Hi all, thought I'd share my story with you.
I'll give the high level version for this first bit, I used to be a meat cutter for probably 15 years. Loved it. Moved from store to store because one thing or another happened and I said it's not worth it and tried somewhere else. My last retail I was cutting at I actually liked my boss, he was great and compassionate. Then he got a promotion. I was next in line to be management but I tried that before and said no thanks, I had a new child on the way and I don't want to do the work 70 hrs a week.
Anyways they hired a new manager, fine and dandy, except something was off about him, kind of a squirrly MF. He would do things like take me for coffee and when my break was up he'd say it's fine to take longer breaks with him, but then my coworkers started talking behind my back about being a pet. So obviously all of this made me uncomfortable and I stopped going for coffee because it was like he tried getting me into that awkward position.
Then the lies started. He would pull me into the office and say things like “So and so said 'xyz' about you” or “I heard someone say you said 'this or that' about me”. So I started reporting to my union what was going on. Suddenly I am being pulled into the office for “I know you went to the union, and you have that right, but do you really think you can move up if you cause problems?” At that point I knew my only option was to keep going to my union.
Fast forward about 6 months from there, first murmers of covid hit. People start panicking. My boss does too and starts ordering so much meat you can't walk in the cooler. I'm talking wall to wall, floor to ceiling boxes of meat anywhere you could put them in a cooler no bigger than 10×12 maybe. Some of it with really bad dates on them, like a week until expired bad. So talking with my coworkers we raise our concerns with each other but they leave it to me to handle and throw me to the wolves so I go and report on it and… nothing get done. This goes on through the first few months of covid and after numerous customer complaints and a new hire starts complaining with me a policy is put in place for dating practices. Meat past X number of days is garbage. No questions. Now my boss is mad because “whoever complained” made it harder for us to work and now if any of us don't follow this policy he would fire us (that conversation happened in a full staff meeting that he conveniently had when I was off and didn't tell me about it). So my coworkers now complain to me about the threats to be fired, so I go to the union again.
Then I came in one day and my boss had told a couple coworkers to freeze meat that was outdated. The one thing he said he would fire us for. I told them don't do it and I went and complained directly to the general manager. So they investigate and… nothing happens. It stays in the freezer for 3 days and no one is doing anything about it. Staff is complaining but no one is doing anything. So I make an anonymous call to the local health authorities. One dumpster and almost $10000 later my boss is pulling me into the office and asking about who did it and how they hurt the department.
I could go on and on, but suffice to say after that it was constant lies and gaslighting from him, lying to my coworkers, telling them I said things I didn't. Complaints to HR, threats of legal action against the company. It all came to the boiling point when we had just hired a new guy and he suddenly quit with no notice. Nice guy, lots of promise. My boss drags me into the office and says I was toxic in the workplace and that's why the new guy quit. So I was fuming because I know I wasn't. Well I happened to run into that guy as I was leaving work that same day and I apologized for making it a toxic place to work and asked him to reconsider because he has great potential and he says “what are you talking about? I said I quit because I have lung problems and the cold air makes it hard to breathe. Also I quit because [boss] made me tell senior staff what to do and I didn't feel comfortable with that. [Boss] was being toxic so I quit.”
I didn't say another word to my boss. I went home and deliberated on it for all of five minutes then next day I went in and told the GM what happened and that I would resign. He asked me to reconsider so I said I'll think on it, but then right at the end of my shift my boss came in (it was his day off) and said “I heard you want to quit! Why would you want to do that? Well I'm here if you need to talk about it” and that just put a bad taste in my mouth, like how dare you after the years of treatment like this (2 years, literally from day 1 of harassing me). So I just wrote my resignation, handed it in and that was that.
For the record I had no plan for after. It was so bad for my mental health I said the thought of having no job, falling into extreme debt, being homeless, all of that was a comfort compared to how I was being treated. And no one would do anything about it. One co worker stood up for me but he's just one guy, he was labeled a trouble maker too.
For the record he was since fired and for the hell of it I emailed HR and the GM and said I would apply for management. I didn't even get a refusal email back, they just ignored me. I think this happened because my ex boss had insecurities knowing that I was trained to replace him, so in his mind if he got rid of me there would be no one to replace him and he'd always have a job. Also, this company also has a record of looking past blatant harassment, there was another manager that faced 3 or 4 counts of serial harassment and wasn't fired until someone threatened lawsuit, even then they don't fire managers, they allow them to resign.