(details and names have been altered for privacy)
Sorry this is long, I'm just so pissed off
I like my job, for the most part. Usually I get sick of jobs around the six month mark, but I'm coming up on my first anniversary and until recently thought I was going to be with the company for a long time.
I work in a specialty bakery. The product we make is labor intensive and it takes about three months to be fully trained. There's supposed to be one person for prep, at least two people on the roster specifically for baking what's needed for the day, and a few decorators. Lately, only one person (we'll call them Eric) has been doing all of the prep work and baking five days a week. I also work five days a week. Two of them I'm specifically scheduled to bake/prep. Usually two days I'm scheduled specifically to cashier. Every single day, no matter what I'm scheduled for, I usually end up helping/supporting every department on top of leadership duties. Sometimes I forget things, but my priority is ALWAYS to help my team. I think I do pretty well, and whenever I check in with my team they seem to be happy with my work.
A couple months ago, I was told that the other person in leadership (the closer) was actively job hunting and it was because I was leaving too much stuff for them to do when they close the store. This hit me like a truck, completely destroyed my confidence. I became anxious about leaving ANYTHING, even a single dish, to be done after my shift. I started running trash to the dumpster off the clock because I was told that me never running trash was a contributing factor.
Since this incident, my boss has been up my ass about everything. I have a hard day? Must've been my own fault. Decorator has a hard day? Probably my fault. Baker just LOOKS stressed? I should've done more on my prep day. Boss forgets something? It's my fault for not reminding them.
Yesterday my boss texts me that it was a hard day and it was my fault. And I really needed to show up well today and start doing what I need to do. I respond with I always try to show up well and would love to hear any specific feedback. I got a wall of text basically saying I have a pisspoor attitude (lie), forget things often (half true I guess), didn't label something the day before (true) which caused them to “waste the whole day (just.. how?). Also I guess I suck because I didn't beg to be given extra tasks when I was asked to stay three hours late when no one was scheduled to run the bakery. To clarify, I did stay three hours late without complaining, but boss didn't feel like they could ask me to do anything extra.
I'm at my seasonal job (which I HAD to get so I can afford to see my psychiatrist) when this all goes down, so I just have to pretend not to be upset. I barely managed to get home before spiraling into a full ugly cry hyperventilating panic attack.
I show up to work today. I try to shake off everything because it's not the rest of the teams fault. I work closely with Eric to get them in a place where they aren't super stressed about tomorrow. Boss let's us know we need to prioritize X so we put off task A. Boss comes in, which is a surprise, says they promised product to some big shot. Sees we don't have product A and that product B is still cooling and completely flips out. Says they didn't see the need to communicate that they were taking product because these are things we always have. In the next breath is telling me and Eric we should have communicated that we didn't have this product for opening (I didn't see a need since we were actively problem solving and we had no reason to believe we were going to need that product first thing in the morning).
After several minutes of boss coming in and out of the kitchen to make passive aggressive comments, boss finally plants themselves and just yells at me for about five minutes straight. At one point they ask me how we could possibly be out of product. I kinda give the logic we used to prioritize stuff. Boss repeats louder and slower, “NO, help me understand how we can be in this position.” I give up, because clearly just an intimidation tactic. Boss then completely turns away from me and assures Eric that they are doing a great job and shouldn't run themselves into the ground because of this interaction (the way it was worded made me feel as though I was expected to run myself into the ground). Boss finally leaves, again I try to shake it off.
I bend over backwards to complete task A while also helping customers to make sure we'll have the product tomorrow. I also finished several tasks assigned to me that I was previously told would be unreasonable to expect anyone to complete while cashiering.
I'm sure it will still not be enough.
Later, I'm chatting with the closer, and I'm letting them know I'm pretty much at the end of my rope. I'm worried I'm going to get fired or, worse, demoted in which case I'll quit. If either of those happen it will severely affect both the closer and Eric so I want to keep them in the loop.
During this, I find out that the closer NEVER said they were leaving because of me. They aren't frustrated with me. They aren't even actively job hunting or trying to quit. They literally just got an additional job. They said if they left it would be for the shitty pay and the long commute.
I'm so sick of being manipulated.