I work part-time at a chain restaurant just to collect health insurance. I have been not been able to look for full-time job because I've been taking care of my elderly grandparents and my great-grandmother. I've worked at this restaurant for 5 years. The pay is extremely low but I need the health insurance. My GM is the only manager I have problems. I'm fine with all the other managers and most of the other employees like me.
Long story short: My GM, who has been extremely rude to me for over a year, is about to fire me because of one single customer complaint that was a total lie. She took his side, refused to listen to my side, and I think on my next shift, she plans to fire me.
Long story because I need to vent about what happened: My GM is an extreme workaholic and has been nothing but extremely rude to me for the past 2 years. She's the type of manager who never lets the employees speak and always takes the side of the customer. She takes her job way too seriously. She's an extremely toxic manager and the number one reason most people quit within their first month.
I was having a bad day, wasn't feeling great. My throat was sore, and my body felt drained. I considered calling in sick, but I really need the money, so I showed up anyway. I came into work wearing a mask to be considerate of my co-workers in case I was actually sick. It was only a morning shift, so I thought I could push through.
As soon as I got to work, I clocked in and started doing my prep work. All was fine until my manager showed up and started barking orders at everyone. I was already not feeling great, but with her being there, I felt even worse and started to regret not calling out. I was doing fine until around 1:00 when a man called to place a to-go order. I rang up his order with no issue, and he told me his wife was going to pick it up. At my restaurant, we have curbside and will send out a text when your order is ready, so the man gave me his wife's cell phone number and the color of her car. When his wife came to pick up the order, I brought it out to her. Because I wasn't feeling great, I didn't really speak to her, just kind of nodded my head as I handed her the to-go order and waved my hand as a nice gesture towards her. I figured since I was wearing a mask, she would put two and two together and realize that I just wasn't feeling good.
Well, apparently she didn't like that and accused me of being extremely rude to her. I was shocked and completely stunned; I didn't even know what to say at the time and was left confused at what I could have done that offended her. She left, and not even 20 minutes later, I got a call from her husband, who wanted to speak to the manager about my behavior towards his wife. Her husband wasn't there, and he lied about what happened, telling the manager that I was nothing but rude and cold to his wife. He also said that I threw the food at his wife and refused to apologize. Of course, that did not happen, but the manager took his side, gave him a refund, and sent me home. She refuses to talk to me or even let me speak about my side of the story. All she said is that she's going to talk to me on my next shift. She also said right before I left that there were multiple other complaints against me from customers saying I was cold and rude to them. However, I know that's total BS because just 4 months ago, she surprisingly praised me for always being kind and caring to customers, and I've also never heard of any other complaints until now.
I'm pretty sure that on my next shift, she's either going to write me up or, more than likely, fire me. I've seen her do this in the past with other employees where instead of firing them on the spot or calling, she puts the employee on the schedule one last time and then waits for that employee to drive all the way to work just so they can get fired as soon as they walk through the door. I've seen her do this to 4 other employees this year, and I'm pretty sure I'm next on the chopping block.
And when I tell you this manager is crazy, she literally is. She seriously thinks working 60 to 70 hours a week is healthy. (She loves to tell new employees of the time she got her first job and had to work an 80 hour week and ended up crashing a car because she falling asleep behind the wheel.) At the beginning of the year a elderly employed was forced to stand up on a table to clean windows and ended up falling over and breaking her arm, and another employee got into a serious car crash, she got mad at him for not calling out an hour before his shift started. She forced me to work while I was having a serious panic attack and laughed at me for struggling to breathe. She forced an 8-month pregnant server to be a food runner even though her doctor told her not to lift anything heavy. She also treats employees with disabilities badly. She believes anyone between the ages of 18-25 are all lazy, good-for-nothing young adults who need to stop complaining and work harder. She also stopped allowing kitchen staff to listen to music while working because of one single customer complained saying that they didn't like the 80s rock and roll coming out of the kitchen. She's also fired four other managers in the past 2 years and we've had three managers quit on the spot because they couldn't stand working with her anymore. I could literally write a book on how many god-awful abusive things my manager has done in the past 2 years alone. Me and multiple other employees have already contacted HR about her behavior but to no one surprise nothing has ever been done. She's also freakishly obsessed with this job, her Facebook page is literally all about how she loves her job and she spends her money constantly buying merchandise with the company logo on it.
I was already planning on quitting because of her, but I was hoping to quit after the holidays because I already got approval to take some days off to see family. I updated my resume, and I've already contacted some family members who said they were willing to help me out financially if I do get fired. I've also started looking for a full-time WFH job so I could possibly live with my grandparents and be able to take care of them. But other than that, what else should I be doing to prepare myself if I get fired?
Would it be best for me to quit or should I let myself be fired so I can collect unemployment (assuming that's even possible for someone working part time).
Sorry for this been long; I needed to vent my frustrations.