This happened a few years ago but I still think about it often and get a warm, happy feeling inside so I thought I'd share.
I worked retail at a large art supply store with locations across the country. I actually loved the job because im an artist so i got a pretty decent discount on supplies, got familiarized with other mediums I wouldnt normally have tried, occasionally get to do demos or otherwise draw stuff for the store, and my coworkers were genuinely all fantastic people.
My manager also seemed nice enough at first, he would always get pizza and stuff for whenever we had store meetings, would work to make sure everyone got some time off during our ultra-busy holiday season, and seemed easy-going to me at the time. (I later found out from talking to the women I worked with that he was a sexist piece of shit in private, so fuck him too.) He retired about a year and a half after i got there.
There was an assistant manager who i think got offered the job but he didnt want it, so they transferred a manager from another branch to ours. I found out later that she had been transferred a few times and each time she got to a new store a bunch of employees quit, which is hilarious to me because it just reveals the total incompetence of her bosses as well.
When she arrived there was a massive vibe shift at the store. She didnt want people to draw hand lettered signs anymore and would only let us put up corporate approved signage, and she took down a big cork board that local artists/galleries would use to advertise or look for work, which is just plain fucking stupid. The way that this chain company works is they buy up mom & pop art stores and transfer as many people as possible to retain some institutional knowledge as well as ties to the local community. She was cutting those ties because it said in the store guidelines or whatever the fuck that you couldnt have unapproved signage on the wall and she was an uncreative idiot who didnt understand when rules could be bent. A lot of regular customers/local artists complained and all I could do was say “I know, its stupid.”
For staff meetings every employee would have to come in for one hour even if it was their day off, so our previous manager would always buy food for everyone because he knew it was shitty especially for people like me who had a 45 minute commute to the store by bus. First staff meeting with the new manager and theres no food, so at the end of the meeting a bunch of people were like “Hey can we have pizza at the next one” and she gives the most annoying little smile and says that we have to earn it.
She would do that little smile whenever she was delivering bad news, i think to try to commisserate, but it just came off as a like “Im actually doing you a favor by fucking you over” and i honestly despised talking to her because she acted so cheery even while she was running the store into the ground. After a month 2 people who had been working there and at the previous mom and pop shop for over 10 years had quit because of her.
She was also a racist piece of shit. She asked me several times to follow customers around the store because they looked “suspicious” and hey guess what, they were always black! Obviously I told her that there was no fucking way I was doing that ever. On top of that two of the people she was being racist towards were very regular customers I knew by name.
After 2 months another 2 long-term employees quit, one of whom decided hed rather retire a year early than deal with her bullshit. I was also getting fed up. I was working at the store 39 hours a week so that they didnt have to pay me benefits and at the same time working at home for an additional 30 hours a week trying to get my art career off the ground, and it was going well enough that i wanted to take an extra day off retail stuff to focus on that, but obviously she denied me any extra time off because they were now short-staffed and due to her incompetence we hadnt hired anyone to replace them yet, and then another long term employee quit.
The final straw came in october. It was a few weeks before halloween and i thought i should ask for time off for thanksgiving or xmas then because normally We would only need to ask two weeks ahead of time but black friday through xmas was by far the busiest time of year at our store so i wanted to get it in early. Holidays have been incredibly important to me ever since my sister passed away because its the only time I get to see my niece and nephews since i live in a different state than the majority of my family. But i also understood that it was going to be a madhouse and i still liked most of my coworkers so I told my manager “Hey id like to get some time off for holidays but i know itll be crazy so im wondering if i could get a few days before thanksgiving off and then i can work black friday and christmas and all that.
Before i could barely finish i saw that annoying little smile appear on her face i knew what was coming. Without looking at a calendar she instantly denied any time off because we were still understaffed despite her having months beforehand to hire new people. I was pissed. I went home and looked at my savings and decided i had enough runway and upcoming work to try and make a go of freelancing full time. At first I was going to quit the next day, but as i thought about it more i got angrier and angrier about how awful my boss was and decided that i would bide my time.
I worked for another month without saying anything to anyone. In that span of time she actually did end up hiring a new employee, but we were still severly understaffed and overworked. I waited until EXACTLY two weeks before thanksgiving to give my notice so as to inflict maximum psychic damage. I walked into her office that morning and told her that I'd be out of there the day before our busiest day of the year, and to tell you the truth it was worth waiting that extra month just to see the mixture of confusion and anxiety on her face. Then she told me she would actually need a written notice to start the paperwork, i think as some kind of dumb ploy to get me to work on black friday, but i already had plans to drive to my parents place on thanksgiving so i wasnt going to be there no matter what. I went home and printed out a piece of paper with the words “(MY NAME)'S TWO WEEK NOTICE!!!!!” in gigantic rainbow font with the date i had given verbal notice on it as well, which i gave to her the next day.
Within a month of quitting i signed my first book deal and I've been writing and drawing educational books for kids ever since. Last time i went into the store none of my old coworkers were still working there and i learned that the manager had gotten fired from the company entirely, presumably due to all three stores she had worked at hemmorhaging employees on her arrival.
Heres a few of my hand drawn signs from when i could still do that kind of thing.
https://ibb.co/album/YPTPSt