So, my brother [17 M] and I [18 F] work at a shoe store called Journeys, and we started when we were about a year younger. And it was all sunshine and lollipops and we didn't care that we were being paid 8.25$ an hour because it was our first job and we were told that we were making commission as well. And we worked our asses off. Even with the CONSTANTLY messy stock room and unstable ladders.
[We had nowhere safe to put the ladders in the stock room so we rested them on the shoe boxes and the show boxes were often different sizes/too weak to support our weight and they would cave in and give us a little fright. I've fallen off of them a couple of times and nearly broke my finger from the foldable one closing in on me because the isles weren't wide enough. DESPITE THERE BEING A LADDER TRAINING VIDEO SAYING THAT THIS ISN'T SAFE WORK PRACTICE!!!!]
But over time we managed and we worked our asses off in that store, we worked through rain and shine and managed to adapt under 6 different managers within that year's time. And over time we grew short-staffed due to our coworkers not wanting to work there [the pay was too low] or leaving off to go to college.
But soon we found out from our previous, previous manager that we WEREN'T getting paid commission because we were part-time workers and that you only get commission if you move up to a sales lead. And I found out from the sales leads that you only get a one-dollar increase on your payment and commission. [But from the jump the commission was going to be garbage cause they implemented a rule stating that if you were the first person who was helping the customer and there was someone else who went over to them and sold them more items the sale would go to them since they had more invested, so your commission would be gone down the drain.]
That and the bullocks reason that we can't use our employee discount on shoe sizes that aren't ours, but that's another can of worms. And that we had to call in to say that we wouldn't make it despite them barely ever answering their phone when it rang.
So back to my brother. He's in school and he can't work certain shifts and he had told the manager in person and in the group chat that we were in that he could not work weekdays because of school. And he had missed one day because: 1. It didn't appear on his schedule that he was supposed to work and 2. He couldn't call in that he was going to be late because, well, he was at school.
[I even checked the work schedule on the system and it even said that he wasn't working that day, he just wasn't there!] and he came in to work a 4 hour shift to make up for the day he missed [since he is a part-time sales associate] and the manager had waited until AFTER he worked his shift to text the assistant manager that he was terminated.
And just like that, a year of going up and down the shoddy ladders, getting box cuts from picking up the shoe boxes, trying to keep a stockroom clean and manageable while also taking care of customers, gone. They had booted one of their oldest workers who knew how every worked there. [I mean like, the OLDEST working team member, since with every new manager there was like a new team]
And since they will do that to my brother, I will be next. But I won't give the gratifying feeling of them firing me.
I'm just gonna quit.