Yes, the company’s name is Advance Bauto Barts, for the sake of this post, and potential legal purposes.
A few years ago, through nepotism, I secured a position working there as a delivery driver. Per industry policy, people who deliver car parts to dealerships and mechanic shops get paid less than customer service workers, that operate the retail front of a store. This didn’t bother me at first, because I didn’t have the self-esteem to recognize how inherently wrong it was.
Regardless, I worked this job for a little over a year. Throughout that time, my shift changed from working the Monday-Friday day shift, to the Tuesday-Saturday evening shift. I didn’t have much of a social life, was content with mediocrity, and worked through it until I decided I wanted more money.
I ended up leaving that job for a different, higher paying cooking job. That arrangement didn’t last, however, due to a lot of issues that deserves its own story. At the cooking job, I was getting paid $15 an hour, and was desperate enough to take a pay cut at literally any other place that was willing to hire.
That place ended up being Napal Auto Parts, working the front counter, for $13.25 an hour (again, lacking the self-confidence to find something better). I worked at this job for a little over a year, and yet again was desperate for more money. Cue nepotism part two, and getting in touch with my old boss from Advance Bauto Barts.
All of that lead up was necessary to preface my experience when I returned working at this same place, again. My boss, we’ll call him Bike, was excited to have me on the team. Because of my experience working the front counter at Napal, he wanted me to work the front counter for him, at $15.75 an hour – WITH the promise of $17 an hour at the 90-day mark.
All things considered, I was excited for this opportunity. I was able to work in a field I felt comfortable in, making the most money I had made up until that point, and had a good boss with a solid rapport. I was assigned the working days I requested, with the shift I specifically requested.
This all had changed quickly, before I was able to get a hold of the situation. You see, the difference between when I left the company in 2019, versus returning in 2021 was staggering. The shop was running on a skeleton crew, with not a single positive soul occupying the building. When I had left, there were three front counter men, who were tight-knit buddies that liked to smoke weed on downtime. The management was lackadaisical, and the attitude of everyone there was nonchalant.
The crew of today’s standards were the complete opposite. Only one of those counter men had still been working there, and had an apparent look of destitution on his face. He clearly did not want to be there anymore, and upon my return, did he ever act more positively. The delivery drivers were barely holding on with their work load, and essentially the front counter was worked by 2 1/2 people throughout the week.
Everyone, and I do mean everyone in the store was downtrodden by corporate policies, and low pay. So much so, that only after a month and a half after I had arrived, the one other counter person has left their job for a better opportunity.
What I found most shocking was that everyone else in the store resented him for leaving. I felt like the only person who was actively supportive of his choice to upgrade his life, and it really put things into perspective very quickly for me, as far as the social attitude in my work had become over the years.
So, because he had ended up leaving. I was forced to inherit his shifts. Gone was the Tuesday-Saturday 8am-5pm shift. Now I worked Wednesday-Sunday, with random clopen shifts, but primarily closing ones at 8pm, with no lunch breaks available on both Saturday and Sundays.
This was frustrating enough, but we’ve only hit the tip of the iceberg. In addition, I was given managerial influence, without then corresponding pay, or ability to actually manage anything. No, my task was to run the store by myself, as my boss Bike, and another coworker would consistently leave for up to five hours, twice a week.
I couldn’t send anyone home (as if I wanted to, in the first place), I was the person who now became the mediator for any account or customer concerns, and became the leader of the store for a bunch of rag-tag employees that needed guidance. Wonderful, right?
Well, by the time my 90-day grace period has hit its mark, I was not rewarded with my $17 an hour wage. It ended up being pushed off, due to issues with corporate, finances, laziness, or whatever the convenient excuse it may have been.
The frustration inside of me kept swelling each and every week. It eventually became impossible to not voice my resentment to everyone in the workplace. I had to keep reaffirming that I was not a manager, and should not be addressed as such. I actively chose to drop my workload. I couldn’t give enough of a damn to care about my job, because I was not treated with respect. I began to become more impatient and aggressive towards customers who had done nothing wrong to me.
After dealing with a growing cloud of negativity over my head, and bringing it home to my girlfriend who I hadn’t been able to share a day off with in months, I decided I was done with it. I wasn’t going to negotiate better terms for myself. I knew my place in the store, and that even if I made threats of leaving, I would not get what I wanted. So, I started looking for another job.
Once I was able to secure a position at another company, I was ready to put in my two-week notice. Conveniently before I could do so, Bike invited me to have a chat in his office. I was excited at the opportunity to finally free myself in this moment.
He begins the conversation with a raise. A generous TWO PERCENT raise, mind you. A whopping thirty cents. I had to fight every urge to not get in my car and leave that second, but I let my patience get the better of me. He then began to ask why I was acting the way I was.
I, knowing his attitude towards his workers and the store, neglected to give him the full truth. I know he didn’t care. If he did, he would have nipped this bud a long time ago. So I gave him a half-assed explanation, for a half-assed job, in a half-assed work environment. I then submitted my two week notice.
Our conversation was cordial, and there was no apparent animosity between us in this time. However, I made it a point to explain to the people still working there what kind of curse they were about to inherit from me.
My boss ended up having to panic hire two people to cover my loss, something which he himself refused to do prior, seeing as how accepting he was of running that store with a skeleton crew.
Not my problem, anymore. Good riddance.