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daydreamerspeaksout · 3 years ago

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Day 3: The Witch

Let me tell you the story of the worst experience I had with a manager who was just miserable every single day of her life.

A Bit of Background:

I started working my very first job in 2014 at BJ's Wholesale Club, I will not mention the club number or the location for privacy reasons. Let's just say that it's still pretty newish since it's been there for 7 years. Moving on...

So I have had a lot of managers move through here and have experienced bad and good managers. But the witch topped them all. I met this woman about 3 years, almost 4 years ago [had I stayed there but I didn't]. When a new manager comes in, you expect an introduction from them and expect a nice meet and greet. Yeah, this woman was never shown how to do that or she just didn't care to introduce herself. My first time meeting her, she started off on the wrong foot because she thought I wasn't doing my job. I was in the liquor store part of our club and it was almost holiday season. So we had shelves being set up to sell gift sets of various liquors that we sell. My coworker told me to not worry about trying to put the bottles/boxes up, he still had no clue of the lay out. I was like cool, no problem I won't touch anything.

So when the witch was doing her walk through to see the club and "meet" the employees, she popped in here and already was making demands. "Why is this not up? Why are you behind the counter and not fixing this up?" She proceeded to fix the only gift set we had there which was Jack Daniel's with a 2 Liter Coke bottle. I was gonna tell her what my coworker had told me but she just kept rambling on about how I should be setting this up. I never did set it up, to be honest because the layout was still being discussed.

My first impression of this woman, she thinks she owns the place and she never formally introduced herself to me or any one for that matter. I didn't find out her name until about two weeks later when I spoke with coworkers. They all had the same thought and I'm sure the other managers had those same thoughts as well but they had to put a mask on to hide their true feelings.

The Witch:

Most likely around my age may be just a bit older than me, so mid 30s. She is second in command so when the GM is gone, she becomes the temporary GM. Personality: bitchy and miserable and she can suck the life of you at work. Married to a nice man, don't know how he puts up with her and her attitude. When she smiles it's fake because when she walks away the smile automatically disappears. She knows no happiness and she has no clue what that means.

My Worst Experience Ever:

I wore many hats at BJ's and worked in almost all the positions they had there. This job position I was in felt more like a punishment and if you end up there, you are bored out of your mind. The job title: Front Door Loss Prevention, basically two people at the front door of the store, one to check the receipts and one to greet the customers. I hated that job with a passion because my feet would hurt badly, I would be bored most of the time, just standing there sometimes waiting for the time to go by. Time went by really really slowly.... like a turtle, a sloth, just pure agony for me. This particular day I was stuck with a lady who worked in the clothing department but she was placed to close at the front door with me. She had some training but at least I could talk to her whenever it wasn't busy.

She had told me about a regular customer that comes in almost every day with her daughter in a wheel chair and her reusable bags where she places her groceries in. She told me of an incident that occurred about a week ago with this customer. Apparently she stuffed some deli meats in her purse and the deli lady had seen it. The deli lady told this to her (the clothing lady) and told her that she needed to check the purse which was a command that I believe the witch had said to tell the clothing lady. She was at the door for some reason probably covering a break or what not, she told me that she had to check the purse and there it was deli meats that were not paid for. The customer claims that she had forgotten she stuffed them there and tried to pass it off as not a big deal. In the end, they let her go but whenever she would come they would check all of her bags including the purse.

So this customer tries to avoid this by coming in close to when the store would close. I was the one who had to check it that night because the clothing lady would not do it again. I was placed in an uncomfortable position, something I didn't want to do. All EYES were on me because believe it or not, the witch was there and so was the HR lady. I had to force myself to do it, in a polite way too. This, of course, offended the customer and caused her to ask me "who is the manager?" I answered the witch's name. The customer wanted to know the witch's name she even nodded her head in that spot where the witch was standing at. This did not go well for all the parties involved especially for me because when I left that night I felt like I was the one who was at fault, when I truly wasn't.

All hell broke loose when I left to do the walk around of the store which is part of the closing time routine. When I came back I was interrogated because of what I said and what I mentioned. Number one I was instructed and told that I needed to check her purse and yes I had mentioned that to the lady because I didn't want to lie. Again I was uncomfortable and nervous to do something that is against my nature. The Witch said that I should've pointed at the sign by the door that we check all bags and lunchboxes. It doesn't mention purses, besides isn't it illegal to check someone's purse? Number two I said the manager's name which she wanted to know and according to the witch I should've said the GM name. The GM never works at night time and the manager she was curious about was the witch who was the closing manager. Number three the customer did try to twist my words and thankfully I had a supervisor who defended me on that. The HR lady took my side at least and because of how I am, why would I put my job on the line for a stupid customer. I had this back and forth with the witch trying to make her see that I did not like the situation I was in and she needed to man up and take the responsibility that you commanded an employee to that act.

Her words to me "You shouldn't have said my name and I am not a manager....." I am sorry but you wear a manager tag and walk around like you rule the world. Now when this situation has happened you should've put your big girl pants and take it. A manager is suppose to have their employees back plus this customer wasn't stupid. She has seen you walking around the store and at the front talking to cashiers and taking care of the line at self checkout. Don't be an idiot and try to blame an employee for this. I almost wanted to tell her so why are you a managers? Why wear the tag? I wanted to leave there quickly so I didn't stay to argue and prove my point with this woman. The HR lady tried to defuse the problem and tried to make her see that I did things by the book, at least. One thing the HR lady saw was I was close to tears when I was punching out. I didn't want to break down in front that woman, the witch. She didn't deserve the tears or to see them. Honest to God, I almost quit that night.

I sped walk so fast to my car and didn't look back. When I got in my car, the tears just came out.... I just let it all out and I know that this lady didn't deserve them but the amount of frustration I had that night. The fact that it was the worst day ever.... it's seared in my mind. I had never felt that bad for something that wasn't my fault. For being putting on the spot over checking a purse. For the witch practically believing and almost taking the side of the accused customer. For feeling like I did things wrong all the time with this woman. I had a long conversation on the phone with my boyfriend, he just let me let it all out basically. I told him everything about the night and how it all went down. I drove home with tears coming down nonstop and just cried angrily while talking about it. It showed me some people in this world are just miserable and enjoy spreading it.

I didn't quit. I waited... Timing is everything for me.

I bid my time and waited for a better opportunity. A better option. It's like God sent it to me when I needed it the most. Amazon is a breeze compared to what I went through at BJ's Wholesale Club. I have a feeling that a lot of the managers there thought I would be back but nope, 3 almost 4 months strong at Amazon.

The take away from this story.... Don't let someone like that get to you and wait for the perfect time to leave. IF I had quit that night, I would probably have been jobless for a good couple of months. I won't have been able to buy a car (twice, that's another story) or even have saved up money to travel places. Yeah.. may be... eventually... I would have ended up at Amazon but still trying make ends meet. So timing is everything too. How I managed to stay there and continue on... the witch left to deal with some family stuff. So they sent a lady to temporarily replace her. So when it came time to give my two weeks notice I was able to give them to a nice person. They thanked me for my years of working there.... the witch would probably not have said anything.

Good riddance to her.... Yeah this scarred me for a bit, I have healed and moved on. You guessed it, I did get emotional thinking about it but that's just who I am. With that I leave you with "What's the Big Idea?"

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