Currently at the moment I’m trying to pay for upcoming online classes in April and hopefully save up for a new camera but is it worth this much torture?
I just started working in the Kroger bakery department over a month ago and I’m already strongly considering switching to another department.
I (F21) work 8 1/2 hour shifts almost every day, 40 hours a week. According to my schedule, I am the only person they have scheduled second shift which means I’m back here all by myself baking off pre-made frozen cookie dough, pies, taking cake orders, packaging and labelling ALL the cookies, writing on cakes and finally closing with no assistance for about more than half of my shift. At first, my family tried to sugarcoat (no pun intended) the situation and act like they’re giving me soo much responsibility but no it’s just bcus they don’t have enough hires to justify adding more people to second shift. Apparently, my coworker thinks there is not “enough work” for another person. I mean holy shit I’m just asking for some extra help cause lately my workload has been expanding. Working overtime, leaving at 10 pm instead of 9, is starting to become a daily occurrence just so I can have time to finish all my tasks and closing duties. See, my workload didn’t used to be so time consuming but ever since they’ve been addies pies to my checklist, which take almost an hour to bake, it’s thrown off my routine. We only have one oven that can fit one rack so it’s not like I bake multiple things at once as they all have different baking times.
I don’t know if it’s relevant to mention the fact that I am by far the youngest person among 4 older ladies. Most of the time, they don’t even speak to me like an equal, it’s always a whole lot of chiding, patronizing tone. As if they’re trying to make it obvious they’re soo much older and wiser than me. This creates an environment where I feel somewhat alienated. Like i get that they’ve been working there longer than I have so might they feel justified power tripping on their experience. There is one coworker in particular who talks to me as if I’m her subordinate even though she holds no title of authority. She tends to micromanage me a bit too, telling me I put the wrong label on one of the pies slices after a night of working overtime. Or that I’m not tying trash bags tight enough. Hmm it’s almost like overworking someone to death affects their job performance. And yesterday she decided to have a “chat” with me about my closing sheet, just “normal” coworker chitchat fare. Apparently there was a note from my AM saying i have to learn how to write on cakes. During my initial training, they wouldn’t even teach me how to do that and so any time someone asked me to write on a cake, they would advise me to turn them away. But I’ve been secretly teaching myself how to do it in spite of them.
Yesterday I almost broke down in tears due to sheer stress. And I’m really dreading this coming week because one of my coworkers is on vacation so I can’t even begin to fathom how much work I’ll end up doing. I was able to speak to an assistant manager about my situation and she said she’ll talk to my department head about easing my workload. If things don’t change, that department is gonna lose their only closer. But that shouldn’t be a problem because it’s not THAT much work, right?