I walked into this small cheese factory/store one day as a customer. The owner immediately asked me if I wanted to work there because they “desperately needed people.” I had been looking for a summer job anyways, so I decided to give it a try. I was only there about one week. The job included packaging cheese and helping with making the cheese a few days a week. He kept talking about how fun it was and how I’d be a great fit or whatever. It was 8 hour days, Monday to Friday.
So….
The first issue was that there was no training provided by anyone who worked there. You just kind of showed up, looked at what everyone else was doing, and figured it out as you went. Some of it was pretty self explanatory, but there were lots of times where I was asked to do a task, given vague, if any, instructions, and then was reprimanded for not doing the task correctly.
We were severely understaffed. The job required a lot of heavy lifting and was physically intense, standing and moving and lifting packages etc. We were on our feet nonstop. No scheduled lunch break- you ate when and if there was time. I am a 21 year old, 100 lb woman and I am not very strong. I was never asked or told how much I needed to be able to carry. One of my coworkers was an elderly woman who also could not lift the 50+ pound blocks of cheese we had to lift, so it was really just 1 or 2 employees who could lift the blocks of cheese and machinery that we used. Those employees were overworked as a result of this.
Things reached a breaking point one day when we were expected to package a large order on the same day we were making cheese. We did not realistically have time to do both. Boss also invited about 50 people for some event at the store with no prior warning. I felt annoyed by this as did my coworker. I decided to pull my boss aside and told him basically that I had enough, he had unrealistic expectations, didn’t tell me how much work it was gonna be or give an accurate description of the job and it’s requirements and that I was out. He proceeded to tell me how much I would be letting him down, how disappointed he was and how “the quality of the cheese was going to suffer if I wasn’t there to help.” I guess I’m susceptible to emotional manipulation because I backed down and agreed to stay the rest of the week. However my coworker overheard and said it was total BS and that he was guilting me and not to fall for it. I hadn’t even seen it that way but it kinda clicked in my head at that point and made me even more upset and so I walked out on the spot (boss was in another room at this point) and then sent an email when I got home.
The email read:
“Hi, [boss’s name]! I am “letting you down” and I don’t feel bad about doing it. I found your response to me to be emotionally manipulative and would suggest not guilting your employees in the future if you want them to stay. Maybe providing training and/or a realistic description of the job would also be beneficial.
Best,
[OP]
This was about 2 weeks ago. He never paid me for my time there or responded to my quitting email or subsequent email asking if he was going to mail me my check. So today I showed up to the store to ask about it and he started bringing up how I wasted 9,000 gallons of milk again bc I wasn’t there to make the cheese. And I said “I’m not responsible for your milk” and he said “you don’t seem to think you’re responsible for anything” and I said “it’s not illegal for me to quit on the spot but it is illegal for you to refuse to pay me.” And he yelled at me “please leave I will send you your checks” so I walked out and that’s that. I do know I can be a bit dramatic when I’m upset but considering everything I don’t think I was completely unjustified. Let me know your thoughts I guess lol.
Sorry this is crazy long