I worked in fast food for four years. When I began, I had a dream of moving through the ranks and on up to corporate like my parents and their friends did. I’d like to think I was one of the most helpful employees in that store.
For the brief few months they tested out “employee of the month,” I did get the award once. I took the undesirable shifts — opening the store on weekdays and late night on weekends — and I filled in whenever I could if an employee called out or asked me to take their shift. They trusted me enough to do bank runs, get merchandise from other stores, fill in at other stores, and basically be a fill-in-manager answering calls and doing refunds when the manager on duty was working in the back room. In the four years, I only went home sick once and called out sick once.
The one time I called out sick, I started feeling ill around 9:00 pm. I had a 5:00 am shift the next morning, so I wanted them to know right away I wasn’t going to be able to make it. I was still living at home with my parents at the time. Every one or two hours I would wake up, get sick, call the store — it was open 24 hours in the drive-thru — receive no answer after a few minutes of ringing, and go back to sleep. With all the commotion I made during the night, my dad would also try calling the store, but neither of us could get an answer.
Finally, at around 4:30 am, the overnight manager picked up. I explained that I was very sick and would not be able to make it in. She was very angry, yelling at me for calling out right before my shift when it was too late to call around for replacements. I explained that both my father and I had tried to call the store multiple times throughout the night, but nobody answered the phone. She insisted that the phone never rang once, and that she would write me up as a no-call no-show.
I later found out that the overnight crew likes to blast their heavy metal rock music over the speaker, so I’m thinking that’s why she didn’t hear it. As there wasn’t much I could do, I went back to sleep and recovered over the next day. About a month later, the overnight manager transferred to another store as their assistant manager, so I was a little happy I wouldn’t have to see her again.
Or so I thought. Our store manager retired — fun fact, she had also trained my dad when he was my age — and guess who came in to replace her? Yep, the overnight manager. I was hoping I was such an insignificant part in her career that she wouldn’t remember me, but unfortunately, she did.
I had been trying to be the best employee I could be. I was able to do just about every position successfully except maintenance and lunch/dinner grill (making the sandwiches). The previous store manager had recognized my ambition and skill and had me training to be a crew trainer — an extra $0.50 an hour, whoopee! — to then hopefully be a shift manager. The only part I needed to be signed off on was lunch/dinner grill.
There was a catch, though: I needed to work lunch/dinner grill with the store manager. I was scheduled almost exclusively for breakfast shifts, and on the odd week they scheduled me during dinner, I was only a cashier and the store manager wasn’t working then. So, for about a year and a half, I saw some newer, less experienced coworkers become crew trainers and shift managers while I never moved.
The last straw was when one coworker, in particular, was promoted to shift manager, even though she stood around on her phone all day when customers weren’t around, whereas I was constantly waiting on customers, making food and drinks, restocking, and cleaning. She had somehow gotten chummy with the store manager and was given preferential treatment despite the fact that when customers did come, she never wanted to take their orders or prepare anything and only wanted to bag the food and pass it along.
I was beginning to feel worn out and unappreciated, and I believed I was going nowhere. In the four years I worked there, I only made $0.75 an hour above minimum, where I started — and I had gotten the highest raises every period. I decided to take a week-long staycation. I still worked three other part-time jobs; I just wanted a week where I didn’t have to wake up at 3:30 am every day to work on my feet for eight hours to then go to the other jobs.
In the week leading up to my scheduled week off, I was talking to some of my coworkers and something clicked. I wanted to quit. I decided to turn my week off into my resignation. Word quickly spread, and my coworkers were coming up left and right hugging me goodbye and telling me how much they would miss me.
In a NotAlwaysWorking moment, I texted the assistant manager the news and asked if she had received my letter of resignation when, in fact, I had not written one. By that time, however, everyone already knew I was leaving, so it wasn’t a surprise to her. She said she didn’t have it but was sure it was just tossed by another manager. She wished me the best, and I turned in my uniform when I picked up my last paycheck. I haven’t looked back since.
