#i’ve worked retail and food service since i was 19 lmao it’s me n these $20/hr jobs forever baby

[coolcarabiner]

i love having a religious studies degree it’s so much fun because every day i receive emails from ziprecruiter and indeed with jobs ranging from shake shack team member ($22 an hour) to catholic charities disaster case management specialist ($63,000 to $73,000 per year)

[fuck-customers]

Grocery store baker is back at it again, this time with a rather lengthy fuck managers. My department got a new manager about a month ago and I went from loving my job to hating it in that timeframe and honestly?? After today I've had Enough™ and need to rant about this under qualified mess of a man. My last manager, K, was a saint. She was experienced, qualified, stood up for her employees, made a schedule that accommodated everyone's availability, knew how to make a schedule, knew all the little semi-screwy parts of the company and how to avoid them, made sure everyone got their breaks, busted her ass for the department, got the orders in on time, was on top of the orders, was a great person to work with and a great person overall. She's the manager dreams are made of. This new bozo, S, is the exact opposite. He's been with the company for 3 months ((I've been with the company for 5 months, for reference)) and doesn't know jack. He's never been a manager before and only has about a year of assistant manager experience. He's got a heart problem which is exasperated by stress ((ya know, that thing that goes hand in hand with being a manager in a retail or food establishment???)) and is constantly calling out and fucking us all over because of it. The assistant manager, C, has been doing this for the past 10 years so she's been picking up the slack. However, she keeps having to leave early on Saturdays - whether S is there or not - because she ends up going waay over 40 hours and the store manager tosses her out ((the district manager is super strict about overtime and so far we're the only store in his district that has no overtime and isn't on the shit list)). So, besides fucking us over when he isn't there, he fucks us over by showing up as well. There's just such a variety of ways that he fucks us over while there that I'm gonna break it up. First off, besides S, the department is all women. S is 6 ft tall. Save for the decorator, Y - whose pregnant - I'm the tallest at just over 5'5. Most of our products are stored in our freezer until they're needed and all of our extra containers are stored in the fridge ((to hide them from food service but that's another story)). We try to keep things where we can reach them and try not to stack shit on the top shelf. S, however, decided, in this department of short people, to stack boxes 3-4 boxes high on the top shelf. Heavy stuff too like pies and frozen bread ((as opposed to light shit like cake donuts)). ((Ironically this month's safety focus is lifting and bending safely.)) So most of our closers - who need to get this shit - can't reach it and end up knocking things over and getting hurt. Has his employees getting hurt and asking for changes done anything?? Nope! It's still super unsafe! 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻 My store is brand new. It was built from the ground up and opened last November with brand new appliances, trays, racks, etc. The store S is coming from is the oldest store in the district where the oven's internal thermometer isn't properly calibrated and all the trays have an inch of carbon buildup. So, naturally, the two stores are run a little differently. He hasn't even tried to learn how this store works he's expected that the things he learned to work around the older store's quirks will work perfectly here. So far he's ruined 6 muffin tins, and roughly $400 worth of bread ((he baked no bake bread at 400 degrees for 20 minutes it was rock hard I wanted to c r y)). Plus we have a new girl!!! So he's teaching her all this bad habits!!! And C has to go behind his back to teach her properly so T ((the other baker)) and I don't have a cow in the morning. The kicker is that we're super open about the quirks of the oven and proofed like even the people who don't use them know them. ((The top shelf of a rack won't bake in either oven and the proofer seal was never installed properly and it doesn't seal right so the proofer is like 5 degrees cooler and 10% less humid than it should be.)) S cannot make a functional schedule. He just doesn't make one. He's physically incapable of staffing the department. ((Part of the problem is that we're understaffed because 3 people quit and we never replaced them and 1 person is absolutely shit at her job and can't do a single thing right but that's another story.)) I'm the part time baker and T is the full time baker but you'd never be able to tell because I end up baking more than T. T wasn't initially trained as a decorator but now she decorates more than she bakes. I'm also trained as an opener and a midday shift clerk. I've got no issue working those shifts. I haven't worked as a clerk since December. In order to serve customers, get products packaged and on the sales floor, and basically function properly, the department needs a clerk at all times. There should be one who opens, one who works in the middle of the day, and one ((it should be two but we're so understaffed)) who closes. This allows the clerk to man the register, package what the baker's made/is making, and get product on the floor in a timely manner. It allows the decorator to focus on making cake orders, filling the cake case, and serving customers at the cake case. It allows the baker to focus on making all the mixes needed to stock the department. It allows the managers to take inventory, place orders, and put the product that we don't bake here on the floor. The clerk is necessary for optimal bakery functionality. Do we always have one? Nope. We have someone from 6-11 and one from 4-9. We need someone working from 11-4 or 5 to fill that 5 hour gap. What ends up happening is the clerk leaves, the baker is up to her elbows in mix, the decorator is in the freezer/fridge getting things she needs, the manager is in the back getting a load, and a customer is getting angry at a counter because no one is there to take care of them. The closer ends up having the package shit that should have been packaged and on the floor before 4 in addition to panning everything for tomorrow, packaging everything in the self-serve case, cleaning the department, and facing the sales floor. When the closer has to do the midday shift's job as well as their own job ((which takes 2 people as is, so basically they're doing the work of 3 people on their own)), things get missed. Especially when C gets sent home for working too many hours and S called out ((or didn't and just didn't show up)). Every damn day we end up several hours behind schedule because there's no one there in the middle of the day packaging and I want to s c r e a m. Technically, we have 4 closers. Except one girl cannot close alone because she's slower than molasses and cannot do her job at all. Someone has to close with her to make sure that everything gets done and that she doesn't fuck up the one (1) thing she'll end up doing. R is a disaster ((she was hired at the same time I was and she only gets 4 hours a week because she's such a burden for the department)). The other closers - E, N, and G ((the new girl)) - hate working with her because it's actually more work than working alone. E is our best closer - she deep-cleans the whole department, packages at the speed of light, and pans everything properly. N is good - not as fast, but very thorough. G is new but she's getting the hang of it. N is being trained to decorate and they're trying to get E to open more ((even though she's only given 19 hours a week because S doesn't like her)). Closing is a 2 person job. We desperately need more clerks we suffer every day. Fun fact: I'm quitting at the end of April because on May 9th I start at the Culinary Institute of America. I'm so excited and I talk about it constantly. I've got a countdown going, I wear my CIA hoodie when I'm on break, I use my CIA pen for everything, I talk about it constantly, and it's been a known fact since I started when I'd be quitting. Literally every single person in the department - and most of the employees in other departments - know this because I never shut up about it. Partly because I'm super fucking pumped and partly because I want it to be crystal clear when I'm leaving so no one can act shocked when I turn in my two weeks. Back in January K was talking about who would be trained to replace me. S, however, has made no such comments and is training another decorator instead. Like, there's already 3 people in the department who are trained as a decorator we don't need a 4th we literally only have 10 employees in the department. There have been no moves to hire anyone ((the new girl was actually a cashier who wanted to transfer departments)) and no talk of training someone to replace me. C and T are getting nervous because they're scared that when I quit they won't be ready for it and C will have to bake as well as decorate and, ya know, manage the department. The only saving grave is that everyone in the department- while we don't get along because girls are super fuckin catty - is united in hating S. Like even C is sick of his shit. We all collectively shittalk him to let off steam so we don't blow a fuse whenever he does something particularly stupid. We're super catty and don't get along typically but S has really united us by making us hate him lmao. Tl;dr: My dream manager got transferred and an under qualified man was promoted to fill her shoes and is fucking up in every way imaginable. I went from loving my job to hating in the span of a month because of him.