Hi r/antiwork. I made a reddit account specifically to post this because it's so hard to find places to post this where I won't be told that this is normal and part of the grind or whatever.
I am a shopmanager at a vintage clothing/concept store in a major European city. I've had this shop for a few months, after being just a regular shop employee at various vintage shops and other boutiques, where I was mistreated and paid essentially less than minimum wage since I would have to stay late without being paid pretty much always.
I was naive enough to think getting this manager position would improve things. It didn't. I make slightly over minimum wage now, but I have absolutely no life anymore. The shop is part of a small chain of shops, and the general manager is an absolute ghoul who prides herself on screaming and yelling at everyone about the smallest details.
Example: I decorated the window displays for a holiday, and my coworker posted a picture of the result in the work groupchat. I asked the manager if my window was ok, and she said it was terrible and I should have done it like the picture. The picture. Of the window I did.
She has made me cry at work before because she screams at me about disrespecting her and not deferring to her enough.
I am never told anything, random employees just show up to what is supposed to be 'my shop' because she tells them to come in even though I'm supposed to make the schedule. I was not trained pretty much at all, just found out everything by being left alone in the shop.
The manager of one of the other stores quit recently after 7 years, and general manager openly brags about bullying her away. Now everyone who works here will have been here for less than a year.
I asked for 1 singular day off because it was my partners birthday and she immediately said no, I ended up swapping with someone and she was displeased even about that.
Last week I had a mental breakdown from the stress and I called in sick for a week, she told me I couldn't be sick because we're understaffed.
I worked training days with half a dozen potential new hires, she either doesn't hire them because they aren't up to her insane standards or she send them running by being hideous to them.
My coworker just called me to say the overtime she's worked that's supposed to be added to her holiday hours hasn't been added, since she started working here 7 months ago.
After working a major holiday when almost every shop is closed, an absolutely back breaking 9 hour shift with no break, the owner said she hears that holiday is always a big party. As if we're supposed to be having fun.
I can't stand it anymore. I want to quit so fucking badly, to tell them everything I hate about this fucking piece of shit company. My partner thinks I should just quit. I have requested a meeting with the general manager and the owner, I am considering telling them I need to work 1 day less and need 2 weeks of holiday in july or I'm leaving.
But the thing is, if I leave, what do I do next. I have only ever worked retail, and once for a few months I worked in a call center which was even worse. It will just be on to the next hell job. I hate my life so much. I am an artistic person and if I had the time I would do nothing but make art. A friend of mine wants to start a band with me and I would love to just have the time to spend entire days jamming with her, sewing my own clothes, designing knitting patterns, making weird fabric sculptures. Instead almost every day of my life I'm stuck in this fucking shop until 7pm, helping stupid fucking customers to pick out stupid fucking outfits to make money for someone else. If I didn't have a partner and a dog who love me I would be an active suicide risk.