Thought this story belonged here.
I work for a grocery chain, and as everyone who's worked at one knows they're absolute dogshit. The pay is crap, the hours are inconsistent, it exemplifies the power tripping of lower and middle management, and everything ends up being someone else's problem until it's your problem to take full responsibility for.
I went to another store in the grocery chain than where I work and in the checkout line the cashier was very openly belittling the store to the customer in front of me. 'Can you believe that it's 8PM and I'm the only cashier on staff? No idea where anyone else went. God this place sucks, 20 something years and I'm still here. We keep getting new hires that ghost us or work one week then quit, and you know what good for them!' Things of that nature.
When it was my turn at the checkout line she saw my employee discount go through and her face dropped. 'Oh, uh! You work here? I don't recognize you.'
'I work at the store up the road.'
'Ah! I see and just out of curiosity how do like working here?'
'I hate it so much.'
'Oh thank god.' And suddenly all the tension in her expression vanished.
I'm right there with her, if there was anything else I could be doing I would be. Recently got an associates and I'm hoping so much that this helps me get something, anything, even remotely better.