This happened around 6 months to a year ago now. I moved back to my parents after being in a terrible relationship. I was looking for part time work because I was still a full time college student in my final year. I got offered a job at a small coffee shop that had a cool aesthetic, amazing food and generally a good vibe (from the outside).
On my first day I was chastised for not having my own set of keys to lock up as (they hadn’t told me this beforehand) I would be left on my own from 2pm-5pm and left to all of the night time cleaning, something I hadn’t yet been trained to do as it was my first day. I came in the next day and was ridiculed by my boss for not doing the cleaning correctly and when I asked if they could make a list of things for me to do to make sure everything gets done, they laughed in my face.
At this point I thought maybe I had missed something in the job listing but no I hadn’t. The girl who was supposed to train me quit the day before I started so they just chose not to train me in the specifics of my job because of my past experience which makes no sense. They eventually hire 2 kids, both 16, both their first jobs. I (21 at the time) was left all day with these kids to train them to do a job that even I wasn’t trained in yet. I wasn’t allowed to take breaks and was told to “just eat when you get home”. I found out that I was being paid DOUBLE what the kids were even though I was on minimum wage. This didn’t sit right with me and I told them they should dispute it with management.
Fast forward a few months of me sobbing every time I had to work, working alone regularly and being consistently berated for not doing things the way they had never told me to do them.
I came in one day and my boss was discussing the next weekend I was working to which I replied “I’m not here next weekend, I’m going out of state”. At this point he started screaming at me and cussing me out in front of another new staff member and any customers that were in earshot telling me I never requested the time off to which I showed him all of the evidence (texts, notes in the vacation book and even text conversations between me and other employees who all knew I wasn’t going to be in).
I was so angry and fed up that I went to the staff bathroom and cried. After about 10 minutes I pulled myself together and he asked me to speak with him. He went on to list all of the reasons why I was a terrible employee (including being off because I was in the hospital) and essentially told me to get better at my job.
I lost it. I calmly but forcefully told him about all of the awful (and illegal) things he was demanding from me without putting in any effort to build a relationship with staff or to even train me properly.
I explained that every day I wake up having to come in here makes me dread getting out of bed. I explained that I don’t need him to tell me if and when I should take time off for a life threatening illness I have. I explained that I was fed up training every person who comes in the door for minimum wage. I explained that I had so many other more stressful things in my life like college, my (at the time) abusive relationship I was fleeing, my own mental and physical health and generally just ripped him to shreds over his terrible management.
His response went something like this:
“It really doesn’t excuse being 2 minutes late everyday”.
I saw red. I looked him in the eye and said
“I don’t want to fucking be here with you getting off on giving me a hard time. I don’t give a shit about your business. If you were so unhappy with my performance then why am I still employed? Oh wait that’s because you know I can easily find somewhere else to hire me but no one would ever want to work with you.”
I went through the back, grabbed my things and left through the back door. I went across the street to my old job I had when I was 16 and they immediately offered me a job. I could see him in the parking lot looking for me as I had just left him with someone on their first shift and his 4 kids he was watching for the day while he was extremely hungover.
I had never felt such joy until I found out they went out of business a month later due to cutting their hours because of “staff shortages”.
Karma is a bitch Steven.
TLDR: was treated like shit at a minimum wage job, cussed out the boss, quit and found a new job within 20 minutes, they then went out of business about a month later.