u/spark-erratic

I work in a pub, and my manager is the type of person who demands everyone be perfectly on time while she treats her own schedule like a mere suggestion. She always tells me to note down if someone coming for an interview is even two minutes late (of course, I don't do that, because who cares?).

She's usually still at home or hiding in the office when they arrive, and she just sends me a text with the schedule. Her hypocrisy reached a breaking point for me two weeks ago.

There was a guy waiting for 45 minutes, and she walked in casually, made herself tea, chatted with a supplier about something trivial, and then chatted with a regular for 15 minutes before finally starting the interview.

Naturally, he ghosted her when she tried to hire him.

I decided to start playing mind games with her. Since we are always hiring, it's very common for someone not to show up at all because they found another job. So every time she is late and someone doesn't show, I lie to her. I tell her they arrived exactly on time but left because she wasn't ready.

I know she's insecure enough that she won't call them to check, so I'm not worried about getting caught. Her attitude changed from "these people aren't serious about work" to "why are they leaving so fast? I was only 12 minutes late."

Things escalated a bit recently. There was a woman waiting for 20 minutes, so I simply told her: "She's on her way, but I wouldn't blame you if you left; your time is valuable."

She laughed and said she'd wait in her car for a bit, and if the manager called her, she might come back.

This was the eighth time someone "left" that month.

When the manager arrived 10 minutes later, I told her she might still be able to catch her on the phone.

I sat there listening to her literally groveling on the phone, apologizing and asking if she could come back.

The girl came back, but she had a "don't mess with me" look on her face the whole time.

The manager tried to laugh it off and make an excuse about Friday morning traffic, so the girl looked her in the eye and said: "Yes, that's why I left 25 minutes early to be here right on time."

The manager nodded embarrassedly and said: "Okay, it's good that you're a responsible person."

I had to hide behind the bar so I wouldn't laugh out loud.

Since then, she's been coming in early and stopped messing around with time when people arrive. She's all smiles now, offering them coffee or water immediately.

And we've hired the best staff we've had in a long time.

The funny thing is that this whole situation actually got me thinking about how much preparation people put into interviews compared with how little effort some employers put into actually conducting them.

I've been reading through some interview advice lately, and there's a post on HiringHell with a bunch of practical stuff about preparing answers, researching the company, asking better questions, and just generally not going into an interview completely unprepared.

After watching candidates spend all that time preparing just to sit there waiting 45 minutes for my manager, I can definitely understand why some people walk away.

Now I'm thinking about what other terrible habits of hers I can fix.

I worked at that place for almost 8 years, in the heavy equipment parts field. I started as a stock picker and moved up quickly. I became Warehouse Lead in less than two years, and shortly after that I became Warehouse General Supervisor. I had 34 employees and 5 supervisors under me. Everyone knew I had their back. If someone had something come up and needed a day off, fine, we would work it out and still get the job done. If someone really wasn't comfortable in a certain spot, I would try to move them somewhere else. My whole idea was to keep the team happy, safe, and willing to come to work. When people feel respected, they work better. Sometimes I would buy lunch out of my own pocket because the huge company couldn't even cover $150 worth of sandwiches. We did birthdays, helped each other out, all of that. I was the person people came to, whether it was the Director or someone on the floor. I knew that warehouse inside and out.

They could never keep a good Warehouse Manager. While I was there, they went through 7 people in that position. After about 3 years there, I asked to interview for the warehouse manager job, and every time they shut the door in my face with different excuses. It was always something like, "You're too close to the team," or "You need to be less friendly and more strict." Meanwhile, the work was getting done early, people were showing up, mistakes were low, and nobody was walking around miserable and crushed. I never understood why treating people like human beings was supposed to be a weakness.

A little over 4 years in, I was still asking for the same position. During that time, they had gone through 4 people in that same role. By then I had understood the truth. They didn't want to promote me because I was already doing the work of several people for cheap. Over the years, 3 people left and their responsibilities somehow became mine. They were never going to find anyone willing to do everything I was doing for the same pay they were giving me, which was $22 an hour. I was upset because if they weren't going to give me the title, at least pay me for the extra work. In my mind, I was the obvious choice. I already knew the work, knew the people, and knew the problems before they became problems. My department had 34 people, and the whole site had around 560 employees.

Then the pandemic came, and like everywhere else, attendance became difficult. After a few months, management decided that anyone who wasn't salary would get a $6 raise. It sounded nice, and I was happy for my people, but that meant I had pickers and other employees under me making more than me. I never had a problem with my crew being paid well; they deserved it. But with the amount of responsibility I had, and the fact that I showed up every day through all of that, it felt like a slap in the face.

The thing that really broke me was when the Director suddenly hired his brother as Warehouse Manager. With absolutely no warehouse management experience. Before that, he had been working as a driver at UPS. I went straight to HR and got nowhere because HR and the Director were basically friends. After that, I was mentally done. This new manager would disappear for 2 to 4 hours at a time, was rarely on the floor, and it was obvious his main interest was hiring young girls.

I spent a while applying for jobs. I stopped coming in on Saturdays, stopped taking overtime, and stopped doing all the extra things no one was paying me for. I also stopped answering work calls and messages on my personal phone because they had never given me a company phone. Eventually I got an offer as an Operations Manager at a small family-owned company, and they seemed like they cared. I went to the Director and told him I needed to talk to him. His face changed immediately because I think he knew. We went into his office and I told him I had found another job and was giving my notice. He refused to accept it and asked me to give him 10 days so he could put together a counteroffer. The new job had given me 5 weeks before the start date, so I waited to see what he would come back with.

The ten days passed and I had to remind him that I was still waiting. His counteroffer was a $3 raise per hour. That was it. Not even the same $6 raise that most people had already gotten. When I told him that wasn't close to what the new company had offered, he said I was making it up. Then he started bringing up my disabled sister and saying it would be easier for me to stay because the job was close to my house by car. He knew I was the one who took my sister to her appointments because she can't walk. That part honestly disgusted me.

I should have walked out right then, but I finished the rest of my notice period because I wanted to end things the right way with my team. I went downstairs to tell them I was leaving, and before I even got to my office, he called me and told me not to say anything so people wouldn't start quitting or looking for other jobs. I told him that if they wanted to leave, they would leave whether I told them now or later. I told the team and they were furious. It felt like a family breaking apart, because that's really how close we were. Over the next two weeks, I trained 4 different people on the different jobs I had been covering. On my last day, they threw me a surprise party with food they paid for out of their own pockets, because of course the company didn't pay. Saying goodbye to that crew after almost 8 years was extremely hard.

Now I'm an Operations Manager, working no more than 42 hours a week, and making more than twice what I used to make by a lot. I bring breakfast or lunch for my team every few weeks, but this time it's with company money. I still talk to the old crew, and from what they tell me, the place is falling apart. Turnover is out of control, people are quitting left and right, and the warehouse is nowhere near what it used to be.