Earlier this week I had to buy something at the local corner store and I noticed that none of the cashiers there had stools or chairs. I asked about it and one of the workers said that they weren't allowed to sit down, and that one their co-workers had it particularly hard because they worked from noon to 10pm. I asked if their manager was in so I could complain, and they said they were there weekday mornings, but they were glad that someone actually wanted to acknowledge how unnecessarily hard bosses make jobs.
Fast forward to today, and went back and asked if I could lodge a complaint to their manager and they said the manager wasn't there but the boss was. Oh boy. He came out and we had this conversation:
Boss: “Hi what seems to be the problem?”
Me: “I'd like to complain; you're workers aren't allow to sit down during their shifts and I think they should.”
Boss: “I'm sorry, what's the issue?”
Me: “Do you have a chair in your office?”
Boss: “Yes.”
Me: “Have you ever stood in one place for 10 hours?”
Boss: “Yes.”
Me: “Then surely you understand how hard it is to do that.”
Boss: “It is hard.”
Me: “Then why are you making people do something difficult for no reason?”
Boss: “I don't have time for this.”
He then storms off to an open register clearly wanted the interaction to be over; so naturally I decided to buy some cheap pastry to force him to engage with me and press the issue.
Me: “Look, I doubt anyone would ever complain if employees were sitting down, and now someone is complaining that they can't; isn't that enough reason?”
Boss: “Why should do you care how I treat MY employees?”
Me: “Because I've worked retail before and I know how hard it is work without sitting down, I don't think people should suffer for no reason.”
Boss: “Well, I used to have a stool here and if I did again they wouldn't do anything!”
Like the majority of retail isn't just waiting for people to come in. And even if it did decrease productivity, surely people's health is more important right? Oh wait I forgot, bosses don't think employees deserve to be treated as human. The funny thing is that the store had help wanted signs up- gee, I wonder if you wouldn't be so understaffed if you were willing to provide a better work environment?
Morale of the story: Normalize asking to complain to managers and then confront them about their mistreatment of workers. Force them to realize that unlike them, some people actually recognize that works are human.