Longtime lurker, tonight got the urge to post here. Used to work at an upscale restaurant in my downtown area(bigger town in upper-midwest, bonus points if you can guess where). Was hired on as a busser but quickly moved to host, where I stayed for the rest of the time I worked there. I wanted to transfer to server, which was a sentiment I made very clear to my boss multiple times. This shouldn't have been a big deal as I was still willing to work host shifts, and the store had just lost a couple servers anyway. I was easily the hardest working employee there, and had literally been there since they opened.
Repeatedly I'd finally be given a serving shift after much reminding, only to end up with a section much smaller than any other server(3 or so tables), and consisting of only the 2-person tables. Repeatedly I'd demonstrate that I could perform well and got consistent good remarks from the customers(despite the fact I received next to no training). Over and over after these tiny sections would be revealed I'd ask why I got such a small section, only to be told I didn't have experience working with larger tables(not once did they make an effort to train me to take larger tables).
This was already aggravating, but adding insult to injury was the fact that repeatedly new servers would be hired, moving me back to hosting only shifts, and these new servers would receive much larger sections with larger tables, despite having just as little experience as me.
Finally I drew up the courage to politely confront my boss on the situation before a shift, only to be passively aggressively chewed out and told to 'just be content with what I was getting', and told that she was tired of hearing my complaining(which tipped me off that the bartender, who I had confided in about my feelings on the situation, had ratted me out despite his assurances that he was on my side).
The final straw came when I came to her over a week ahead of time requesting one day off thanks to a very important video shoot coming up that I had the opportunity to be a part of(I'm going to college for Digital Media). Repeatedly I was told not only that the shift couldn't be covered, but I was discouraged from asking anyone else if they could cover my shift. Finally a few days before I called her letting her know I was choosing my future career over this shift, at which point I was presented with the ultimatum of 'if you don't show up, we're screwed. show up, or you're done' (dunno what her plan was if I got sick). Needless to say, chose my career. Does kind of suck, they really were friendly people when it came to anything besides scheduling. Sometimes I do wish things would have turned out differently, but at the end of the day I'm glad I stood up for myself.