tldr at the bottom.
So I started this new job two months ago, and I had a manager (I’ll call him L) who was actually good at being a manager. Like, I didn’t even know my other workplaces were bad until I started working here. L trusts his employees do to their job, doesn’t blame us for any mistakes we make, let’s us decide our schedule (within reason), and even shoulders some of the workload managers usually shove onto employees. He also knows that if he can’t make enough sales for the month, then he can’t be mad at us for not making enough sales.
Things started to change about 2 weeks ago when he got promoted to a new position. He’s still the manager, but he won’t be at the store as frequently, so the GM went to find someone who can be in charge of the store while L is away. This person is basically L’s assistant, which does make them my boss.
The first person who worked as L’s assistant was a disaster. L couldn’t for the life of him figure out why the GM hired her, because he knew instantly that she was going to be a disaster.
And a disaster she was. She never stopped lying. She tried to rip off customers. She reorganized the entire store in a way that makes our jobs significantly harder. She wanted to make changes that were blatantly against the rules. She didn’t do anything except tell us what to do (after having L as a manager, I now see managers who only delegate work and nothing else as bad managers), and she blamed me, my coworker, and L (who wasn’t even at the store) for her mistakes.
Now I knew she wouldn’t be around for long. She was either going to quit due to being upset by the lack of power she had over us, or she would have been fired for her mistakes. L even wanted me and my coworker to tell him when she did something wrong, which is exactly what we did, and it happened a lot. L always believed us over her, and he even made her think that the reason he knew all the bad things she was doing was because he was watching the security cameras (which he was doing to an extent), rather than letting her know that we were ratting her out.
Anyways, in these two weeks, I had to fix a lot of my boss’s mistakes. L also took care of a lot of these mistakes, but while he was gone, I was the one in charge of telling her to stop doing something unless L decided it could wait for him to get back, and I was also the one in charge of telling her what to do. I wasn’t doing this 100% of the time. She did already know a lot of things, but for the stuff she didn’t know, I reported to L to see what he wanted me to do, and he shouldered most of these mistakes, but still asked me to take care of some of them.
The one that really bothered me was when he asked me to confront her about several pretty big mistakes, which I knew she’d take no responsibility for. Still, I wanted her fired and I knew she wasn’t going to respond well to being told she’s wrong about this, so I confronted her, and then she blamed my coworker for what she did. No one believed her.
As I predicted, she hated that she had no power over us and she quit on Friday, so now she’s at a location where she’s still not in charge of anything.
I should also mention that in these two weeks, I actually told her what to do far more than she told me what to do (she liked to blame us for not doing something she never told us to do).
So now we have this new boss (I’ll call him E), or assistant manager. Whatever he’s called. L hasn’t met him in person yet, but he seems to really like the guy after the phone interview he had. I thought this meant that E would be good, and I’ll admit that job-wise, he is better than the girl who just quit. He’s good with customers, doesn’t try to rip them off, knows the basics of the job, and overall isn’t the disaster that was the other person.
But if I’m being honest, I’d rather work with the other person.
Because E is an idiot, possibly a dangerous one.
I met E for the first time yesterday. He tells me a story where about how a kid told him that his dog (a pit bull) will be put down if it’s not on a leash, and E decided that this kid must be threatening his dog, so he dares the kid to touch his dog. When the kid doesn’t touch his dog, he dares the kid to touch his dog again, and to see what happens if he does so.
As E tells the story, he’s changing his tone of voice to fit the dialogue he and the kid spoke in, and E’s tone of voice when he dares the kid to touch his dog is threatening. The kid does go to grab the dogs harness, so E threw the kid off a bridge (with water below. People jump down from this bridge all the time, though that doesn't excuse throwing someone off of it).
E then waited for me to praise him for throwing a kid off the bridge after the kid “threatened” his dog.
E wants me to praise him for lots of things, I’ve noticed. He started bragging about how great of a seller he is (he’s been working at another location for 2 weeks, where he apparently made 7 sales in a week whereas his coworker only made 13 sales in three months). The numbers from the day he worked with me showed that he had 7 customers and no sales, so I already know he’s not as good at sales as he thinks.
He also wants me to be completely in awe about the fact that his 8yo nephew is stealing his moms weed, because apparently that’s “badass.” He’s already expecting that his 5yo daughter will be pregnant as a teenager. Overall, these things are more annoying than anything else, primarily because he wants me to be in awe about it when it’s actually just fucked up.
Now as for the job itself, I’m not entirely sure yet. Like I said before, he seems better than the other person. But when I asked him if he wanted to sweep or mop, he said mop and then grabbed the broom to start sweeping. He then only swept part of the floor before getting the mop ready. I explain that he needs to sweep the whole floor and he hands me the broom, so I just sweep it myself. He then starts mopping. I was working on something in the back as he mopped. When I came back to the front, less than half of the floor was wet, but he was done mopping. He claimed that he mopped the whole floor. I know it's a lie, but I don't care. If the boss says he mopped the whole floor, then who am I to question it?
Besides that, earlier in the day, E was unable to log into the computer cause he didn’t know the password, but he thought he did. I was on my lunch, so I was not there to stop him (he still could have texted either me or L), so he tried logging in repeatedly and got locked out. His solution to this was to keep trying. When I came back from lunch to finish my break in the back room, I tell him to stop trying to log in. He continues trying to log in.
I text L about the computer being locked and he says to wait 5 minutes. I stupidly think that if E knows L was the one who said it, he would stop trying to log in, so I go to the back room to finish my break, and when I come back, I learn that E never stopped trying to log in.
Now idk what got him to change his mind, but at some point, he finally decided to wait 5 minutes like I said. L already told me there’s a chance I’ll have to call IT, and sure enough, after waiting 5 minutes, I still can’t get into the computer, so I have to call IT.
Now I don’t want to call IT, especially when the only reason we have to is because E is too stupid to realize that he has to stop trying to log into the computer. And E’s the boss so it’s his fucking job, so I just tell E to call IT, but E tells me the number isn’t working. I try it myself and sure enough, that number has been disconnected. I tell L and he tries to find the right number. It took about 10 minutes of back and forth before I finally get the right number. At this point, it was easier to just do it myself than to have E do it.
I’m just tired of having to fix my bosses mistakes. I thought it would be over after the other girl was gone, but it’s not. And I already know I have no chance of being promoted. L already told me that the only reason I’m not getting the position is because I’m not bilingual (we get a lot of Spanish speaking customers, so anyone in charge needs to speak Spanish).
At this point, I’m just wondering if I should let E do whatever the fuck he wants and watch as the store falls into chaos. That includes not teaching him anything, not telling him what to do, not doing his job, and telling L no when he tells me to fix his mistakes.
I like this job, so I’d rather not leave, but I was too excited when my coworker asked me to swap shifts with her, which allows me to escape a 10 hour shift with E and instead get a 10 hour shift with L, and having that amount of excitement just to escape a shift with my boss is a huge sign that this place isn’t worth staying at.
I think I’ll talk to L about me no longer fixing my bosses mistakes on Wednesday. Idk. I’m just tired of managing my bosses. I should have another job lined up first, though.
tldr: My manager got promoted but is still the manager at the store. He just won't be at the store as much and needs someone to be in charge while he's away, so the GM hired someone for that. She was a disaster and I routinely fixed her mistakes. Now she's gone and I just had my first shift with the new guy yesterday. He's an idiot and I've already had to start fixing his mistakes. I'm tired of fixing my bosses mistakes and am wondering if I should just let my new boss do whatever he wants and watch as the store falls into chaos.