Walked out of my job.
This was my first ever serving job and I knew there were a lot of red flags but I honestly enjoyed it for the most part. Even though there was shady shit going on like wage theft, people consistently doing drugs on the clock, the manager fucking employees, servers stealing tables, ect probably all kind of normal for this industry I assumed so I just kept my head down and did my job.
Anyways, there’s obviously been some stressful moments leading up to this but nothing I couldn’t handle or let roll off my back. Today though, wow I’m just still astonished. So it was pretty busy all tables were taken up except for one in the middle, we don’t have any of those stands to put trays on so if it’s heavy we just put them on tables. So, I was taking out a 3 tops food, which for context I worked at a southern dinner/ breakfast spot so every side comes on a separate plate and everyone gets individual breads ect, my point is it was actually like 8+ plates and very heavy. So as I was going out my manager was cleaning said middle table (surprising he was actually doing something for once) It was completely cleared he was just finishing wiping it down, so I put my tray there. Maybe I shouldn’t have but I did oh well. And he looked at me all pissy and was like hurry up then, so I replied with deal with it. Yes a bit snarky but I laughed with it and that kind of the culture here everyone says sarcastic comments to each other and pokes fun.
So, as I’m going back to the kitchen he comes up to me and is like “don’t ever say that to me again that wasnt funny.” And I said okay I’m sorry, kinda confused cause I didn’t even think it was a big deal. So I went to my work friend and told her about it and was just kind of like that was ridiculous hes dramatic. Nothing even that wild, but I guess he heard. So, he comes up to me yelling where genuinely every employee heard, and probably some customers saying how childish I am for talking to my coworker and that he’s not ridiculous and I’m disgusting for putting a table on a dirty table, like repeatedly yelling disgusting. Then is all like remember I’m the manager I will fire you. During all this I’m just looking at him kinda wide eyed shock just repeatedly saying okay I got it, im sorry, I getcha, ok. And he just kept berating me. Im probably not capturing it well cause I tend to kind of blackout during situations like these, so my memory isn’t the best I just know no one has ever talked to me like that except my momma.
The funny part of it all to me though is he immediately walked up to the hosts to talk shit about me, even though he was just saying hed fire me for doing it haha. So yeah I took a breath, thought about it, grabbed my shit and walked out. Maybe rash, maybe not even valid I’m not sure yet but it felt empowering to just say no, I’m not going to be spoken to like that. Like genuinely if he had just come up to me and had a normal conversation about it we would be cool beans but oh well, I already have a couple interviews set up for jobs actually in my career path so it all works out in the end.