I have a boss that is an a**hole at best. He is know for spreading out labor coverage veeeery thin to the point if one person calls out it causes so many issues for the managers that have to scramble to stretch the people that did show up even thinner.
Im a courtesy worker and my job is to do light maintenance, cardboard, checker calls, go backs and most importantly pushing carts manually. The store opens at 6am and the earliest time a courtesy worker comes in is 10am. All other workers have to accommodate the 4 hours that there isn’t a courtesy worker. When one does come in that’s all there is time for, to push carts for their entire shift, sometimes in severe heat. The store manager doesn’t schedule to accommodate any of this, there are supposed to be a minimum of 4 courtesy workers at a time and he only 2-4 employed at a time. Still I get spoken to about not getting any other work done.
What finally broke me was when I told him that I wasn’t going to spend my entire shift outside on carts anymore, it hits my body. He said “does that mean you’re quitting?” “No, I’m not quitting, my body is just in so much pain and im not going to hurt myself for a job that doesn’t care about me anymore.” He then explains to me how to do my job in the manner that im already doing it. I tell him he needs to hire and schedule more labor for the work to be done that he wants done. He then says it’s not possible and explains to me how to do my job again. I walk away and tell him im not breaking my body anymore.
His blasé attitude towards wanting workers to break themselves for a job made me so angry and my interaction with him gave me such anxiety that 20 minutes later I went home because of an anxiety attack. I know there’s labor hours available and possible positions that can be filled, he is just so hungry for pleasing corporate that he will cut whatever they want him to. The assistant is more direct and let me know that before this store manager came here there was about 2.5X more coverage.
He schedules people outside of their availability. He works people so poorly to force them to quit. He schedules people less then guaranteed minimum hours (we are unionized). He has cases opened on him for all these issues and he doesn’t care. The only people he tries to write up are the ones speaking out and getting the union involved but he needs a second manager to also sign the write ups for them to be valid and nobody in the store is on his side. I worked at “The Larger Retail” chain, and they treated me better than this store manager ever did.
I know this is just a big long rant and I am looking for a new job. On the plus side, he is moving locations.