Past Work Experiences 1

Introduction and First Experience

This blog is dedicated to my rants about things I encounter in life that really piss me off. My boyfriend says that I have an anger problem and probably need to go to a therapist - which I wouldn't mind if I had the money to do so, but I don't. So I have decided to use this blog as a venting mechanism. I can't rant to any of my family or friends because I go on and on and they get annoyed with me. It's just that people do things that baffle me and I need to let my anger out sometimes.

Earlier tonight, my boyfriend and I were talking about work. It brought up some memories from my first job and I found myself ranting about all the horrible experiences I had there. I realized - after about ten minutes - that I was going on and on about it and shut up. But I'm still pretty peeved, so I figured I would write about it and get it out of my system. Not only is this a rant, but I also intend to help some people out. I hope that I can keep a few people from losing their minds by warning them about this place. Hopefully, these people can read this before accepting a position in this company. 

I live in a very tiny town in Texas. There is one dominating grocery store, a dollar store, and two convenient stores. There is also a donut shop and cafe, the only two restaurants in town - if you don't count the convenient store that also makes pizzas. Anyway, the first job I ever had was at the grocery store - B&B Foods. And, let me tell you, I will never, ever, work there again. I had the worst working experience at this store and I would not recommend working there. B&B Foods is a branch of Brookshire Brothers - not to be confused with Brookshire's, although most people call Brookshire Brothers "Brookshire's" for short. They also own Polk Oil.

About six months after I moved to this little town, I was offered a job at B&B. See, my step-dad was best friends with the manager of the store and had told him - let's call the manager Mr. A - that I was looking for a job. Since B&B was the only place you could get a decent - that's what I thought back then - job, I had been hoping to get a position there. So when Mr. A offered me a job, I jumped at it. That is how I started working at B&B. Now let me get into the experience that I was telling my boyfriend about earlier. It isn't the first bad experience I'd had there, and it certainly wasn't the last, but I'm not going to write about these experiences in chronological order. I'm just going to write about them as I remember them.

This one occurred at the beginning of my second year here (I know, I thought this place was horrible and yet I worked there for more than two years? Like I said, my town is very tiny and it's hard to get a job there - especially when you're a teenager.), during the summer. When you need a particular day or time off from work, you request that day or shift off. The manager - whichever is on duty when you request off - will put your request on the cork board for everyone to see, that way they can know who needs what day off when it's time to make the schedule for that week. Easy, right? Well, not so much.

My mom and dad had already come up with a solution for seeing the kids - me, my little sister, and my little brother. We lived with my mom and would go visit my dad for the weekend every two weeks. I couldn't go most of the time because Mr. A always scheduled me to work weekends even though he knew that was when I got to see my dad. But I did get to see my dad for a little while on the weekends because I was the one who drove my little brother and sister to my dad's house. I would usually work Friday mornings and take my siblings to my dad's in the afternoon and work Sunday mornings and go get them Sunday afternoons.

One week, Mr. A scheduled me to work Friday afternoon. Sometimes this happened, but I usually just switched shifts with someone else and then everything was fine. That's what I did that week. The protocol for switching shifts with someone is that you have to call around and find someone to take your shift. Once you find someone who will switch with you, you call the store and let someone know that you're switching with that person. Not a problem. So, I called a girl who I worked with - let's call her K - and she agreed to switch shifts with me. I'm going to list the shifts so that you don't get confused.

Cashier Shifts

• Monday-Saturday Mornings: 7:00a.m. to 2:00p.m.
• Monday-Saturday Evenings: 2:00p.m. to 9:00p.m.
• Sunday Mornings: 8:00a.m. to 2:00p.m.
• Sunday Evenings: 2:00p.m. to 8:00p.m.     

 There are sometimes special occasions when there is a third shift. These are usually on weekends, but sometimes there will be a third shift on a weekday in the summer. We have these shifts at times that the store is pretty swamped, so sometimes there are special occasions - like Thanksgiving - when we will have the third shift.

• Sunday-Saturday Third Shift: 12:00p.m. to 6:00p.m.

    Petro Shifts (these are shifts in the gas booth)

• Monday-Saturday Mornings: 7:00a.m. to 2:00p.m.
• Sunday Mornings: 8:00a.m. to 2:00p.m.
• Sunday-Saturday Evenings: 2:00p.m. to 8:00p.m.

If you get confused, just come back up here and find the shift I am talking about. So, they scheduled me to work Friday evening - the time I'm supposed to have off to take my siblings to my dad's house. I called K - who had a Friday morning shift - and she agreed to switch shifts with me. I called the store and told them that we were switching. Done. I also let them know that - no matter what - I needed Friday evenings off from now on. They (BTW, "they" are the managers at the store) said okay and that they wouldn't schedule me to work Friday evenings for the rest of the Summer.

I worked Friday morning and K worked that evening just as planned. Everything went well. But the next Friday that I was supposed to take my siblings to my dad's - two weeks later - they'd scheduled me to work again. I, once again, got K - who, again, had the morning shift -  to switch with me and let them know about it. I also reminded them again that I needed Friday evenings off. Friday came and went without a hitch.

I almost pulled my hair out when I looked at the new schedule for the next week I had to take my siblings to my dad's house. They had scheduled me to work the third shift that day. What couldn't they get about me needing the evenings off on those days? We had plenty of other workers who could work that shift. I went to K again - who had the same morning shift - and she switched with me. This time I got an employee when I called the store instead of a manager. I asked to be connected with a manager and she told me that there were none available at the moment. I asked her if she would tell them that I had switched shifts with K and would be working Friday morning and she told me she would tell them.

I got into the petro booth that morning feeling, other than a little sleepy, pretty good. Like I said, our town is pretty small, so we didn't get a lot of business in the mornings. That allowed me to read a book while I was waiting on customers to get there. The only really bad thing about working in the petro booth is that it can get really boring and you could accidentally fall asleep if you aren't careful. But everything went as planned that morning...up until noon.

Remember, instead of having the evening shift that day, they had originally scheduled me to have the third shift, which starts at noon. I got a call at about five after noon from one of our managers - let's call her Ms. C. She told me that I'd come in for the wrong shift that day; that I was scheduled to work the third shift. I told her that I had switched shifts with K so K should've been there. Ms. C told me that K wasn't there yet and that she would try to call K to see where she was. About ten minutes later, Ms. C called me back saying that K wasn't answering her phone. I tried, unsuccessfully, to call K for the next forty minutes to call K. Where was that girl?

I got another call from Ms. C at one saying that she had finally reached K. K had told her that she thought she was supposed to be there at 2 for the afternoon shift. K offered to come up there then - at 1 - but Ms. C told her that she should just go ahead and come in at 2 since she was so late. Ms. C then barked, "You should make sure that your replacement knows when her shift starts from now on," before hanging up. Seriously? You're going to yell at me when K was the one who fucked up? Get real. I'd told K when we decided to switch shifts that I had the third shift. I shouldn't have to call her every five minutes reminding her when she is supposed to be at work.

When Ms. C came to get me at 2 - a manager always drives to the petro booth because they don't want anyone walking with that much money to the store. They're afraid someone will try to rob the person with the money - she told me that K had still not arrived for her shift. She kept going on about how I should've made sure that K knew when she was supposed to come in. I told her that I had told K when my shift was and that the situation wasn't my fault. 

As we came into the store, K finally arrived. She ran up to Ms. J - another manager - to get her help clocking in. The booth where we count our till is right next to the clock we clock in at. As I was in the booth counting my money, I heard K ask Ms. J if she could run next door to the donut shop to get her lunch order really quick. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. First this girl is two hours late and gets me into trouble, and now she is asking to run over to a restaurant? She couldn't be serious. To my surprise, Ms. J allowed her to run to the restaurant and get her food before her shift. This didn't make any sense to me because we're not allowed to eat on our shifts - only on breaks.

I got everything I needed done that day and headed home. I took my siblings to my dad's later that afternoon and then I came home to relax for the rest of the day. I'd just made it home and sat down in front of the computer to play a video game when I got a text from Mr. A - the head manager and my step-dad's best friend, the one who offered me the job in the first place. He told me that he needed to talk to me the next morning when I went to work for my next shift. I replied saying okay.

I was worried about what was going to happen. Every time Mr. A had talked to me about something before, he had never given me any warning beforehand. He just talked to me when the time came. I had a gnawing feeling in my stomach that I was about to get fired. I'd been working on my speech in my head the entire night and while I was getting ready that morning.

I arrived at work and clocked in, but there was no talk. He didn't ask me to go into the office or the back of the store like he normally did when he needed to talk to me. This struck me as odd, but I didn't say anything about it. Frankly, I'd hoped that he'd forgotten about it. And he was letting me clock in and get ready to go into the petro booth, so he wasn't firing me. Unless he wanted to really embarrass me - and piss me off - by firing me after my shift. So, I held my breath and crossed my fingers.

Usually, when driving out to the petro booth, Mr. A doesn't drive me. It happens every now and then when everyone else is late, but he usually has more important things to do in the store. So when he started walking out with me that morning, I knew that he hadn't forgotten about the talk because there were other people there who could drive me to the booth.

Once we were in his car, he started his talk. He told me that K's being late for her shift was all my fault. He said that if I had never switched shifts with her in the first place, none of that would've happened. He then asked why I switched with her and I explained to him that I had been requesting Friday afternoons off for some time, because I take my siblings to my dad's house on those days, and I kept getting scheduled for those times. There was a long pause after this. We had just arrived at the petro booth and he was parking his car. I thought that he was done talking because he had been silent for about a minute, so I started opening my door. Before I could get it open, he said that I was no longer allowed to switch shifts with anyone at any time. He also told me that I was to be at work when I was scheduled to work, no matter what. He said that he believed that I was requesting those times off not because I had to take my siblings to my dad's house, but because I wanted to work morning shifts so that I would have the afternoons off to go do what I want and have work out of the way.

I told him that there was a court order saying that I have to see my dad on the weekends, no matter what. I also told him that even if there weren't a court order, I would go anyways because that's the only time I get to see my dad. I told him that if I'd wanted to, I could request every other weekend off so I could spend it with my dad, but I didn't because I knew that he needed me there to work.

He was silent for a minute again before getting out of the car and unlocking the petro booth door. Remember that Mr. A was not only my boss, but also my step-dad's best friend, so I knew him outside of work, too. I was pretty pissed at him - because he knew that K's being late wasn't my fault, yet he punished me anyway - so I stayed in the car until he was done rolling the oil carts out. I then, without a word, signed into the register and started putting my money in it. He shut the door and reminded me to lock it before leaving.

For the next three weeks, I didn't have any morning shifts and I wasn't scheduled to work Fridays or Sundays. As soon as I looked at the first schedule that I didn't have any morning shifts in, I was raging mad. I knew that Mr. A had done this on purpose because he really believed that I had wanted the afternoons off to do what I wanted and have work out of the way.

In these three weeks, I didn't say a word to Mr. A. When he said hello, I just nodded at him. When he asked me a question, I would nod or shake my head if it was a yes or no question. If it wasn't, I would answer in short sentences, but I never looked at him. Sure, I could've gotten fired over that, but I really didn't care. What he was doing was bullshit. And he finally got the picture; he scheduled me for three morning shifts on the fourth week. When I saw that, I started talking to him again. It wasn't like it was before all that bullshit happened, but it was better than those three weeks. He was no longer a friend to me, only a boss.

So, that was one of my shitty experiences working at B&B. I think I'll put number 2 up right after this because it's relatively short and it's fresh in my mind at the moment.

Until then...

~End of Rant