Hey, Cookie

I loved the job, working for a cookie company, itself, but it was the district manager (my direct supervisor) that made it suck. I was hired in to be trained as a manager, which had me working very long shifts (including a 28 hour shift because I had to work my normal shift, train the closer, then train the opener and then work my normal shift). Soon after, our payroll checks started bouncing and it would take weeks sometimes to get paid. April 20 was a big sales day so my supervisor over ordered stock, which is “shipped” to us via the back of her Jeep from five hours away, and when we got it all loaded in the coolers I called her to ask her where to put the stuff that wouldn’t fit and she told me leave it in the floor of the office. Raw cookie dough. So I told her it had eggs in it and I will not be putting it in the office floor.

“It is frozen at -22 degrees, it’ll be fine,” she reasoned. I told her the only place it was going in the office (which by the way was a one bedroom apartment she would stay in when she drove down to our city) would be the fridge, which meant I threw out all of her food out to do so. She got mad and told me to talk to the landlord of the office and see if he could find a place for it. While on the phone I told her the cooler in the truck wasn’t sounding right and didn’t seem to keep temperature, she said I was imagining things and to do as I’m told. A few days later I told her the same thing. By the end of the week it no longer was holding the dough at a safe temperature and I told her I wasn’t going to sell it. She told me my job was to make cookies, I told her I will not poison the customers, especially since the fire department guys were always getting them from us, and that I was closing the truck up.

She told me to sell brownies, which we never did well with. So $5 in brownie sales and five hours later, she called to tell me to go home and asked why I didn’t do it sooner.  She was also slurring a lot and doesn’t remember talking to me before about it. She made the closer she hired manager because he didn’t question her authority like I did. I had been bugging her to give me a cutoff date for when the delivery drivers would be laid off so I could let them know. She kept telling me she’d let me know soon and finally told me it was none of my business she would let the other manager know. Three days before the day I assumed the drivers would be let go I found out we’re not working at all during the summer. I called her to ask her how she can give us three days notice and not expect us to be pissed about it and she told me I needed to watch how I spoke to her.

The last day of work I grabbed the register bag and drawer and got in the truck. Once parked I started setting up and noticed there wasn’t any money in the bag. I called her to let her know and said I was going to report it as soon as I was off the phone with her I just wanted to double check what protocol was. She was really calm and said not to worry about it, she’d call the landlord to see what he wants to do about it. I called the drivers and told them not to come and one of them told me he had just got off the phone with her and she told him she wouldn’t be surprised if I took it. I called the cops and also let them know I found a pack of her cigarettes in the truck that morning, which I did, but she supposedly hadn’t been in town for several weeks, also noting how odd it was that the employee checks were missing as well from the hiding spot.