seven years ago I was pre-trade school and landed a warehouse job with a company that would much later go under for poor sales.
Shift started at 0800, so I showed up 0755, hung up my hat n coat, sweeped the store and opened the door by 08, when the place opened. Small shop, big warehouse.
They didn't really have a clear supply system for ordering or compatability for parts, so all of the knowledge was kept in the heads of the two old dudes working their. A pair of guys in their late 50s, early 60s who were a worker and a manager, and had the ol boy agreement between them that they were essential members of the company who did no wrong.
Being the young buck meant I was to blame for stuff being misplaced, the shop being dirty (was when I got there) and everything under the sun. This wasn't even clear with hindsight. I was told “we're paying you to work. If you aren't working every hour you're here, you won't be working long”. This made sense at first, sure its a labor transaction, but there was just dead hours. Nothing to do. Shop is clean. Still get yelled at.
So I say, sure, ill get ahead of the job. I start doing stuff I know needs to be done later, like setting up orders for customers I know will be coming in later, and that may as well have set off a short circuit in ol boy's head. Told me to put it back. Hour later customer shows up and I have to bring it all out again, wasting 30 minutes of both our time.
Then there was the supply interface. Ran on MS DOS, black and green screen that you used tab and arrow keys to navigate, used terminology that I hadn't heard used since I picked up an 80s coding manual, and the ol boys had it put to memory. There wasn't any training, so I wrote all the steps down on a notepad of how to get everywhere. This was considered “incompetency” because i didn't just click with it.
I worked 40 hour weeks, 8 to 5, and was paid 13/hr that i was told i was lucky to be making.
Showing up at 0755 wasn't good enough. They showed up at 0730 to basically count receipts, cool, but they explicitly said I would be paid while the store was open. Yet I couldn't do prep work for end of day before 5pm, and I couldn't do morning prep after the store opened, meaning I'd be forced an hour of my time every day unpaid just working so I could keep working. I just couldn't get on board with 5 hours a week just unpaid labor.
They give you red shirts and blue shirts, and you're supposed to keep track of the days if its a red day or a blue day to wear the right shirt, but some guys had different colors like black or light blue and were immune to this somehow. So I get told to go home and change shirts because its a red shirt day, not a blue one. It's not like we're a high speed, high visibility environment. We sell to tradesmen who don't give a shit if you're wearing a tanktop.
The final straw for the manager apparently was he had me organize a big cabinet of belts (for motors). So I found some boxes, labeled them, laid out all the belts and turned on some music. He said I was taking too long and looked like I didn't really want to work. That wasn't true at all, I was just minding my own little vibe, I just wanted to listen to music while doing this mindless task of organizing shit.
I was “let go” because I wasn't “much of a team player” and didn't have their company values, whatever that means.
Basically, fuck. Baker Co. Distributing.