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Trouble at work

Man, with some people it's nothing but drama drama drama. They need to get a life or stop taking them selves so personally. Here's a nice little rant about what's going on at the one location of hot sauce shop I'm working for. I work at two (Legacy Village and Hudson). They are both "seperate businesses" with the same name and same product (I guess they do this to get around some laws or something). The Legacy one is owned by Brian and the Hudson is owned by his mother, Karen.

On Friday I'm at the Hudson location and the computer won't come out of screen saver mode. I let it sit for about 5 minutes, still nothing, so I restart. Things act slow and at the end of the night I go to print out the reports. It comes up with an error about exporting to a pdf and it won't print. I restart again and get the same error. I call the boss, Karen, tell her what's happened and she says the computer probably thinks the printer is off line. It's happened before and she'll talk to Brian over the phone and he'll walk her threw how to fix it.

I go to work on Saturday and the other worker said, "Thank god you weren't her five minutes ago. Karen was here and she was rip shit." He told me that apperently the computer had been changed from the defult setting to something else and that's why it wouldn't print, also there was some sort of pdf program that was installed and on top of that the internet histories had been erased (which had some web addresses on there that she uses and now can't find them....what a stupid place to have something, this is why there is a favorites folder on internet explorer).

So, she is convinced that it was me that did these molicous things and is absolutely ripshit. She told the guy after he said kindly to her,, "Hope you have a better day.", she responded with, "Go to hell". What a bitch!

Appearently, I'm not the only one she uses as a scape goat and that guys fed up with it too. She's said some nasty tihngs to me before too. First time, I wrote it off, second time I thought she was just having a bad day, thrid time I just bit my tongue, and now this. I've never seen someone act so innapropriatly about something. She, without talking to me, accuses me of something, flies off the handle and tells all the other employees what "I did" (which I didn't do), and then...get this...she calls her son and gets him to talk to me.

He calls me and says, "I have no idea why I'm in the middle of this." I explain things to him, and he says, "I believe you. There's no reason why I should be talking to you. That's just bad management on her part". So I spend all day yesturday and this morning fumming about it. She's still pissed at me (hasn't been into the shop though).

Today, and this is where it gets creepy both in the jerky and strange sense of the word. We have cameras in the shop (multiple angles) and they feed directly to her house. She spend all day watching us (from 12 to 6pm). How do I know this? Because she kept calling us when we couldn't find something. She did that four times!

Monday I'm going to have a talk with Brian and see if I could still work at his location if I quit the other location. How unprofessional of this lady and creepy too! She hasn't even called to talk to me while I was at work. The one time I answered the phone she barked at me to hand it to the other employee. WOW!

I'm in no position financially to loose my job in that location. But this is just too much. Sorry for the rant guys. What do you think?
 
Maybe she is sexually frustrated, so you have options there!!!!:P

But really, I don't know what your state and/or federal laws are like but in Australia we have a government body called "WorkCover" and they handle all these sorts of problems and if you are wrongfully sacked then we have the "department of fair Trading" to put your complains too.

If she doesn't confront you about it and talks about it to others, then she doesn't have a leg to stand on, if you decide to put workplace harassment changes on her. All depends on if your fellow workers would stand up with you.
 
Well, in the States, most non-salary work is "at-will". Meaning you can be fired for any reason at any time. Retail & Restaurants are esp. bad for this..HUGE turnover rate because they are cheap, non-benefit jobs mostly.

Exception would be if it's a Union job.

gl, man, hope it gets better. :)
 
I was in a similiar situation last year. I know very well that it sucks to work under such conditions. It's hard to give advice, because everyone's different and as it was said, your job is at her will, so if you don't wanna lose it, you gotta go easy at first and see if her son will back you up.

In my case, my contract ended Dec 31st and I didn't ask for another one, I was signed off at that time anyway, but I figured I'd be happier without a job than I'd be if working with her any longer.
 
That sounds horrible IGG. I've worked in similar situations before and know that it just plain sucks! My advise would be to bite your tongue and look for another job and quit once you have found it. That way you're leaving on your terms and not burning any bridges.
 
Philipperv said:
Hey how did this work out?
Well, she didn't mention it to me and seems like things went to normal. Then I come into work on this last Friday and she flies off the handle again and flips out. I quit right then and there. But, I'm still at the other location (Legacy Village)...albiet, 15.5 hours a week which isn't enough....sucks, but had to be done. At least I still have some cash flow.
 
it's always better to tell them to stick the job rather than give them the satisfaction of treating you like shit then firing you.
A dead kennedys song springs to mind!
 
You know im not to famillar with american labor laws but it cant be too off from basic canadian labor laws..Cameras in a store are used for theft..Anything more than that well they cant say s@@t.they cant use them to harass you or make you work harder..Thats why we have labor boards...#2 anything happens take notes times places in store etc so you have your ass backed up..You do accordingly when the sh@t hits the fan your as@ is covered and she is nailed...Hope this helps
Forgot to add when you take notes on a situation have a witness
 
imaguitargod said:
Well, she didn't mention it to me and seems like things went to normal. Then I come into work on this last Friday and she flies off the handle again and flips out. I quit right then and there. But, I'm still at the other location (Legacy Village)...albiet, 15.5 hours a week which isn't enough....sucks, but had to be done. At least I still have some cash flow.

You made the right decision. A lot of people don't know how to treat their employees. I was fired by the owner of a large taxi company in Vegas when he accused me of using a cab for my own personal use when I was giving a ride home to another driver on the clock. Collected 6 months of unemployment on his ass! ;)
 
Glad to hear that you have moved on. You don't need to be treated the way she was, nobody does and who knows, maybe another door is just waiting to open up for you.
 
you can't see it now, but maybe you will in the future....just remember the old saying....what goes around comes around...
 
Hey IGG,
With your knowledge of sauces and your contacts in the hot sauce world, I'm pretty sure she doesn't realise what a great resource has been lost.

With your connections, perhaps you should consider your own store around the corner?
 
ring sting said:
Hey IGG,
With your knowledge of sauces and your contacts in the hot sauce world, I'm pretty sure she doesn't realise what a great resource has been lost.
True, true. I was upselling everyone to better/pricier sauces (and selling a heck of alot of CaJohn and Defcon's stuff...still am doing that at the Legacy Village location though).
 
Crummy story IGG, some real losers out there.

I have a staff of four employees and it can be tough to manage, but that lady just went way beyond inappropriate.

On a different note, is sauce making/retailing profitable? I guess anything can be if you work it right...
 
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