The first job I ever worked at for a few years was at a grocery retail store with several different departments, including a deli for lunch meat and cheese, which is where I worked.
One night, I was working from 1:00 pm to 9:00 pm. Nine was when the deli and other special departments closed and we were expected to be done and clocked out, but the rest of the store remained open twenty-four-seven for general groceries.
One other guy and I were working on an especially busy night, and we were a little behind on our cleaning as a result, but we had our meat-slicing machines already coated with sanitizer after working for fifteen minutes to get all the little meat chunks and shavings out of every corner, as we were pretty serious about making sure those things were clean as can be.
It was about 8:55 at that point, we were almost late to leave, and the store did NOT like overtime; if you got any amount of overtime, even a little, you would get chewed out for it the next day. A woman walked up to the counter and started looking through the product, as we had a glass case filled with a bunch of types of our lunch meats pre-sliced and ready to go for bagging up.
Customer: “I want this turkey right here, but I want it freshly sliced.”
Of course, I looked at my coworker, and we both could see that the two slicers we had were still covered in sanitizer and were drying, as per the food safety protocol written on the bottle that says to allow twenty to thirty minutes MINIMUM for the sanitizer to dry after application.
Me: “Well, ma’am, we really can’t do that right now; our slicers are both being cleaned at the moment as the department is closed in five minutes. But I’d be glad to get you something here from our cold case.”
Customer: “So, you’re not gonna slice it fresh for me. That’s what you’re saying?”
Me: “That’s correct. I apologize.”
Without another word, she walked away. My coworker and I went back to what we’d been doing, and we finished cleaning and went home after about five more minutes, narrowly clocking out on time.
Two days later, the same coworker and I came in and started getting to work like a normal day. At about 3:00 pm (two hours into my shift), I personally got called into the head honcho’s office — the “Store Director” as they’re titled. I thought nothing of it, headed on upstairs, went inside the office, and sat down. [Store Director] handed me a piece of paper.
Store Director: “Tell me what caused this.”
On the paper was a printed-out screenshot of a Google review for our store: one star out of five, and a full paragraph from that lady of two nights before. She complained that she didn’t get her freshly sliced meat from “the rude employee” and then described specifically me.
I explained exactly what had happened two nights prior. The director was getting heated and cut me off.
Store Director: “Why would slicers be covered in sanitizer at 8:55? You’re scheduled to work until 9:00 pm.”
Me: “Yes, I am, but seeing as I’m constantly being reminded not to get any overtime, I usually start cleaning them around 8:30 pm.”
Store Director: *Raising her voice, even more upset* “I don’t care! That’s not how it works! If you have a customer, you serve them. And you’d better start making sure those shelves are filled before you leave, or you won’t be working here anymore. Now get out.”
I was pretty salty at that point. I went back down to the department, my coworker asked what had happened, and I told him.
Coworker: “So, they want everything done before we leave?”
Me: “Yep!”
And without another word, he knew what we needed to do.
Nine o’clock hit as usual, and our shelves were at the usual standard of half-full, but seeing as we’d been given a new standard, we decided to stay and make sure we did what I was instructed to do. We spent the next several hours past closing time slicing, and slicing, and slicing until every single tray of meat and cheese was FULL.
We had plastic totes in the big fridge full of sliced cheese that was wrapped up in half-pound blocks for ease of sale, so we decided to fill that tub over the brim with every single type of cheese we had available. We cut up around seventy pounds of cheese and wrapped it up in the fridge.
We also had a sandwich counter, where we made sandwiches to order and also had premade ones on the shelves for sale. We made double the usual amount of sandwiches and filled the shelves, as requested. Not a single shelf had a single empty spot on it by the time we were done.
After every single possible item and shelf was as full as it could be, we finally started to clean and close.
It was around 3:00 am when we finally left. The department opened at 5:00 am. We were exhausted, but our spiteful overtime venture made us feel pretty good. We got about six hours of overtime in. They hated anyone getting even five or ten minutes of overtime.
We both came in the next day at 1:00 pm as usual, expecting complete retaliation. But nope, instead, our department manager of the deli kind of sauntered over to us and said:
Department Manager: “Hey, uh… you should be good to start cleaning up at 8:30 like usual. I think [Store Director] got the point you made.”
Normally, overtime would be taken care of by clocking out for lunches or coming in later than usual, but they let us keep all six hours of that overtime. They never said anything to us about overtime again after that. I accepted a job that paid almost double about six months after this incident and never, ever went back to Retail Hell.
