I'm 26 feeling like I'm 75. I've worked in grocery retail for 5-6 years now and have been feeling the burnout for the last 2 years. Been desperately trying to save up for school but I'm plagued by medical bills because of my bad back and credit debt because I was clueless not knowing the dangers and let those Cabelas employees sucker me into a store card. My back problems stem from issues that arose while/shortly after I was discharged from the Army for back pain that developed while I was there. I got all the way through AIT and was about to ship out to my duty station. Woke up one morning and couldn't move, feeling like someone someone was squeezing the shit out of my back and neck muscles. Inever got diagnosed with any particular issue and am just told by my doctors to go to physical therapy, which does help a lot but doesn't completely stop whatever is happening. Whenever I get stressed, pissed off, or anxious my back tenses up and my muscles cramp extremely hard. It feels like Charlie horses in my entire back.
To start I work 6 hour shifts 4-5 days a week. I just started working in the deli at this little market here in town that's too big for its own good. We can't get anyone fucking hired. I work my ass off to get my job done, I make 250-300 sandwiches a day and custom sandwiches on top of that. Half of my days that it's been very busy I dont even get any breaks. My boss tells me I need to speed up even though I'm working at MY fastest. Because of the lack of staffing I have been running the entire department all by myself most nights out of the week. We don't have a fryer thank fucking God but it's still almost 3-4x the amount of work compared to the last grocery store I worked at that did have fryers. I have to leave when the front manager leaves so whatever I can't finish before that is left for the morning. The deli manager and the other morning person are fucking workaholics and put in 20+ hours of overtime every pay period. They like working because their excuse is that they'd rather be working than sitting around.
I don't know how to feel about my boss because they've been good and even let me negotiate a wage of 15 an hour. I dont know if i should believe them or not but one of my co-workers who is family to the business owners says this boss is always degrading then and spreading lies about them making them look bad in the work and family environment. When I got covid around 4th of July this year I sent them pictures of my test results and they chewed me out saying it was a false positive and that I “can't do this to then because there's been so much bullshit already”. The test was a faint line but CDC says it's positive. This was maybe 6-10 hours after first exposure. I sent them another test the next morning and it lit up bright red the second the sample touched. They demanded I check in EVERY day. I was sleeping almost 15-16 hours a days during the worst of it and was too damned tired to check in on their waking schedule. So on 2 of the days that I didn't check in they left me angry voice mails, “You're supposed to be checking in with me”. Literally just that in a mad upset tone. They also have this our way or the highway mentality that drives me nuts. I do something slightly different that achieves the same goal and they have to critique me every fucking time.
Every God damned time I miss one item or can't get one task such as stocking a few items or slicing some meat done, instead of sucking it up and accepting I ran out of time they point fingers at me and bitch and complain “why didn't this get done” or “we used to do this every night so YOU should be able to do it too”. I fucking hate being compared to other people. I don't give a shit if they can do it, I fucking can't.
The other week the front end manager came up behind me weeping and crying while I was going to the backstock fridge. She got literall shit under her one of her nails. She had to clean someone's shit not from the toilet but from the trashcan. YES THE TRASHCAN, in the mens restroom. They fucking blew up the can, the outside of the can and the eall behind the can. When she was cleaning the cheap ass gloves she trippled up on, was ripped through by solidified shit that she was scrubbing off the wall and cut under her nail I was so horrified and disgusted. I've become a nihilist and comforted her, saying I hope the guy who did it tries to hard next time and strokes out on the shitter. People are fucking disgusting and disrespectful. This is the kind of human garbage we have to deal with.
Home… I go home in so much pain because I'm overworked and stressed the hell out. I vent to my family who I love very much for dealing with me and keeping a roof over my head but they just don't seem to understand how much this is fucking with me. My mom bitches at me when I even suggest the notion of quitting with some bullshit along the lines of “you have to have an income you can't quit”. My response is always I know I need money to pay my debt off but FFS it's not worth my sanity. Her response is always basically ignoring all of my mental instability and scoffing it off with a distasteful loud exhale. I believe my dad wants to help but is always too busy/tired from his own work to help. I've been to them in the past and say my mind from all my frustration.
From my last 2 retail jobs to this one I've had points where I'm so pissed and stressed I have stated that I wanted to shoot myself. I don't even think I'm depressed I'm just so damned tired and angry with the shit work the shit customers who treat me like shit. I could deal with 10 good nice people but the one asshole of the hour just makes me want to blow up. I used to love people but my fuse has gone from 1 yard to one inch.
I don't know what to do or where to go. I'm losing hope in myself and any future away from all this bullshit. My anger and frustration turns into tiredness and depression. It's a never ending cycle. Please help me.