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Antiwork

Got yelled at for breathing at my food service job

So to start, I have a lot of trouble breathing. I'm asthmatic and haven't had my inhaler for several months. Occasionally, especially when I'm moving around a lot, I start breathing really heavily, and I usually try taking deep breaths to regulate it. I have particular trouble exhaling, so I usually have to exhale through my mouth. Last week, this woman came in to eat, and brought her kid. I was standing behind the counter and trying to regulate my breathing on the other side of the restaurant, when the woman gets up, tells her child they're leaving, and starts walking toward the door. When my manager asked her why she was leaving, she went on a tirade about my “attitude” and how she “didn't like how I sighed when she looked at me.” After she left, my manager asked me about it, and I tried explaining to him. He…


So to start, I have a lot of trouble breathing. I'm asthmatic and haven't had my inhaler for several months. Occasionally, especially when I'm moving around a lot, I start breathing really heavily, and I usually try taking deep breaths to regulate it. I have particular trouble exhaling, so I usually have to exhale through my mouth. Last week, this woman came in to eat, and brought her kid. I was standing behind the counter and trying to regulate my breathing on the other side of the restaurant, when the woman gets up, tells her child they're leaving, and starts walking toward the door. When my manager asked her why she was leaving, she went on a tirade about my “attitude” and how she “didn't like how I sighed when she looked at me.” After she left, my manager asked me about it, and I tried explaining to him. He also has asthma, so I figured he'd get it. Instead, he told me to “try not to sigh in front of customers” and to go behind the counter to do it. I told him I was behind the counter, and he dropped it. Today, the same woman came back, and my coworker got her table. Since he was in the middle of handling several other tables, I brought her appetizer over to her, and she asked me if I “had a better attitude today.” I tried explaining to her that I struggle to breathe, and she started going off about how “I work all the time and this is my safe place, so when I come in here I expect everyone to be all 'hey, how's it going, what can I do for you'” and told me that “perception is everything” and I should try to hide my asthma. She then expected me to apologize to her for having the audacity to breathe loudly, on the other side of the restaurant, in an area that is inaccesible to customers, while not even looking at her, because she interpreted it as being attitude. Bear in mind that this is the same job that asked me to come serve food while I was sick multiple times, doesn't give us breaks on our 11 hour double shifts, and expects us to cancel our plans to show up here instead. The only reason I haven't quit yet is because I can't afford it.

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