It’s Becoming Whine Country

(At the winery where I work, employees either run the register, serve at the tasting bar, or give tours. I’m trained on all three, but I hate the register because I get really flustered, so I give tours and work at the bar. Less than half of us are trained to give tours, and tours are the main reason I have the job, because I have previous tour guide experience and love it, and they are short on tour guides. Our old manager, who hired every single one of us regular employees, leaves for a new job and leaves detailed notes for the new manager, including what each of us does and is good at. I’m also pregnant, and standing is uncomfortable, but I’m fine if I can walk around. My new manager consistently assigns me to register. On the third day:)

Me: “Can I switch with [Coworker] today and work at the tasting bar? I really don’t like doing register.”

Manager: “No, I need you on register.”

Me: “[Coworker] actually prefers register over tasting bar, though. I’m not good at register; I’m the reason the lines are long.”

Manager: “No, I want you on the register. [Coworker] can do the tasting bar.”

Me: “Okay. Before [Old Manager] left, we had a talk about what my limitations would be now that I’m pregnant, and the register is physically hard for me because it’s standing in one place. At least at the bar I’m walking back and forth constantly, and it’s easier for me.”

Manager: “You’re pregnant? No one told me!”

Me: “It’s pretty obvious, but that’s okay. Or better yet, I could do tours; I see you only have two people doing tours, and we always used to have at least three.”

Manager: “You do tours?!”

Me: “Yeah… It’s why I work here. I thought [Old Manager] included all that stuff in the notes she gave you.”

Manager: “Well, I didn’t actually read them!”

(It was a good thing I finally got off the register, because soon after, the registers were always short and, despite very busy days, our tips jars were much less full than usual. We found out the manager was taking tips to cover the register shortage, rather than trying to figure out why they were short! I left soon after, since I was too pregnant to squeeze through the crowds of customers or stand all day. I’ve been back to visit several times and I haven’t seen that manager at all.)