Originally when I was hired, I felt I had been head hunted – they seemed to already understand my experience and level of knowledge and wanted to sell the job to me. During training, everything was fine and they even considered suggestions I made.
Over the weeks, I met new coworkers and seemed to be able to get along with most, if not all of them, to some degree of friendliness. I was informed that they were hiring new staff because a long time employee quit and the owners wanted more time with family. Eventually, I discovered they were going on a week long vacation in mid-April but thought nothing of it.
In this time, I performed the job to the best of my abilities, educated customers and staff, kept on top of inventory and cleaning duties that were being looked over, showed up on time everyday and extended hands of friendship to various coworkers like helping them with personal issues or escorting them off the property after work.
The owners went on vacation and returned about a week ago. I saw them once, briefly, said hello and clocked in for the job. I worked two more shifts over the weekend with no complaints or issues with another employee.
Then today I get a brief call telling me they are terminating my employee because I am not a good cultural fit and I am still under probation.
Maybe I have been delusional and misread all of the interactions I've had with not only staff but customers as well, but no one has been frustrated or upset or unhappy that I know of in the short hours of the day they've spent with me. I am deeply ingrained in the actual culture of the industry so there would be no debate there.
So I have to conclude a few things: the owners themselves personally didn't like me and who I presented myself as beyond my work as an employee and that made it an easy choice in their original plan to hire temporary employees to cover their vacation time that they'd let go before probation ended.
I spent two and a half months looking for a job just for this to happen. It's so hard to keep caring when employers just use people.