This is gonna be long- I apologize
My current job was easily the best I've ever had. Good hours, good management, pay wasn't great but there is lots of room for upward movement with big pay increases if you show ambition. Crew is small, only 4 people on staff per store- but there's a lot of corporate coworkers that help lighten the load and it's mostly sales with a little bit of warehouse responsibilities
My store manager was fired late last week for a minor policy violation. I can see both sides- my manager believes he was wrongfully terminated because the policy violation was minor, and he brings in a lot of business for the company and has single handedly made them millions of dollars. The company says the consequences can include termination, and technically, the policy violation did increase his monthly bonus artificially. Big no-no.
They haven't yet hired a replacement. Our SM knew he was likely to be fired, was stressed for weeks, and in that time made a LOT of mistakes that we are only now discovering. None of us knew, and he did a good job of keeping the status quo leading up to his termination. Every day we discover more mistakes that we have to correct on top of our normal increased workload.
We made our schedules for the next few weeks, and since I'm the most essential person on the team as I was trained directly under our SM and know how to do more of the work than anyone else, I don't get any real days off. It's more beneficial to the store if I'm here to answer questions and train the newest member of the team. My “day off” is coming in one morning out of the week for a 7 am meeting and then leaving, since I don't trust my co workers to accurately relay info to me. Every other day I work open to close (10-11 hours) or the last 8-9 hours of the day. Only exception to this is Sunday, since we are only open for 5 hours and I start an hour before open, for a total of 6 hours.
I had PTO for the last few days of this week, already set in stone before the termination for a trip I was taking out of state with friends. The trip ended up being cancelled since one of the friends had a death in the family. I told the team on Sunday I'd be in town but looking forward to a long weekend anyway. If they absolutely needed me, I'd be happy to help, but I wanted to still take time off. I then found out one of my coworkers was also approved for PTO on the busiest day of the week, leaving one person to work by himself. I said I'd come in for that day. They also want help running the front on the day truck comes in, I agreed to help only for truck and then leave afterwards.
Now today is my only “day off” this week. I dialed in on a meeting this morning (clocked in from my phone, took meeting notes in bed) and I'm still getting calls / texts from my coworkers asking about procedures, where things are, what needs to get done today, etc.
Now for the big kicker: by position, I'm the least senior staff. Lowest on the totem pole. You need a driver's license to have either of my coworker's titles because the job sometimes requires driving to other stores, customer's homes, and job sites. Very rarely do you need to drive, but you do technically need to. I have anxiety around driving, never really learned how, and I'm just fine walking and getting an Uber if I need to go long distances. I live a 25 min walk away, and I honestly enjoy that time to clear my head to and from work. My wage is 16.25 an hour. If I didn't absolutely love the work I do (I'm autistic and the industry has very quickly become a special interest) I'd quit.
Tempted to go to my RM and demand a raise and a title change that reflects the amount of work I do, drivers license or not.