Hi all! This is actually my first thread on Reddit, and I love reading the antiwork stories! So I have my own to share today.
So I work with a shoe company (I won't name which one). I love where I work because it's easy and the schedule works great for me being in school. I think this might be the most accommodating job to my schooling. I am also allowed to sit in the back and do classwork or write or draw, what have you. Like this is such a laidback job, and it's why I enjoy it.
However, I'm extremely frustrated with management. It's a lot but I'd like to go back a bit. Actually, let me go back to when I started there last year. So when I started, I was trained like in any other job. But I didn't realize how *poorly* I was trained until like, April I think. One day, I recommended a shoe to a customer for her foot problems that my manager taught me to recommend to her. However, the next day she came back and told me her feet were killing her because they were being pushed in one way or another. My wonderful coworker, we'll call her Abby, was thankfully there to help me.
Abby didn't start at our store. She worked one state away but she came to our store because her girlfriend lived here too (and has since moved here. We're a franchise store so I guess that's how it works). So she got trained in the other store and she was properly trained. So she knew that no one at my store had been trained properly but it never seemed to be an issue until this moment. So Abby showed me the right shoe in that situation, and said, “I don't know why he (our manager) taught you to put people in that shoe for plantar fasciitis when they don't have any other issues.” So that really bummed me out but she gave me the notes she made when she first started and I've been going by that ever since.
Abby was my favorite coworker, and she was the best at our store. I say 'was' because she quit back in May—with good reason too. She had a mental health issue earlier this year and ended up in the hospital for a short period of time. After she got back, she told our manager, we'll call him Mike, like, “Hey, dude, I can't be left alone in the store without help.” And so for a bit, he didn't leave her alone. Until he noticed she was beginning to feel better, and then he started doing it again. I didn't know any of this until she left, and we do keep in touch. So fast-forward *back* when she quit, the day before she was upset. Like, she had found out that she had her FT benefits cut because she's had to take more sick days so her hours for that period of time (I think it was time for evals or something, I don't recall) didn't quite average FT even though she otherwise worked that much. So having her benefits stripped of her really pissed her off. And on top of that, Mike was overworking her. So the next day she came in and gave him her key and told him, “I can't do this anymore. I am at my wit's end.” and left. (I got hugs from her before she left ayeee).
And this was just after my semester ended, when I told Mike, “Hey, the semester's done with, I'd like to work more hours please.” (I legit said this). And Mike agreed, but my hours did not change until after Abby left and then I made more like 20 hours (I'm a PT worker; before I averaged like 15 hours so really not much of a jump but I wasn't gonna complain. I know there's only but so many hours they can give a PT employee). So now that they've replaced Abby, my hours are being cut and it's even worse than when I was working during the semester! I got my hours cut to 12. Okay, so my wage is $11.75/hr plus the commission I make off of every shoe I sell. I live with my parents still, sure, but like I want to be helping to pay for our bills. I can't even do *that* much. What I pay my parents goes towards my car insurance and my phone bill. The rest goes towards my CC (which is mostly for gas and recurring subscriptions that I can pay for) and my car payment. And I can't put anything into savings.
I'd ask why my hours were cut but I think it's pretty obvious: FT employees get dibs on hours before PT. PT employees just get to fill in the gaps and help when we're needed. And what's worse is that somehow (?) they managed to hire another FT person to replace a PT person who's leaving at the end of the month bc she's moving to another country. I'm sitting here like, “So where the f*ck are my hours?” We get 6 employees since our store is so small. It was supposed to be 3 FT 3 PT. But what happens when you have 4 FT and 2 PT? I don't know, but I'm about to find out and I'm not going to like it.
Other random points to consider:
- My manager has complained about me behind my back, saying I don't move fast enough to go greet a customer when he's the one who bolts out of his chair at the computer desk and rushes out. He says everyone else should be taking the customers because he doesn't make much in commission anyway, but he does that. Make it make sense.
- My manager has made me extremely uncomfortable with his whole spiel about how “nobody wants to work so that's why we're so low on stock.” Dude, it's not that nobody wants to work. Nobody wants to work for dirt wages.
- I mean, this is customer service. It sucks having to deal with customers. Most of my customers are wonderful tho but I've had a few that made me want to bang my head into the wall.
- I wear my mask still bc I live with my high-risk parents and my grandparents are immunocompromised but I do like to see them every so often, and 99% of my customers will not wear masks and it's not like we can have a mask mandate. Also I've had comments from customers like, “oh you still wear your mask?” “are you required to wear that?” oh and my personal favorite was when a customer was having a hard time understanding me (I'm a soft talker) and he said, “Just take off your mask!” (Abby was there when that happened and she was surprised I didn't go off LOL). But that's more of just a pet peeve than anything. That's why this is just a random point.
- Since it's summer now, the area's a friggin ghost town so commission is drastically down. I'm not looking forward to my next paycheck RIP ME.
- There are so many other shoes we should also be selling on top of what we already sell but my city isn't exactly known for fashion. But c'mon, at least have some slides or sandals for the summer bc we're a tourist area! And maybe some more sports shoes too?? IDK but we could be making so much more money if we had more sports shoes but we don't. We've got tennis and that's like it.
Anyway, I already have a backup job, and I'll be doing delivery services. Right now, I'm trying to hang into this job as long as I can stand it because I'd like to say I've had a job longer than 1 yr 1 month. (The only reason I left that job was that the business went bankrupt). It'll be 1 yr 1 month in September. And I still enjoy what I do. I might try for October, but it just depends on what's going on at the time. But I wanted to put my story out there for others who might be struggling with the same sh*t. (And please don't tell me to quit. I have been toying with it already but I need to be in the right place financially before I can quit).