Crazy Work Stories

[AWA1997]

At my first (and thus far only) job, as a closer for a supermarket deli, I was told, by my department manager, that, as long as I stayed within eight hours and didn’t keep management longer than they were supposed to be there, I could stay late to get things done. A front-end cashier confirmed that the other person who was on my shift when I wasn’t there, and who had been there far longer than I, was also doing it.

I was scheduled six hour shifts and staying about seven and a half to eight hours. I didn’t find out for about six months that that was not correct. Which struck me as odd because I was getting in trouble for overtime past the eight hour mark before my shift was changed to do that, but I hadn’t been spoken to about it in that six month period.

And at that point, I also couldn’t just change back to the eight hour shift because I started school and they were already telling me to be at work at the exact same time I had just gotten out of class, the latest the deli employees were supposed to be there was the marked end of my shift, and they don’t typically allow split shifts or one hour lunch breaks unless you were scheduled nine hours, and the one hour break was factored into the nine hours, and not allowed within the first 2 hours, which is when I’d have to leave to get to class.

[Noblejanobii]

Man I hear stories like this all the time. I’m still shook people can be this stupid. How???

Geez Awa that sucks. Is there anything you can do or?

[AWA1997]

Man I hear stories like this all the time. I’m still shook people can be this stupid. How???

Geez Awa that sucks. Is there anything you can do or?

I quit working there when I moved to college, after just short of 14 months with the company. Needless to say, I will not be reapplying to that location or any associated location.

[Noblejanobii]

I quit working there when I moved to college, after just short of 14 months with the company. Needless to say, I will not be reapplying to that location or any associated location.

Yeah that’s good cause that’s ridiculous

[AWA1997]

Yeah that’s good cause that’s ridiculous

Yeah, once I pulled a 13 hour shift there because the department manager traded shifts with another employee, neither of them told upper management, the other employee got suspended, and they couldn’t get ahold of the manager. At that point it was also down to just us three in the department with the only other help we could get being to pull in the bakery workers, of which there were only two, so they were dealing with their own understaffing issues. I went in at 7 that morning and left at 8 that night, technically an extra hour of overtime for that day because I wanted to get as much done as possible. I believe I shut down the deli about 4 that evening (when it normally would’ve been open until 6) so that I could get to cleaning up the days worth of dishes and get stuff prepped for the next day. I didn’t even come close to getting done, but the assistant manager said the next day, that if anyone had complained about how I left it after not even picking up their phones the day prior she would’ve chewed them out herself.

[Noblejanobii]

Yeah, once I pulled a 13 hour shift there because the department manager traded shifts with another employee, neither of them told upper management, the other employee got suspended, and they couldn’t get ahold of the manager. At that point it was also down to just us three in the department with the only other help we could get being to pull in the bakery workers, of which there were only two, so they were dealing with their own understaffing issues. I went in at 7 that morning and left at 8 that night, technically an extra hour of overtime for that day because I wanted to get as much done as possible. I believe I shut down the deli about 4 that evening (when it normally would’ve been open until 6) so that I could get to cleaning up the days worth of dishes and get stuff prepped for the next day. I didn’t even come close to getting done, but the assistant manager said the next day, that if anyone had complained about how I left it after not even picking up their phones the day prior she would’ve chewed them out herself.

Yeesh talk about lack of coordination and courtesy

[Suicune's Fire]

Yeah, once I pulled a 13 hour shift there because the department manager traded shifts with another employee, neither of them told upper management, the other employee got suspended, and they couldn’t get ahold of the manager. At that point it was also down to just us three in the department with the only other help we could get being to pull in the bakery workers, of which there were only two, so they were dealing with their own understaffing issues. I went in at 7 that morning and left at 8 that night, technically an extra hour of overtime for that day because I wanted to get as much done as possible. I believe I shut down the deli about 4 that evening (when it normally would’ve been open until 6) so that I could get to cleaning up the days worth of dishes and get stuff prepped for the next day. I didn’t even come close to getting done, but the assistant manager said the next day, that if anyone had complained about how I left it after not even picking up their phones the day prior she would’ve chewed them out herself.

Yikes, that's terrible. It's so stupid that it seems like nobody is hiring, yet everyone has understaffing issues. Ridiculous.

I used to work at a cafe and a similar sort of thing happened; I was meant to be closing from 3:30pm-8pm, but my manager got sick and asked me if I could cover her shift instead, and the cafe owner would get my shift covered. So I said yes, and started work at 7am. It got later in the day and I hadn't heard about who was covering my 3:30-8, so I enquired with my sick manager who was also trying to work it out, then got a call from the owner saying that he was trying but nobody was free, and tried all these manipulative tactics to make me feel sympathetic toward the situation, and asked if I could do the close as well. So that'd be 13 hours, four of which in the middle were when I had a second person on. But from 7-9:30 I was on my own, and 1:30-8pm also on my own. No I didn't want to do a 13 hour shift but I felt like I had no choice, so I said I'd do it, but began panicking afterwards because I realised I'd been taken advantage of and it shouldn't be my problem if the cafe was understaffed. So I spoke to my manager and she was like "What the hell, call him back and tell him no" so I worked up the courage and did that, and he has the nerve to accuse me of not pulling my weight and not helping out, to which I replied with, "Well actually I have already done my share of helping out today by covering the manager's shift." Legally you can't make a casual staff member work more than 10 hours, which evidently he knew after he realised I was not going to agree to staying longer than 10 hours, so he begrudgingly said I could close it up at 5pm because that's 10 hours. So I was really happy with myself for putting my foot down, but it put a reeeally bad taste in my mouth and I ended up quitting a week or so later after he asked me to work another 10 hour shift (when I normally did 4).