So I’ve been following the anti work sub for awhile now, not too involved mostly just lurking and reading others post. I also don’t know much about politics or the different sides but I support Anti work and everything it stands for. I don’t understand the entire movement as far as the end goal but just coming on here daily to read things and see updates on how things are in other places and peoples lives just really gets me going and fuels me to find better and seek better as far as my work life. I have a pretty terrible work history, I’m 20 turning 21 but I’m not ignorant and have been through my fair share, I pride myself in always being teachable. I don’t want to get too personal but I do want to share my history in the work industry and how its lead me to where I am today.
So it all started around 16, things were rough and I needed a job so I applied to a place nearby. It was a 10 minute walk from the house and 15-20 minute walk from school so I could go straight there from school. It was a Checker’s, took me 2 weeks to get hired because the owner/hiring manager was never there. I was so eager and desperate though I pursued and pursued and finally scheduled an interview and being as dumb n naive that I was at the time I straight up told them I’d be more than happy to work for $7.25/hr because I didn’t know that was such a bad pay plus I figured it would be hard to be hired as a High schooler. Like every job the co-workers were great the management was terrible and annoying. I quit after about 2 months because one of my managers tried to make a move on me and I ended up beating him up and also because the other manager wanted me to work a whole night shift by myself and her because the other employees that night quit and we had nobody else. Then a couple months later the place closed down and the owners were deported. I smiled when I found that out.
Time skip to age 17, been waiting for this moment my whole life GRADUATION. Mostly because I’d finally be able to go to the military something I wanted to do my whole life and also because I wanted to get away from my family and was looking for a place of belonging which I thought the military could give me. Like always though something had to get in the way, my father who I never see or hear from except once a year on my birthday to get a happy birthday. Apparently though since I did get that ONE text a year from him that places him in my life and I needed his signature and consent to ship out and guess what? He wouldn’t sign the paperwork. So I had to wait till I was 18 and then sign myself. Finally hit 18 I signed and was ready to ship on April 19th, 2019 BOOM covid hits nobody is allowed to ship out and the process is on pause for a whole year and my recruiter goes ghost on me. So about half way through 2020 I started giving up on everything and shipping out and I started to pursue other things and look for an actual job since I wasn’t going to the military but guess what? At the last second in February 2 months before my contract runs out for the delayed shippers program I get a call from a different recruiter because my old one left and they “lost” my contact info saying he’s finally ready to ship me out and it’ll be by the end of the month. Now mind you I won’t lie I had gotten lazy on my workouts and routines and started getting depressed so as much as I was happy to hear this I was also panicking because I feared I wouldn’t be physically ready for bootcamp. I did tell him my concerns but he just kinda shrugged them off and told me I’d be fine and even went as far as to write false IST ( Initial Strength Test ) stats down for me which I felt bad about. So fast forward I shipped out and every new recruit was quarantined before actually arriving to Paris Island for the Marine Corps bootcamp, and it was for 2 weeks we sat locked in a hotel room with nothing to do but watch classes on a TV to get us prepared for test in bootcamp. We came out three times a day for role-call and that was it. It was terrible and so was the food. Fast forward to training, I was on the island for 2 months and had 1 more month to complete before I’d be an official United States Marine. The crazy thing is though I only had about 2 weeks worth of training, 4 weeks were quarantined, 1 week was light duty, and the rest was me being behind the rest of my platoon. My 2 weeks of training were week 1 and the week before phase 2, those 2 weeks of quarantine on the island were right after week 1 and I didn’t even have covid prior I just had close contact and then ended up getting covid in quarantine and missed 2 weeks of training and instead of dropping me down to a platoon that would be on week 1 they kept me in my same platoon which was great but I was so far behind and got destroyed mentally and physically for it. So in the end I ended up getting depressed again and could barely keep up physically without killing my body but I felt I had to keep going for not only my platoon but for my family so they wouldn’t be disappointed in me, I didn’t even care about myself. Eventually though I did decide to go home to handle my mental health and physically health. I thought the military was the place for me and I would be more then just a number but all I was/am left with is bad knees, mental health issues, and feeling like a failure for the rest of my life because I didn’t complete bootcamp.
Time-skip again to coming home, it was a lot to re adjust back into society even though I was only gone for 2 months it felt like years, I was even surprised to see fat people because they were just non existent on the island. It took a couple of months but I finally re-adjusted and landed a job as a server at a long tier restaurant owned by some former army guy, the environment was very toxic and my supervisor/trainer quit on my first day as-well as one of the cooks. So the owner comes in to train me and manages to bring back the cook who quit, I lasted one week there before I quit too because the pay was only 9.00/hr and he changed my position from server in training to server/cashier/manager/cook within 2-3 days and the workload was too much for it to be my first time as a server and to have no help and to barely be getting training except the occasional obvious tip like “make sure the table is clean” or “make sure to not touch the food itself”. So after that I found another job as a dishwasher at a very high tier restaurant starting at $14/hr which was enough for me since I was coming from $9/hr but man it took such a heavy blow to my pride to go from aspiring military man to working in kitchens. Like all good/decent things that came my way though it quickly came to an end. The place was an hour away and I had no car so it ended up being 2 hours on public transportation which was difficult to find an efficient route to take so I ended up having to leave that job too because of the commute was costing me more then the pay at that point. There were issues with the management and pay but I was satisfied.
That brings me to now though currently working as a cleaner at a company hired by a school district. The environment is very unprofessional and childish and the work sucks. 35 hour work week but the workload is that of a 60 hour work week crammed into 35 for part time employees and you can’t even become full time unless you’re supervisor because they don’t want to give benefits to anyone or better pay either. Supervisors don’t do anything but sit on their ass and get paid to read to you what complaints are in the book for that day. I recently finished my 90 days though back in February and got a dollar raise to 13/hr and they made me sign a paper where I couldn’t tell any co-workers to avoid drama because I’m the newest at the company and everybody else has been working there for over a year(s). I was told it would take effect the next pay period which was this past week and I come to find out I’m still being paid 12/hr and went straight to the head supervisor and he said “must’ve been a mistake in the office” I filled that paperwork out over 3 weeks ago. Today he tells me it was officially been updated. I’m furious though and recently I’ve been already thinking of handing in a 2 weeks soon because I’m currently looking for work from home jobs and have been having semi good luck. I don’t know how to handle it and I would really like compensation for % of my paycheck I’m missing since I was suppose to already be paid that money and was really expecting it and I don’t know how to respond back to him saying “it’ll take effect next pay period”. I also just wanted to add that another thing that’s been bothering me is my girlfriend recently started working here and the job has just been terrible for her mental health and body as-well as the work load stressing her out and causing issues between us, I want her to quit because of this but she doesn’t want to because we currently need the money and she doesn’t want be ruining my body more plus she doesn’t want be paying for everything by myself, how should I approach her quitting in a better manner?
Sorry for this very long post I just wanted to finally make a post here and be apart of the community. I think I belong here but I know many others have it worse then me plus I’m young and I know a lot of people think young people don’t know the hard working struggle, so I hope I’ll be accepted here.
TL;DR How should I respond to my boss? ( See end of post) and is this the right place for me?