u/DraggedDownxTheStone

TLDR: Unionized retail cashier experiencing a vast number of issues at work...inconsiderate and unreliable coworkers. More concerning are the literal safety issues at work. Management is aware of all the issues and refuses to fix them citing the inability of corporate to pay for security (to address the safety issue). Union involved as the middle man between employees and management/corporate but management/corporate is not doing anything to solve the issues and I'm feeling physically unsafe at my store.

I'm a cashier at a large chain of stores. Management is terrible at my store. There might as well not even be a manager because I'd say about 80% of employees (department wide) come in late. Front end managers, the bakery manager, etc. It's INSANITY. One person did actually get written up for the lateness and the manager who wrote him up apologized for the write up and told him "just try not to be late for the next 90 days" (he was put on 90 day probation. People do whatever they want (outside smoking once/hour, the one deli employee drinks beer all day, etc.)

One girl I work with...she's been there about a year and she calls out at least once/week, sometimes 2x/week. When she does come in, she shows up 20-30 mins late (no call to let anyone know either, it's expected at this point), clocks in and proceeds directly to the breakroom to warm up food which she then consumes at her register...dropping food all over the floor, etc. She is on an expletive filled speakerphone call all day and customers are always complaining about her to customer service. Many customers refuse to even go in her line and would rather wait in my line because of the phone issue and an extremely rude attitude as well. There are even two negative Google reviews citing her rudeness and the phone situation.

She was given one verbal warning about the call-outs/lateness about 6 months ago and one verbal warning about the phone just last week. The very next day she actually showed up, she was right back on her phone. The call-outs/lateness situation has gone on unchanged.

My mind is BLOWN about what goes on at this store. I've been there for 5 years and it's just gotten progressively worse. I always have to leave a line of customers standing there waiting for the next cashier when my shift is over because I'll be damned if I'm leaving late every single day due to my relief being late, especially because I have another job to get to. Management looks at me like I'm supposed to stay and wait yet they say nothing to the people that are causing me to have to do that in the first place.

People commonly say that workplace morale is down because employees aren't treating their employees well enough for them to care about being reliable and a good employee. But these people are directly inconveniencing their coworkers. They know and they don't care. That's the part of all of this that is so baffling to me. Any time I've ever had to call out (rare) or be late (rare), I've felt so bad that I'm directly inconveniencing my coworker because the store is already understaffed.

I was raised and taught that you should be reliable at work. And while the salary is not great by any means, comparatively it's a lot better than other local retail establishments ($19.45/hr, USD) with full time employees receiving a decently priced health/dental option).

We're also unionized but the union is pretty much useless and they take $18/week from our salary. And we all get paid the same salary. The person who calls out/is late all of the time and the person that steals massive amounts of time off the clock by taking breaks all day long gets paid the same salary that I get paid. There are no merit-based raises.

And more concerning than anything I described above...there is an ongoing issue going on at my store that is in direct violation of our contract. While the Union has finally started to look into the issue after employees complaining about it for years, they're still not offering a solution to the issue. Corporate doesn't want to spend the $ to fix the issue.

The issue is that employees (and customers) are not safe in the store which is in an area that used to be considered a safe place to live but has gotten progressively worse over the last 10 years. The kids from the high school up the street/local teenagers terrorize our store on a daily basis and have been doing so for several years now. They enter in mobs, grab things off the shelves, stuff their bags and threaten the lives of employees who try to stop them. They purposely drive the scooters into displays.

We have no security or loss prevention at our store. The last time we had a LP Officer was over a year ago. There was already one incident a year ago in which 3 teenage girls came at night and jumped our disabled cart guy, beat him up, stole his wallet and then threatened to come back and "air the place out" when another employee tried to intervene.

The manager of the store, in response, says that his hands are tied because corporate won't pay for a security guard. All of the other stores in the area have armed security guards and most stores won't even allow these kids in. Our manager allows them to come in and will sometimes ask them to leave their bags at the door which the kids respond to my getting aggressive. This has been going on for years and has gotten progressively worse. These kids have gotten more emboldened as they know there are no consequences for their actions. Any time the police are called and IF they actually show up, these kids are long gone.

I was threatened a few weeks ago when one of them told me he was going to send his sister up to "beat my ass". All because I got my phone out and captured a video of them running through the store, stealing and purposely knocking over displays. I wanted to capture a video of them in the act in case anything ever happens to me or anyone else, a video for my family to have easy access to even though all of this is on surveillance cameras anyway. I don't even know how much good a video would do though because most of them wear hoodies (even in 80 degree weather) and masks when they come in.

The cops actually responded that day and told me that without names, there is nothing they can do. He also said that it would be hard to identify any of them because most of them wear hoodies and face masks when they come in and terrorize us. He told me I could follow up with a detective if I wanted to and gave me a phone #. I'm choosing not to follow up because of how emboldened these people are. A police report/criminal proceeding is not going to stop any of them for waiting for me to get off and jumping me and/or shooting me in the parking lot, on my way home, etc. He suggested to me and to the manager that the store should get security. And like I said, our manager says his hands are tied as corporate won't pay for security.

Someone is going to end up getting killed or seriously hurt. And then there will be lawsuits as management is admittedly aware of the situation and blames corporate for not allowing us to have a security guard. We're not allowed to try and stop these kids (or anyone stealing) and employees can actually lose their jobs if they do try to stop them. That's the norm in retail and many good employees in many establishments have lost their jobs trying to stop a thief or these teenage mobs. The establishment doesn't want to be held responsible if something were to happen to an employee trying to stop these people, hence that rule.

I just completed a certification course in another field as I know things at my store will continue to get progressively worse. I fear for my safety and I'm tired of dealing with these coworkers that clearly find nothing wrong with inconveniencing their coworkers. I'm tired of going to work and spending the day in a heightened state of anxiety/awareness because of these kids that come in. This happens almost on a daily basis and sometimes more than once a day. Nothing will ever change at that store and I feel the need to move on to something different and better.

I'm not writing this post to ask for solutions...I'm basically venting. It would be interesting to hear from anyone who has ever been in a similar situation. Thank you for listening!!

I've been on methadone maintenance for a VERY long time. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I poop once every 3 weeks, if I'm lucky. I know I should probably be taking Miralax but every single time I've used it, I end up even more bloated from drinking like 60 oz of it mixed with Gatorade...and still no poop.

I have a colonoscopy scheduled for 10am Monday. I was given the prep instructions and have started attempting to clean out. I've taken a total of 8 Dulcolax since 6pm yesterday (it's 11am now,) and pooped a tiny bit. I drank a 10 oz bottle of Mag Citrate and pooped a little bit more. This is nuts. I'm so bloated from all of the fluids and I'm not pooping like I thought I would be. Or more importantly, like I need to be. Oh and I'm going through a minor stage of withdrawal bc I'm trying to hold out on my dose as long as I can to try and get shit moving, no pun intended.

At this point, if I go to that appointment and they reschedule me, I'm going to be furious because the sedation is the ONLY thing I'm looking forward to. I'm going to be furious if I go in there and don't pass the "do you have water coming out your bum"? part of all of this.

I've posted about this issue in this subreddit before. It's been an ongoing issue in the 4 years that I've worked for this company (grocery chain). No matter who my relief is, they are late. Anywhere from 5-60 minutes late. There has not been ONE SINGLE TIME in 4 years that any of them have gotten there on time. It's such a well known thing at my store that people don't even call to let anyone know they'll be late because everyone already knows they will be. Exactly how late they will be is a crapshoot...but 95% of all the employees come in late.

I'm a cashier. I'm not a manager. It is NOT my problem that management at my store refuses to even verbally reprimand these people. I'm not even exaggerating when I say that 95% of the employees at the store that I work at arrive late to work, across all departments, managers, etc. It's just a known fact and it'll never change because the director does nothing about it. We've been through 5 store directors since I've been at this store...not one of them has done anything about this. I guarantee you this...if I were to be even a minute late, they'd be calling me asking where I am.

Once again today, it's 1 minute past the time that I am supposed to leave and my relief is nowhere in sight. Hasn't even entered the store yet. So, I do what I've been doing and I told my line of customers that we are in the middle of changing shifts and somebody will be right with them. Earlier in the day, I reminded my front-end manager that so and so is my relief and that I will be leaving on time. I gave him ample time to get a contingency plan together since they refuse to do anything about this issue. He blew me off.

Well, the time came, nobody was able to get on the register. One front end manager was behind customer service and the other FEM was nowhere to be found. So I left a line of customers standing there with no cashier as I was the only cashier working. I walked over to the director of the store on my way to the time clock and told him that there is a line of customers standing there waiting to be checked out, that I'm leaving and I don't know what to tell him because other people's lateness is not my problem. He shrugged his shoulders and made a gesture to me like I'm the bad guy because I'm choosing to leave a line of customers standing there with no cashier. And the line was LONG too.

I can count on one hand the amount of times I've been late in all of my years there, I'm always early. I'm constantly doing extra tasks. I NEVER call out. I'm the only cashier open half the time and I still manage to stock candy and go above and beyond.

I've talked to the store director about this issue several times in the past. I've explained to him that I have another job and that I can't and won't stay. It should've been no surprise today that I left a line of customers standing there with no cashier. I'm a liquor cashier BTW so that's why I'm unable to just shut it down and send people to self checkout.

Our director has his favorites. Drive Up and Go employees and self-checkout employees...it's like one big clique and the store director is part of it. There were 2 people over there, DUG/SCO people who been trained as cashiers, who were doing NOTHING (that's a whole other issue which I could make another whole post about). He could've sent one of them down to open up until the late person arrived but he chose to give me an attitude instead and insinuate in a passive aggressive way that I'm doing something wrong by leaving 2 minutes after I was supposed to be done. I'm also in the union so if they ever tried to get rid of me or retaliate, I have documentation of all the efforts I've made to rectify the situation and I keep documentation of who is late.

It's never going to change. There have been a few new hires that show up on time for a short period of time and once they catch wind of the fact that literally 95% of the employees show up whenever they feel like it, all of the sudden they're now coming in late also. The few other people like myself who actually show up on time are able to shut down and go when their shift is over because they can divert the line to the liquor cashier or self-checkout when their relief is late.

I've spoken individually to the 3 people who are my relief options. I've explained to each one of them that I have another job and that their lateness affects me arriving to that job on time. And my other job is taking care of 2 elderly people and I'm relieving someone at that home. It changed absolutely nothing. I don't understand how somebody could be that inconsiderate, knowing that management at the store expects me to stay until they arrive and they still choose to show up late. For years.

The ONLY reason I stay at this job is my schedule because it works with my other job and I get paid a decent rate compared to most other retail positions in the area.

I'm basically just venting but I'd love to hear from anyone else who goes through this at their job. I mean, it's ABSURD how long this has been going on for, unchecked by any of the managers who have come and gone. If this was someone having a situation every now and then where they knew they were going to be late and called in, I would make arrangements with my other job and try to help out. I go above and beyond for this place and get looked at like the bad guy for leaving when my shift is over and most of the time, I'm finishing up with my last customer and still clocking out a few minutes late.