hey all,
so i've been working at a new coffee shop that's been open for less than 3 months. the other day we were doing deep cleaning tasks, and i was given the task of deep cleaning the freezer that we store frozen acai bases. its not a walk-in freezer, it's one where the lid is on top and so naturally, me being really short, if i bent over and reached the bottom, i flailed. i was supposed to clean the sticky acai base that fell after we scooped that hardened. anyways, after cleaning for about a minute blood rushed to my head and my neck hurt. i told my manager on duty+owner of the shop in the room that i couldn't reach because i was too short and the owner's response was “it sucks to be short.” there was also a taller coworker (like 5' 8″, i'm 5' 1.75″) in the room and so i asked, “hey {insert name}, i know you did the other tasks, but i was wondering if you could clean this freezer.” after an exchange, we made a compromise. anyways, flash forward a couple minutes after an acai bowl rush and the manager that was on duty said nothing to me and was like “imma show you how this freezer works” and then proceeded to take everything out of the freezer along with the lids for while also giving me instructions on how the hot water “melted everything away” in her fake customer service voice, and went *inside* the freezer (shoes and all) to clean. i felt so humiliated, the manager+owner both heard the request I made with my taller coworker but still had me clean ALONG with being inside an effing ice freezer. not to mention, the many health code rules this was breaking. I immediately started crying while cleaning, and after it was all clean i sprayed it down with disinfectant to not contaminate any food once i put the containers back. if i wasn't so humiliated and taken aback i would've declined this task to do and would say that i wouldn't and suggested they had someone taller to clean it. i guess what was toxic was my manager's voice, i realize having a customer service voice is something anyone could have, but while giving me the instructions (it was a high pitchy, over-explanation of what I had to do) felt extremely condescending, which quite frankly, has happened repeatedly. hell, the other day she asked me to take everything from where we store milk (so i did), and then she (without a word) handed me a disinfectant with paper towels and motioned me to clean. i don't know why she didn't just say “hey {my name}, can you clean the fridge and take all the milk out.” in a straight-forward way. it feels extremely manipulative, and i noticed whenever i would make friends with another coworker she would immediately give them a task to do so we would stop talking. anyways, any comments on my situation would be greatly appreciated, i'm definitely thinking of quitting soon.