Back in the 1990s, I was working for a pizza franchise.

I was a Senior Manager Trainee, with a few months of training left to go to become a full-time store manager.

During every weekday, I was the opener, prepper, cleaner, in-store cook, manager, etc. I did my best to make sure everything was ready for our very busy evenings.

I worked a full two shifts one weekend and then worked a full opening shift on Monday morning. On Monday night, I was called to come in as the junior manager trainee was sick, and no one could get ahold of the store manager (as usual).

I offered to come in, but since I had to open the next day, I didn’t have the energy to do a full closing shift, and I had already worked a full opening shift.

So, I went in, took care of all the existing customers, made sure all the orders were taken care of, made sure deliveries went through, and made sure everything was done 100% correctly.

Then, I told the customers we would be closing early because I was not able to get ahold of a manager to help out or to take my morning shift.

I started getting calls from the regional manager to stay and do the full closing shift. I said I was not able to because I was very tired from both the weekend and morning shifts, and I had to open the next morning, as well.

I asked if any of the four or five other corporate stores had an extra person to come in and close so that I could get enough sleep to work my opening shift the next day. I had called all the different stores, and they had refused to help.

Then, the regional manager started to insult me as if I were trying to destroy the store. 

I also tried to call the store manager and got no result, and I had no other choice available to me. 

I had been worked to the bone.

So, around 10:00 pm, I completed all orders, took care of all driver’s money, cleaned the store, and closed it.

When the next morning started, I arrived to do my regular morning shift. I found out through the internal management network that I had been demoted to driver.

No one had been willing to help me, but I was supposed to sacrifice my health.

At that point, I decided to quit because of how abusive that situation was. Poor management by others does not mean I have to abide by it.

I quit immediately and called my store manager, locked the door, and left to never return.

There were plenty of stores that had extra people, and they would rather demand unreasonable effort from me than give me or my store help.

That lack of good management up and down still irks me to this day.

Our financial advisor’s office is in a mall. We do not have an exterior door to the mall. We are right next to a mall entrance, at an intersection in the mall’s hallways, and we are across from two stores: one directly across from us, [Discount Store], and one to our right, [Bookstore]. The entrance to the mall is not our entrance. It leads into the mall.

A lady calls into our office.

Customer: “Where are you?”

Me: “We’re across from the [Bookstore] and the [Discount Store].”

Customer: “Do you have an exterior door?”

Me: “No. You can go in through the exterior door to the [Bookstore] and walk out from there, or you can go into the mall entrance near the [Discount Store].”

She arrives in one piece and proceeds to start complaining to me that I sent her on a walk across the entire mall.

Customer: “You said you don’t have any exterior doors! What’s that?”

She points at the door between us and [Discount Store].

Me: “That is the mall’s exterior door. We do not own that door, and it does not open into our store.”

Customer: “Well, I meant an exterior door near you!”

Me: “Then ask that. I did inform you about there being a door close to us by [Discount Store]. Did you want anything, or did you just want to complain that we were hard to find?”

According to her financial advisor, she spent most of her appointment with them complaining about me. I guess she just wanted to complain that we were hard to find.

It’s the final day of tax season. To cover a shortfall, I’m working at two offices in one day. Due to a client going over and a huge traffic jam, I am late to arrive at the second office — by five minutes. I’m scheduled to be there at 3:00, and I park the car at 3:06.

Upon opening the door, I’m confronted by a big guy. I’m a short woman, not very big.

He has a large briefcase full of documents. I apologize for being late, and he starts complaining about it and chewing me out. He keeps escalating; at first, it’s in a normal tone of voice, but it keeps getting louder and louder. At first, I’m apologetic, but as he goes on and on, I ask him:

Me: “Do you want to get your taxes done or would you prefer to complain about my timeliness?”

He calls me a “worthless b****” and starts getting downright nasty. It’s now 3:20, and our appointments are only an hour long, anyway.

Me: “Get out.”

He demands my card so he can complain about me to corporate. I take my cards, put them in my desk, and lock it.

Me: “No. I refuse to tell you my name. You have treated me with nothing but disrespect since I arrived. And with how long you’ve gone on to complain about my being late, we are now even later. Even if we started doing your taxes right this second, they would not be done before the next appointment.”

He practically turns bright purple in anger. Now he’s yelling loudly enough that he’s probably hurting his throat. I’m learning all sorts of new swear words. But that’s okay; I’m done with him. I just smile and wait for him to leave.

My coworker, a large man, comes tearing into the office and shouts at him to leave now. When the man demands that [Coworker] give him my card to complain to corporate, [Coworker] hands the man HIS card.

Coworker: “Complain about me. Now get the f*** out the door before we call the cops. You are officially trespassing.”

The man took a step back… and [Coworker] took a step forward. The man kept yelling, and [Coworker] yelled back, and each time the man took a step back from the force of [Coworker]’s shouts, [Coworker] took a step forward until he’d herded the man to the door. [Coworker] pointedly opened the door, practically shoved the man out, closed the door, and locked it.

Corporate did call us about the chain of events later, but when we explained what happened, they just shrugged and said, “Couldn’t be helped. We don’t condone that behavior, but it was probably necessary,” and we didn’t get written up.

I’m interviewing for a job. Honestly, it’s not going well. I’m nervous and keep falling on my face, and it feels like the skills they want from me are not the skills I advertise on my resume.

Finally, the interviewer asks me rather bluntly:

Interviewer: “Hey… Do you do any drugs?”

Me: “Uh. No. Why?”

Interviewer: “I just… I don’t think you’ll fit in well here. We all do drugs.”

Me: “Oh. Okay. Uh… thanks for the interview?”

I stood up awkwardly. The interviewer just watched me. And I left.

The whole interaction weirded me out so much that I didn’t even consider calling the police about it until months later. By the time I considered it, I couldn’t find any proof that the company was still in business.

Because they were close to work, I got my lunches at a popular sandwich shop.

They were very popular and often had a long line. They had several workers making sandwiches, but at some point, I learned that one specific worker was the dedicated phone/online order worker. He didn’t do anything but phone or online orders.

So, I started walking into the store, pulling out my phone, and calling in my order, bypassing the line entirely. A lot of the people in the line complained, but the phone guy always told them that they were free to order by phone, as well, if they wanted.

Oddly, very few people took him up on that offer.

Related:
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 24
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 23
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 22
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 21
In Line And Out Of Line, Part 20