History, Part 1

So, it was pointed out to me recently that a lot of issues I have at work are the result of cumulative bad management. So, in an effort to purge the demons I have acquired, I'll give the Reader's Digest Condensed version of my tenure in Hell.

First, the conditions under which I was hired were not up to company standard: my brother was also hired, and he was hired as Loss Prevention. Not an acceptable mix in most retail establishments. Objectivity of the LP guy towards his sister is not generally considered possible.

I was on maternity leave when they terminated him. I returned to work, but not before it was disclosed that they were hoping and praying I didn't, and that they mentioned it practically every week while I was off.

I went back.

Second, before that maternity leave, I was subjected to a department manager who believed that handling her abusive/threatening co-worker boyfriend on company time was okay--and every abuse he piled on her, she piled on the rest of us.

Her best was to stand by and watch as a customer got verbally abusive and threatening to me, and say "I'm not getting involved" when asked for help in getting item numbers to help get Wife-Beater out of the store. I had watched this guy beat on his kids and scream and threaten his wife. I got written up for being "rude" to this guy. Yeah, like that happened. And this Dept Manager just shrugged when asked if she witnessed this incident. Nice.

She also liked to let us have our 15 minute breaks, but not our lunches. If scheduled for an Open to 3 PM shift, you got a 15 minute break one hour after reporting for work, and your lunch whenever, if-ever, she felt like it. Nobody from the floor would help her cover those breaks because she was rude and demanding.

Outside of her, I got to work in what's termed a hostile work environment: If I needed change, I would have to call for upwards of 2 hours, and still wouldn't get change. Then I'd get hell because I ran out of change.

After Miss Priss was no longer working there, my next favorite story was when the store manager (when he bothered to show up) would send the admin manager to come and tell me that if I unlocked and turned on the exit doors in the morning, I would be fired. It wasn't my job, and it was too far away from the register I was assigned to be on. That was Day 1. For Day 2, the doors didn't get unlocked and turned on, and I would call and ask for someone to get them unlocked and turned on. No one would respond until they got a 2nd (and sometimes 3rd) call from me telling them customers were standing there, waiting for ME to open and unlock the exit doors. The admin manager would then appear and inform me that I would be written up if I did NOT unlock and turn on the exit doors. This went on for about 2 weeks, until I finally told her to "put it in writing" what I was supposed to do. She made excuses abou the store manager, and blah blah blah. Yeah, whatever. Just put it in writing, or quit harassing me about it--pick one or the other, but do NOT come near me again to tell me the opposite of what you told me yesterday. Either that, or write me up for unlocking and turning the doors on, and write me up for NOT unlocking and turning them on.

The next game we played was to schedule me for 40 hours, insist that I punch in 5 minutes early, NO MATTER WHAT, and then refuse to let me punch out and go home on time--nevermind mind that 5 minutes early shit. We played that game for awhile. I would be written up for NOT being punched in and at my station 5 minutes early, but I'll be written up if my coverage was late and I wasn't punched out 5 minutes early. It was suggested that I punch out, but DO NOT LEAVE UNTIL YOUR COVERAGE GETS THERE, or I'd be written up for that too. Also, fulltime employees were allowed 40 hours, not one minute more, and were usually--but not always--scheduled for 39 hours. But I'd be scheduled for 40 hours, but since my coverage was always (no lie) not 5 minutes early, that would equal, at best, 40hrs + 35 minutes. When asked "How does 40 hours + 35 minutes or more = 39 hours?" I was told to shut up, quit being 'smart' and be 5 minutes early.

Are you keeping track? In that last scenario, I would get written up for not being EARLY. Then, I would get written up for someone else being late. I would also get written up for not punching out EARLY. And I would get written up for having overtime. Now, that's 4 ways to be written up for 3 things that were not under my control.

Oh, and it's against the law, even in Pennsylvania, to force someone to work off the clock. And any and all injuries incurred during the off-the-clock time will not be covered by any workman's comp or disability. Just ask WalMart 'bout that.

I got told off for not letting the customers throw things at me. I got sworn at by managers because I did not have access to the screens that would allow them to not have to log me out and log themselves in to do their jobs--the money handling stuff that I wasn't to be doing, and wasn't doing anyway.

If I called and asked for change, I didn't get it. If I moved to the next register over, I got told off because it wasn't allowed, even if I ran out of change. If I covered my own ass and told customers I didn't have change so I could take checks, credit cards, or exact change, I got told off. I got told off by customers because management treated me so badly (it simply MUST be my fault) and management told me off because the customers complained that I couldn't/wouldn't do my job.

There had been a change in management by the time I came back from maternity leave, and the newest problem I got to deal with was the front-end assistant department manager.

When I got back from maternity leave, she was in her full glory: see-through black lacy tops; low-cut tops that barely covered the dirty-pillows; backrubs (with the obligatory tit-to-back-uf-yer-head action) for male members of management; pretty young cashiers were demeaned and told to perform duties that no one else in the store was asked to; all men, customer and associate alike, were given special consideration in all things--up to and including the ignoring of company policy; and my breaks, yet again, were optional.

The absolute best was my first day back. She sidled up to me, and began relating to me that she and a certain co-worker of ours (a first class asshole, btw, whom I had known for about 3 years from my previous job) had known each other for years and years and years. She stated, "No matter what you've heard (I'd been back at work for literally, an hour) he and I are not sleeping together." Uh-okay. Sure. It's your lie, tell it how you want.

Things started out annoying and frustrating, and quickly became harassing and hostile. My lunch break, on a 9-hour shift were either within 2 hours of starting, or scheduled in such a way that made it ridiculous to even take it--if I was to be done at 5pm, my lunch was to be taken from 3-4pm, with coverage showing up anywhere between 3pm and 3:30pm.

It was the lack of money in my register again, too. By this time, I was at the Return desk full time, and if I ran out of money, I was to literally, pull the cash out of my ass. I wasn't getting any. And those 15 minute breaks that PA law says they don't have to provide, but company policy says they do? I'd watch them come down the front line--everyone got theirs...except me. I would have to call her and say I had to go to the bathroom, and nine times out of ten, I'd be told there was no coverage for it. Well, PA law does say that they have to allow me to pee, so she'd grudgingly show up to cover the Return desk. I'd be told, and I quote, "You better hurry, because I'm not waiting her all night." And when I'd return, I'd get, "What took you so long?" Then, miraculously, those other breaks? Yeah, that's when there'd be coverage for them.

She called me, more than once, and demanded that I not validate receipts for men. She'd tell me to discount things for men. Once, a guy I graduated with came to the Return desk. She talked to him, and his basically ignored her. When she got the scent of another man in the vicinity, she ran off. He asked me who she was. Later, she came over to me later, rattled on and on about how she'd known him for years and years and years. Went to schoo with him, in fact.

I couldn't help myself--I asked her when she attended the high school I graduated from. She never did, she said, she was the next town over born-and-bred. I said, "That's funny, then, because I graduated with him, and we'd grown up together. Used to ride Big Wheels and all that, donchano." She insisted that he'd lived "right down the street from me."

The funniest thing about that little vignette is that EVERY man used to "live right down the street" from her. I mean that literally. EVERY. MAN. EVER. That guy she said she wasn't sleeping with my first day back after being off for 3 months? Yeah, he was on the Delivery team, and more than once he came up missing. One day, for S&G, an assistant store manager called HER house looking for him. She handed him the phone. So yeah, she wasn't sleeping with him. Sure.

Anyway, I'd complain to management, and whichever guy I'd complain to would "handle it." Classic case of the right don't know what the left hand is doing. I'd be mad (flames shooting out orafices) and would go to whoever was handy. That was my biggest mistake.

By the time things got REALLY REALLY ugly, nobody in management would talk to me if I was angry. Can't say I blame 'em.

Anyway, things finally came to a head, and she pulled the no-break coverage for you, you'll do as I say because I'm your superior crap once too often. I called the handiest manager. Told him, bluntly, that if the situation was not changed within the next 4 days (I was parttime and off those days) when I came back, I'd take it where I needed to take it--outside the store. Fix it and fix it yesterday.

Things improved for about a month. Then we were right back at it. I bit my tongue (if you know me, you know how hard that was) and I did everything I could to ignore her if it was the all-D-porn show, and to do as she demanded otherwise.

Then, came the Sunday in November. She pulls my name out of her little evil hat and tells me I'm covering breaks. Great. I ask to take mine first, because I have to go to the bathroom (and I know that by the time I get down with breaks, I won't be allowed to cover my own, and will be desperately needed under her thumb.) She tells me NO. I ask to at least go to the bathroom before starting. NO.

So I go to cover those breaks. I'm on the second break in, and it's outside, in the cold. Know what being out in the chilly November air does to you when you need to pee? Yeah. Now, times that by 30 minutes. She grabs the genius I'm covering and has him, sans vest (against company policy--working without yer vest on,) to go do 30 minutes of crap work she doesn't want to do. When he finally gets back, I'm in physical pain. I tell him, take my break and get a page. I am to report immediately to HER, forget the rest of the breaks.

We're in the front office, with a head cashier present. She proceeds to tell me that SHE is sick of me, MANAGEMENT is sick of me, and under NO circumstances am I do EVER say anything about her again. I am to follow what she tells me, whether or not it is against company policy, and if I don't, management--who thinks I'm full of shit and crazy--will allow her to do whatever she wants to me. She'll write me up, have me fired, whatever suits her IF I ever say anything about her to them--or anyone--again.

Now, I don't know about other people, but I took this as a threat.

I made it through the rest of my shift, and managed to get a manager to talk with me. I, of course, did the woman stress thing and cried. Mess of myself really. He was, other than the whole "Oh my God! A crying woman" reaction, a mess too--I think it really terrified him that I was in that state. By the time I got home, I truly felt that I was out of a job, one way or the other. I had no reason NOT to believe her about management (no matter what that guy said) because they had allowed this to continue--and continued allowing her to parade her soft-core porn show around without interference. The store manager would literally RUN the other direction if he saw me coming. I had no choice.

I made The Call. The Call I am, apparently, legendary for having made--and survived. I called the Abuse Line. It was disappointing, really. They took an initial report, gave me a call number and that was that. I was still a basket case.

By the time I reported for my next shift, though, I had received a called from corporate HR, with their tricky-tricky questions. I told them the whole thing--I picked up the nasty habit of journalling in high school and use it to my advantage. I had dates, times, who, what, when, and where everything happened. I had descriptions of her see-through and reveal-all clothing. Her backrub escapades. Her threat. (and, I suppose, having that other person in there to hear it didn't help HER any, in the end.)

The thing, I think, that kept me in a job was that I didn't scream and shout for revenge, or retribution. I talked about how I just wanted to have what was fair. I wanted to be treated fairly and well, I wanted to not have to beg for the basics that I should have to be able to do my job. I wanted, more than anything, to STILL HAVE A JOB. I wanted to know what I did wrong so I could NOT do it anymore. I wanted to STILL HAVE A JOB. When asked if I could continue to work with/around her, I said I just wanted to save my job. I did get my digs in, though. I told HR that I'd seen less skin in porn flicks. And when asked if I tried to talk with the store manager, I told 'em "I can't run that fast." She asked for clarification, so she got it. I'm a cashier. I can't just leave my post when I see him, and if he sees me first, he all-but runs away from me as fast as he can. If I tell him I need to talk with him--he avoids me until I stop trying to talk to him.

I heard later that HR sent a team in to train management on sexual harassment, harassment, it's definitions (including woman-to-woman), appropriate management responses and to go over dress code and conduct policies. There was only one store-level manager who would still speak to me in the first months after I made The Call.

That was way back in '03 or '04. And of all the people who may have had legitimate complaints about how they were being treated, I'm the only one who is still there.

Stay tuned for Part 2.