I am in my 30s and working at a terrible retail store. The abuse is from top to bottom, literally everyone at every level ofi hierarchy in this company is being abused. And unfortunately, some of the abused superiors take their anger out on employees below them.
Not that it matters, but I am a gay man. I am the manager of one of the departments. For context I guess. This coworker I am about to talk about works in a different department.
I went into the break room today and saw my coworker and she looked very upset. She said “sorry if my face looks weird, I'm breaking out” and I asked if it was because of stress. She said yes, and i asked if I could give her a hug and she started bawling.
She said “GM and admin cornered me in the office and said “we heard you're looking for a new job. We really need you, etc, etc”. I know the way my Andrew Tate-adjacent GM speaks to people so I know he was aggressive to her. He is very demeaning and just a terrible person. The admin person I thought was nice but apparently not.
My coworker is 18F. She is so nice and sweet. She's very very quiet and shy. Very timid (I don't mean that in a bad way). This is her first job. I was just like her when I was her age and it's very hard being shy and having trouble self-advocating for yourself, especially at work. Especially at this fucking job. I STILL have trouble standing up for myself but I've gotten a lot better.
I won't get too into it but I told her to get a new job asap. Don't even give a notice. She's only worked there for less than 6 months and she's young. I told her to focus on school, and to get the fuck out of this job. A different coworker walked into the break room mid-conversation so we stopped talking.
I'm going to talk to her again tomorrow (hopefully she no-call no-shows, but I don't think she will).
This whole post is just a shitpost vent. But I need to vent. I want to talk to my GM about it but I worry it will make things worse. I know what it's like being stood up for and it is sometimes humiliating, and makes you the center of attention if that makes sense. I could email his boss but I am already a “problem employee” so idk if it would be taken seriously. Our HR dept is outsourced and I don't even know how to contact “them”. What would they even do?
Anyways. What are some things I can tell her to encourage her to quit? She told me she wants to get a job at a “[insert cool interest] store” (I'm keeping it vague for anonymity). I think she still lives with her parents and they may be putting pressure on her to keep working. I'm gonna ask her tomorrow. What are some things I SHOULDN'T say? Any other input?
What I saw today broke my heart and has me livid. I have 50 fresh tabs of LSD and want to put a 10-strip in this asshole's coffee (I'm seriously jk but I WISH lol). My mama bear instincts are kicking in HARD right now so I'm sorry if this post seems aggressive.
Let me be clear, I am not looking for spite or revenge even though my post sounds like that. But I do want to take action. I was thinking of posting a similar post like this in my local city subreddit to see if any “[insert special interest] stores” are hiring. And then set her up with a new job if there is a good non-toxic place hiring.