Hey, I’m a 19 year old male, although I will be turning 20 this year, and somehow it already feels like my life is in shambles.
I got my first job when I was 16 at good ol’ Taco bell and I worked there for a little over 2 years. As you can probably imagine the work environment was not great. Here are some of the highlights.
When working the morning shift I was often expected to work for 3 people because we were always understaffed. I pride myself in bed able to keep calm under stressful situations, but this job brought me to my limit.
While working there, the company rolled out a policy requiring all employees to sign pretty much a non-disclosure agreement disallowing us to talk negatively about Taco Bell. Our managers, however, did not force us to sign it. Everyone hated working there. I may be paraphrasing a bit on the specifics of the agreement. It was a long time ago, but I do distinctly remember something along those lines and everyone being pissed.
One time someone overdosed on heroin in the bathroom. It happens more often than you’d think. When this happens we have to hire a specialist to clean the area. It’s very expensive to do this, and our area coach didn’t want to have to pay for that. So he asked for one of us to clean the bathroom instead. No special equipment or anything. A 16 year old working under minimum wage and some bathroom cleaner will do. Actual garbage human.
Here’s one last story and the reason I decided to write this. I left this part out but I actually worked with my mom at Taco Bell. Once I turned 18 I was able to open the store in the morning with her, and although I hated the job, I look back at those times with my mom fondly.
In late 2020 my mom started to get pretty sick. She had had intestinal problems for years and they had started coming back. She had a hernia much earlier that year but was still experiencing several health complications. She often felt very ill at work and had to go home early several times. However she was often not taken very seriously and was expected to work through it.
I should mention at the same time, the store we worked at was in chaos due to some really petty rivalries between managers. Many people were just not doing their jobs. This put a lot of pressure on us to pick up the slack which my mom was not able to do.
My mom and I had been planning on quitting for a while and we decided we finally would in January 2021. She simply couldn’t work anymore.
It doesn’t get better from here however. My mom’s health only got worse. Very suddenly in April she was hospitalized and died only a week after on the 19th; one year ago from when I’m posting this.
And now we jump to the present. I haven’t had a job since. I’m not in school. I have no money. I really don’t know what to do. I have really bad anxiety that’s severely crippling my ability to do really anything and it’s only gotten worse over the years. I simply don’t have it in me to work anymore. Unfortunately we live in a world where I must if I want to survive. I just simply cannot. The thought of getting another job is not only extremely unappealing, it gives me so much anxiety that it might as well be impossible. I’m so done with everything.