Hey all, love reading this thread and I (22m) thought you’d get a kick out of this one. I left my previous job for a few reasons, the number one being financial insecurity and the number two being my asshole of a DM (24m). Long post, so here's a TL:DR.
TL:DR- DM fucks over an entire store, I get to help store serve revenge by planning a walk-out after making sure the HR department is flooded with rightful complaints against him.
It started out fine; he was a store manager that I met as a customer, he gave me a lead on a first assistant manager position at another store in the district run by his gf (24f), and I took it. Then he got promoted to DM at the same time I got promoted to SM as his gf moved to another district. Right off the bat, the promotion was hell for me. I had no staff in the middle of Black Friday into Christmas (retail hell), and he knew this. I had countless interviews that went nowhere because we could only offer $8/hr at the time. I called him sobbing and having panic attacks, begging for help, and he always said “don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”
On his first visit to my store after the promotion, he gave me “homework” for his next visit: just stop being stressed! This is verbatim what he said to me, and I remember it word for word because I was so blown away.
DM: hey, so your homework is to just stop being stressed! I have a morning routine; I wake up, take my dog on the balcony, do some breathing exercises, make my coffee, and read for a bit before I take my dog for a walk. Try reading a book, watching some YouTube videos, breathing exercises, and laying down when you get home.
Me: I already do that and they don’t fucking help.
DM: okay! Moving on.
I called him a few days later after I’d been able to calm down a bit and told him that it was bullshit how he treated me and I didn’t feel I could trust him or work with him anymore. He, in his defense, did give me a genuine apology. I still should have left right then, but I stayed.
Down the line, he only got worse. He played blatant favoritism because his best friend worked in the district and always gave her awards in work meetings and disregarded the rest of us. He repeatedly would only have one meeting in my store and three to four in the best friend's store, despite me asking him for more time to go over things I was struggling with. He would schedule meetings and calls with me, blow me off and say he forgot, then reschedule for another day and completely blow me off on those days, too. Really struggled to see how we were a “family” as he always said we were when most of the time me and some smaller volume stores were neglected and forgotten.
Back in June, I sat him down at a meeting he decided to actually follow through with and told him I was looking for other jobs because of my financial struggles. He said “I don’t want you to make a rash decision for a short term issue” and I told him I had been living paycheck to paycheck for 6 months- this was with my fiancé having a full time job while we split bills/shared expenses. As a full time store manager, I was salaried at $18.25/hr. I consistently worked 50-60 hour weeks but he thought I’d stay for the commission. Essentially, e called my bluff and got pissy when I gave him my notice three weeks ago. Tough titties, asshole.
In that 2 month window, I trained my first assistant up to be a manager in my place- the company prides itself on promoting from within- because he’d either get the position entirely or he’d be a placeholder until they got someone else in there. I’d told my DM that if my first didn’t get the position he’d find a new job, not out of pettiness but financial struggles as well. DM understood this.
A small note here: when I gave my notice, I gave DM 3 weeks notice. I called and told him the day I got the job offer and we established that after 3 weeks I'd leave (new job had some decent paperwork to get through and it took a while to get it squared away). All in all, I gave him SEVERELY advanced notice, more than enough time to work with me and my first to get ready for my departure, but he chose to sit on his ass and call my bluff. Even then, 3 weeks of him officially knowing I was leaving and he didn't try to get in the store more than 2 times- both in the last week I was there. When he came in for the first visit since my notice, he tried to trick me into staying another week. The following is how it went:
DM: So with your last day being on a Monday, this is-
Me: Hold on, my last day is on a Saturday.
DM: No, you said your last day would be on a Monday, remember?
Me: I remember the phone call we had; I said my last day would be a Saturday. Next Saturday.
DM: … that's less than two weeks notice, but whatever!
I just stared at him after that, because he knew damn well we'd agreed I'd be done on a Saturday. He just wanted to keep me around longer because it was Labor Day and he wanted to make my last day hell. The store had ample coverage, so me leaving then wouldn't have fucked anyone over.
I love my new job, and after I left I checked in on my first to see how he was doing. Turns out that DM blew him off not once, but TWICE, for the SM interview. First time he rescheduled for nearly a week later, second time he just ghosted my first altogether. No text or call to explain or reschedule again. Already pissed but it’s not my place to argue with DM anymore, so I just supported my first.
I just found out from my old sales associate that DM never bothered to interview my first and just gave the SM spot to another SM in the district, who will then promote his own first to take that store. There is a whole process they have to follow to do an internal promotion, which I know because I had to do the same thing, so for him to just not bother contacting him at all and to never interview him is just… disgusting, frankly.
Now this DM has been an asshole to everyone in this store; he’s extremely passive aggressive, makes appointments with the other managers/associates and blows them off, and is just generally callous with people. He grew up in shit conditions, so I guess his way of overcoming it is to be perpetually happy? He’s always smiling and always trying to be upbeat, which is great in its own way, but he never fully understands why people are upset/stressed and leads him to act like it’s a silly little thing that we can just let go of and we’ll be fine (hence why he told me to just stop being stressed). Basically, nobody in this store likes this guy and several people have told me they’re scared of him- honestly I get it because he does give off some serial killer vibes sometimes.
Upon hearing all of this, I immediately made a group chat and told them all to call our HR hotline and file a complaint against him. Normally this wouldn’t do much, but if a whole store is calling and complaining with different individual stories about this one person, they take notice. Then, I asked if they were planning on staying; they all said some variation of “no and I’m going to be putting in my two weeks”. Our state is an at-will state, so I said “fuck no you won’t. We’ve all gone to this DM individually multiple times to talk to him about our issues with him, and each time he improves for a visit and then goes right back to dicking us around the next. He never gets better. You all are gonna walk out of that store and not look back. I will be your reference point for that job, and unless you're wanting to work there again in the future, you don't need to give notice. Oh, and when you do leave, make sure you say to DM and HR that DM is the reason why you're leaving.”
So now, I'm going over there today to talk with the team, visit them again since I enjoy the hell out of all of them, and talk prep for their walk-out. Some of these people are 16, and this is their first job ever. I don't want them to think that every job is going to be hell like this, and I want them to know that not all bosses suck. If I can make a difference in their thinking so they see that at least they had one boss who stood up for them and helped them stand up against gross misconduct in the workplace, then I'm happy.
Now I know he'll never see this, but just because I never got the chance to say this to his face:
DM, at-will employment goes both ways. Suck it.