I have never been treated like this in my whole life. I can't believe this. Please take the time to read if you can, but there's a tldr at the bottom.
I'm a college student, and I was hired as a seasonal part-time sales associate at a home improvement store. I've worked at this store for four days, but I worked at another store for upwards of three years. The first two shifts were primarily training, and I finally got on the floor for the past two days. I was told to shadow an old employee who's been working there for twelve some years. I had no problem with that, as it seemed to just be procedure. However, after my first shift it became clear that this guy was going to be difficult. He didn't explain anything that we were required to do, and would just complain that “it used to be better.” He would bitch about everyone; customers, corporate, managers and even other employees. At the end of the first day, I didn't do any actual work, I just sat as the guy complained all day.
On the second day, I had to take a different bus and got to work almost an hour early. Without complaining, I clocked in. The first thing I did was participate in the morning meeting. They took almost an hour discussing different sales, targets, and what have you. But the part that stood out to me was this. Apparently, the store has a high turnover rate, and management believes this is because employees are undertrained. So they encouraged us to complete all our training ASAP. I raised an eyebrow to this, but found the guy I was supposed to shadow and started “work.”
As you can expect, we didn't do much. I followed him around as he complained about this or that. I tried to ask a few important questions like “what's the first thing I should do when I clock in” or “what's the difference between this tool and that tool” (this store carried different brands than my old store), but this guy would frequently shut down these questions and say something like “I don't want to tell you too much all at once.” I was so bored, but at least I was being paid.
Eventually the manager pulled us aside to give us a task. We had to go back in receiving and reorganize some big ass toolboxes. Like the ones on wheels that you might see in a shop. And man when I got back there let me tell you, it was A MESS. To the point where there must've been multiple safety violations. There were pallets of random products tilting off the shelf barely balanced, carts of wood laying around, and broken boxes everywhere. I understood why the manager sent us to fix it. However my fellow employee took the opportunity to tell me how much better it used to be, and how he would run the place if he was the manager. After about fifteen minutes of this I smiled and said “alright! Well let's get working then!” He looked at me like I cursed out his mother and said something along the lines of “look I'm trying to explain this to you alright!” I heard the hostility in his voice and just smiled and said “hey it's okay no problem. I'm sorry keep going.” And he seemed to calm down. A few minutes later he got called to the managers office and told me to start organizing the toolboxes. I immediately started working. I took four massive boxes and stacked them on the shelf all by myself. It was a pain in the ass, but the area looked so much better without the toolboxes sitting in the middle of the floor. Soon after, the other employee came back and took one look at it and said “it doesn't match the top shelf.” I said “I don't have a forklift license at this store, so I did the best I could.” To which he said “well we'll have to reorganize it. But we have something else to do.”
For the next few hours, we had to track down some generators for a customer. It took forever due to the disorganization of the store. Not only was receiving disorganized, but the rest of the store was a joke. Products ripped open, boxes on the floor, items sitting in the wrong isle. It was like they just emptied the truck on the shelves without any care where anything went. After a while I just told the other employee I was going to take my lunch break, and he said that was a good idea. He told me to meet him back by the tool boxes once I'm done.
As soon as I was done, I passed the older employee while I was walking to the toolboxes. He told me to get started and he'll get there as soon as possible. When I got back there again, I started working. I stacked all the tools by their size, largest on the left, smallest on the right. I chose this because I noticed there was a large toolbox on the top shelf on the left. Let me tell you, these boxes are not light. It was a huge pain to lift these boxes and carry them on the shelf. Once I completed a whole bay, the older employee walked over. He told me that there's more toolboxes over to the side and started over to get them. However, he noticed something wrong with my stacking. He said that I stacked the red toolboxes on the top and the red toolboxes on the bottom. I agreed, I did do that. It consolidated the space and I was able to fit more on the shelves. He sighed, and started to move the toolboxes saying “We gotta do it my way.” Angry and frustrated, I pulled back and leaned against the wall. I tried to focus on taking deep breaths in order to calm down. Almost immediately this guy turns and says “what are you waiting for?!” I said “I'm waiting for you to do it your way.” He put down the box and turned to give me the most angry look. I calmly said “I don't appreciate doing all this work just for you to say I fucked it up.” And he got right up in my face, like maybe one inch away, and yelled at 100% “DID I SAY FUCKED UP?” I immediately put my hands up and said “I'm leaving.” To which he kept screaming at me, eventually saying “YEAH GO DO TRAINING” I was walking away from him, but I decided to turn around and raise my voice a little too and said “Look, I showed up early today, helped you all day, and stacked all these by myself. Do not speak to me like that.” He just screamed “GO DO YOUR TRAINING.” To which I replied “Enjoy working memorial day weekend all by yourself.” And I matched off to the managers office.
There, I walked in and saw the manager. I immediately told him what happened, holding back tears. He shrugged and said “okay we'll move you. Where do you want to work.” I told him that I've been working in this department for years, and I would like to stay where I am. “What are you going to do about what happened?” I asked. “We'll deal with it. Go work with Matt.” And shrugged me off. I went to Matt, and immediately started complaining about what happened. Apparently the managers finally heard me because they went to me and said “Let's take a walk” and pulled me back into the office. They told me that MY behavior was completely unacceptable and showed the store in a bad light. I couldn't believe it, so I told them what happened AGAIN. They gave me some printer paper and told me to write it down. I sighed and wrote down what happened A G A I N. When I was done, they read it over and said they'd deal with it. I asked by when. They said soon. I asked when. They said as soon as they could. I got up, still holding back tears, and went back to Matt. Matt asked again what happened and I told him. Eventually a different manager showed up, and told me he just got back from lunch and heard something happened. I told him A G A I N what happened, and he gave me the whole “that's not what usually happens here, please don't quit” speech. He was considerably nicer than the other manager, but didn't give me the impression that he was actually going to do anything. Eventually he left, and it was time for me to clock out. I got my stuff, and ran into the person who made the schedule. I told her to cut my hours and never schedule me with the other guy again. She agreed and told me “I heard rumors about what happened.” Great, people are already talking. I left, and I'm home now.
Tomorrow I'm going back into work. If nothing gets resolved, I quit. No questions about it. I already scheduled an interview with another company and have no problem leaving. I just really needed to get this off my chest. I've been feeling like I'm going to cry for hours now.
Thanks for taking the time to read if you did
TLDR: An old employee told me to stack heavy boxes but didn't tell me how. After I did it, he said I did it wrong. I was tired and frustrated. He was short with me, so I said “I don't appreciate doing all this work just for you to say I fucked it up” to which he started screaming at me. Management didn't care and if nothing changes by tomorrow I quit.