This is long. My apologies.
I've worked for these guys since 2019 (on unemployment for 15 months during lockdowns but then came back last year). I was the only front-of-house management who wasn't also the owner/general manager. I was the “bar manager” but I did much more than bar stuff. I always really liked my bosses from day one. I felt that while they weren't perfect, they were good people with good intentions. They kept up with us and gave us food during covid. They never put us in unsafe conditions after.
When I first started training for them, before they opened their 2nd location (the one I worked at), they took me aside to tell me that they were so excited about me, that I had the best answers in the interview and they wanted to make me a manager someday. They did when I came back after covid restrictions eased. I do the social media (including a lot of graphic design and the email blasts) for both locations. I'm the only one they trained at their first location before we opened the 2nd, I helped develop protocols, floorplans, etc. I have covered as manger at the other location before. I had passwords, keys, all that, for years.
I have been struggling a lot mentally (as I know most of us are) this past year. My depression and anxiety has been almost unmanageable. I am doing my best, but it's hard. I thought I had a pretty good relationship with my bosses, I felt like they cared about my well being. There was a day in late 2021 where I had to call in sick because I couldn't stop crying. I was sitting in my car sobbing in front of the business. I liked and trusted these guys enough to tell them exactly what was happening with me and they were so supportive and immediately covered me and didn't make me feel weird or bad about it.
My performance had been slipping a little, but not in a way that effected others. I opened most days, and I was late a lot, but I still got there in time to do everything I needed to do. The only thing it did was give me less time to open. Plus, it's not like I was on salary. I wasn't getting paid for the time I wasn't clocked in. While I was trying to get better at it, I figured they'd bring it up if it were a problem. I also thought, maybe they're not even looking at what time I clock in. Maybe they know and they don't care. I had basically never been reprimanded or “in trouble” for anything.
I missed an all-staff meeting recently. I told them I forgot, but really I just wasn't in the mental space to deal with it at that moment. I figured I'd get in trouble a little, or just be talked to about it. I was ready to accept that as a consequence. My mental health comes first and I shouldn't even have to make excuses about that.
Apparently on friday I accidentally cross-posted something from my account to the business account. It was a total accident, I don't even know how it happened because I didn't log in that day. It could've been an instagram-to-facebook error. They deleted it, so I don't even know what it is. I assume it was about abortion rights (pro-choice, duh) or hating the supreme court. My boss told me it was “completely inappropriate for a business”).
So Saturday I come into work (late) and they're both there with my checks to let me go. Their reasoning was all of the above and that they “just couldn't deal with it right now.” All the while acting as if they loved and respected me, but it was just a business choice.
At the time I was so shocked that I just kind of said that I'd wished they would've come to me earlier about being late (the meeting and the social post both happened in the last week or so). I explained to them about my mental state. I wasn't asking for my job back, I was done at that point.
They told me “don't be a stranger, you're welcome here.” Like I'm going to come back and explain to my regulars and other employees why I got fired?
Oh also in California if you get fired you might not get unemployment and even if they do decide to give it to you, you wont have it for like 8-10 weeks.
Fuck work.