EDIT: possible trigger warning for the end part.
Ok, I'm sorry in advance because this might be long but I need to vent so badly (also mobile so formatting i dont know).
Back in June of this year I got hired on as a night shift worker for a chain restaurant/convenience store. The pay was great, so great I was able to sign the lease for an apartment (its a small studio with no windows but its still something). My first month of training was so fun, i made friends with all the staff, we had events and stuff to boost morale, my shifts were long but enjoyable. When I had my interview I stated I wanted to work 4 10s from 10p – 8a. This is important.
We had some short staffedness and usually only had four people on shift, and 7 people entirely. In comparison, 1st shift has 11 people total and about 7 per shift, and 2nd shift has 14 people and 10 per shift. Little bit by bit some people started leaving, one switched to day shift, ect the usual turnover. My GM was only able to hire one new person who completely ghosted us about a month in.
That took us down to have 4 people entirely and usually 3 per shift with the occasional AM helping us on busy nights.
This takes us to about 3 weeks ago when we had some customers tell us the other store in my city was completely closed. The other store was spaced just far enough that the traffic between our stores was pretty balanced. Now, my store is getting all of it. We thought it was just a one off but its not. They do not have an overnight shift anymore.
2 nights ago when I came into work I was told two things: one, the boy i was supposed to be working with that night was also done with the company and asked to switch to a different shift. Two, the girl I was supposed to be working with was sick. It was just going to be me. Their solutions? We will cut off online ordering. Thanks! I still had a ridiculous amount of orders to make because customers just realized they can still come inside and order. All this while running the register entirely by myself too. Its also my shifts responsibility to completely clean the store but thats just impossible to do with me already working an entire kitchen by myself and a register by myself. My workload is horrendous and Im not even a manger or a supervisor. Im just a normal old sales person/frycook.
I should also just mention that my schedule has changed significantly. I took last weekend off too go to a haunted house out of state with my boyfriend and his family and the next 2 weeks I have 2 days off. Because our weeks start on FRIDAY, not Monday theyre totally ok to get away with it too. I work monday-thursday, (the week ends) friday (start of a new week) and saturday, have off sunday, monday through wednesday and off thursday, and then again friday through monday. This is ridiculous. They keep flipflopping my schedule from 4 10s to 5 8s so they can fully maximize it without providing OT. This is ZERO worklife balance. I really like to spend my 3 days off and go see my boyfriend because he lives an hour and a half away from me but now I can barely do that.
Anyways last night I finally lost it. I had an anxiety attack so bad I was throwing up, I couldnt breathe, and developed a migraine that gave me complete double vision. I know my mental health has absolutely plummeted. Whats really sad is monday was my 3 years clean of self harm and now all I can think about is relapsing because maybe then I can get out of this hell
TLDR; the store Im working at is completely falling apart and so is my mental health.