Thrown In The Deep End
When I was fifteen, I started working at a big chain grocery store as a cashier. I continued to work there until I left for college. When I came back home on my first summer break, I was willing to work at the same store, but wanted something that would pay a little more. There was a job opening in the produce department, preparing items for the salad bar, chopping fruits and vegetables for prepared platters, etc. I was told I’d work about 30 hours a week, which was great and just the right amount of time for a summer job.
What I wasn’t told was that the very particular, very demanding woman training me (Donna) would be taking a three week vacation just days after I started “training.” With very little training to go on, I suddenly found myself at work starting at 5 a.m. six days a week. I was left to manage the department (imagine being 18-years-old and left in charge of seasoned veterans who has been working at this store for 20+ years). I was responsible for checking inventory, accepting deliveries off trucks and having to painstakingly go through truckfulls of pre-prepared food for the salad bar, getting it up and ready before the lunch rush and dealing with insanely demanding customers all day long. I did the best I could to maintain, and thought I did a damn fine job for having so little training.
I had one of my few days off on Donna’s first day back. I came into work the next day, I found a three page long, hand-written, aggressively threatening note outlining everything I did wrong and why I should be ashamed. I went to the store manager’s office and said I could no longer continue to work for Donna. The manager reassigned me to a new department. When Donna heard about this, she found me in the new department, dragged me out by my shirt, and told me we needed to talk. The store manager luckily intercepted her. I took off my work shirt and immediately left the store, never to return.
Proving karma does exist, I recently learned that Donna was fired for embezzling. It was a good feeling.
I worked at a restaurant where there was a “Donna” type. He was always right, always the best, and always doing what the owner or manager preferred. In his mind, he was the greatest. He even had a phony laugh he would do when other people made mistakes because it was so beneath him! Needless to say, he, too, was fired. His crime? Stealing customers credit cards in order to make purchases online. They all get theirs in the end.
What a whack job. And that was very irresponsible of the store to leave you hanging like that.
A prime example of a manager who enjoys the power trip aspect of a manager way too much. People like that make the worst managers
In the American version of karma, bad actions are retributed in the same life, a few months later.
lol. She really is the Wicked Witch…obviously she found someone who she saw as a poor flunky who would be her slave.
Dont’cha just love it when karma comes around and bites the Donnas of the world on their asses?
Wait… this woman left you a three page threatening note and then physically harrassed you, management were aware of this and intercepted and yet they continued to employ her? Bullying and physical harrassment isn’t a sacking offence, but touch the money and watch the retribution happen.
I know there has to be a balance between profits and workforce happiness, but that’s ridiculous.