Have been working a retail job at a small business for the last year or so and just really fed up with the ghost and guilt tactics used by the boss. sorry if some stuff might be vague, don't want to be too specific.
Firstly, in the interview they said it would be possible for them to support me to get a certificate. Cue them then ghosting me for half a year when I asked about it and then trying to persuade me that it wasn't a good business move for them. I'm not sure how they expected to convince me with that but sure…
Aside from that, I volunteered to help with something outside of the scope of being a retail assistant – packing meds. A rookie mistake I know, I realise that now but at the time I was curious and wanted to try something new. Cue them getting annoyed and trash-talking us behind our back if we worked too slow on it. Also tried to guilt(?), threaten/scare us with the patients' health. And then when I tried to step down from continuing, they said I should keep doing it because for the business it would be a more valuable use of my time. And I wasn't even being compensated extra for taking on extra responsibility/burdens.
Lastly, I asked for either no shifts or as little hours as possible for one fortnight cause ultimately I am a full-time student and have to look after my studies. They said no, and that it was selfish of me to ask because they're always thin on staffing in exam season, because most of their hires are students and, surprise surprise, everyone wants to take time off in exam season. They could just hire more non-students/one more full-time person so it wouldn't be a logistics nightmare at exam time, but no, students are cheap. I don't think I'm being selfish, employer just has a logistics issue that they are aware of, and also well aware of how to solve.
Interestingly enough, after that I found a bunch of annual leave slapped under salary and wages on my payslip. Never applied/signed up for any, the hours don't even make sense considering my normal working hours, so I have no idea what it is. Hourly rate was also wrong on the payslip.
I feel like the employer is starting to feel some sort of vendetta against me, time to leave? Also was this just an isolated bad experience or a common small business experience?