Work

This is a true story. It all happened somewhere in yesterday...

    So work lately (I work in a thrift store that I will not name here) has been frustrating me and a lot of my coworkers lately, so I feel I should also talk about my opinions on the matter. Since this is a blog about the past, I will keep it there. The way things have been going at this job reminds me a lot of my last job: McDonald's (Yes, we've all done our time at some fast food restaurant during high school).

    When I worked at McDicks (as I lovingly refer to it) I got promoted pretty quickly to a crew trainer*. It was pretty cool because I got more responsibility and more money (that's the thing about the place I work now. More responsibility doesn't always mean more money). Anyways, I did that for a while before I got bored of it and talked to my Restaurant Manager about another promotion to Team Leader*. This is where the problems started. When you're becoming a Team Leader you get what's called a shadow- a manager who helps train you to be a Team Leader. I was given the one Manager that my Restaurant Manager* disliked as my shadow. So, naturally there was some hostility between him and the RM. This shouldn't have affected my promotion, but I soon learned that the Restaurant Manager was trying to get me to fail as she struggled against me every step of the way while she helped every other crew trainer who was training for the promotion at the time. For background, we needed to go take a class in Vancouver to get promoted. When this class was coming up for me, I discovered that everyone else had been scheduled to take it except for me. Which is ridiculous because I had been there the longest out of the lot of us. Anyways, I did end up getting into the class only because one of the others couldn't make it that day and they had already paid for his position in the class.

    So when I finished the class I got promoted, right? Wrong. No, I got back from the class after doing really well in it and still didn't get the promotion. Apparently, I still needed to know how to do a travel path (walk around and check that everything was clean) and do one for every day for a week. This was retarded. So, I jumped through the hoops and did it. Then, finally I went up to the restaurant Manager and told her I had done what she asked. Finally, she gives me this look of defeat and says she'll promote me. Took freaking forever.

    No, things didn't stop after that. After that, everyone was being promoted to Swing Managers*. I figured, why not me? So, I tried for it really hard and this time, the Restaurant Manager didn't even attempt to pretend that she wanted me promoted. Instead, she gave me this BS line about how all the managers needed to vote unanimously for my promotion and "they" (I'm pretty sure it was only her) had decided that I was too nice to the crew to be promoted. Are you kidding me? One of the requirements for a promotion there was a good repor with the crew. They had to be willing to listen to you. Since I had trained the vast majority of them, they all listened to me quite well. They instead promoted a couple of people who I think were not suited for management. Everyone thought they were idiots who couldn't do their jobs. There was no respect for them because they didn't earn it. Well, it was more of one specific person who was like that. Anyways, I never got that promotion and ended up moving to Victoria and getting my current job and going to school.

    Anyways, as I said. I'm feeling like it's a similar situation where I work now. I don't begrudge them for not promoting me right now, however, because I understand their reasons. I'm not full time. My hours don't work out properly for me to be a supervisor. I do however, think that the person who did get promoted was not a good choice. I sometimes feel like I don't want to go to work just because he's there. I keep feeling so frustrated around him. When I'm asked to help him however I can to make him a better supervisor and he refuses to listen to my advice, I'm forced to say that I can't help him anymore. It's impossible to teach someone who won't learn.

So, my assignment today is for you to not back down about something you believe in. Don't be silent if you have a problem at work. I'm not. I talked to someone yesterday about the whole situation. Hopefully it will be dealt with.

-Ciao!