It’s been a reoccurring theme at my job that I’m expected to stay over past the end of my shift. About five months ago I started working some early shifts which started at 6 AM and ended at 2 PM, trying to get out of there by 2 PM is nearly impossible. During the early shift, we do floor sets where we change inventory and set different displays.
This day I worked got there this morning and was only given a small table to set. I finished it pretty quickly and asked my manager what she wanted me to work next. As expected, she gave me nothing but busy work. She constantly will give me small tasks like, “can you throw this small piece of trash away for me” or “can you put this candle over there?” This leaves me constantly having to go back to her to find tasks and constantly being stuck with small mundane tasks. I decided to just straight up ask her if she had any tables or walls that she wanted me to fix. She told me she had no tables or walls for me to fix.
She decided to send me on my lunch an hour before I had to leave which would only leave me 30 more minutes to work. I knew this was part of her plan to try to get me to stay over since I just had lunch, but I wasn’t having it today. She pulled out a bunch of pages and handed it over to another manager and asked her to give it to the rest of the inventory shift. So 30 minutes before I had to leave, they gave me a whole wall to set. I reminded them that I left at 12 PM and they still gave me a lot of extra work to do towards the end of my shift. She actually ended up doing this to many of my coworkers today. She got very frustrated when I wanted to leave even though I made it clear that I had to leave at my scheduled time.
Every time I have to stand up for myself in the situation, I feel unsure how to go about it. I don’t wanna seem like I’m not a team player and I know many people there are willing to stay over, but I am not. I don’t get paid enough to be talked down to, and I don’t get paid enough to deal with some of the things that they put me through so when it’s my time to go, I go. What can I do stand up for myself? How can I go about this in a way that is appropriate?