Was anyone ever horrible to you at work as a young person?

[asblackasyoursoul]

I’m 20 now and currently up with a stomach bug and overthinking life.
I’m just thinking about how I had a few waitressing jobs a few years ago, one being when I was 17 in a cafe.

One woman there was the ‘food prepper’. She was ok with me for the first week or so then would start blaming me for things that had happened, can’t remember specifics but I do remember other members of staff would have to correct her and say it was actually them and she’d go ‘oh ok’

I would go in and say hello to her in the morning, how are you doing, and get completely blanked. She was very chatty and lovely to everyone else so I never understood what it was about me.
One time I remembered from the day before it was her birthday that day, I walked in and said ‘happy birthday x!’ and got completely blanked again.

She was just generally nasty to me, at one point she shouted and ranted at me in front of all the customers for ‘standing on the wrong side of the counter’ as we were apparently meant to stand on the outside at all times as to look available, I was stood on the inside polishing cutlery.

At that point I was so embarrassed I said to her almost in tears “can we talk in the kitchen X?”
So I asked her if she had a problem with me, completely denied it and from then on was nice as pie as she was clearly worried I was going to speak to the manager about her. However we both knew the cafe was shutting down in a few months so we’d be made redundant anyway.

It was also little things like when I was going into the kitchen to bring out food she’d be angrily raising her voice at me for whatever mundane reason, whereas all the other waitresses she was nice as pie to and had a laugh with them.
I was never late or lazy in my work, as far as I could see I didn’t give her any reason to dislike me.
It was very cliquey there and I always got on with my work and was friendly but everyone had their friends there so I just generally got on with it.

This is a bit of a long winded one but I’ve wondered for years why on earth she was so horrible to me and wondered if anyone had any similar stories!

There were lots of little other things I can’t remember details of right now but I do remember it got to the point where I actually dreaded going into work when she was on and was relieved if she wasn’t working that day!

She also at one point referred to the waitressing staff as “my staff” and another staff member corrected her jokingly saying “your staff?!”
We were on the same level... she was nowhere above any of us!

I think what you describe is pretty common. It certainly happened to me in my very first job, which was also in a cafe. In that job, and the one after it, they also used to conveniently 'forget' to pay me.

Yes first "proper" graduate job in Early 20s

Line Manager used to tear me to shreds at every supervision and leave me feeling like I was absolute shit at my job. I think it was partially because I'd embarrassed her by being more knowledgeable and erudite about the subject in external situations.

She kept going about me wanting the "kudos" from something my predecessor had set up, but actually I hated what he'd done and found it self serving for his ego as opposed to helping those who it was actually for

It was a charity but I was externally funded and everybody I dealt with externally thought I was great at my job and enjoyed working with me.

I hated going in the office because of the atmosphere because I knew that a "find an excuse to slag 100 off" culture had emerged. A sympathetic colleague warned me about it but when I mentioned it to the CEO said colleague took a bollocking and then withdrew the friendship. I felt so lost.

I slowly came fo realise that they had wanted to abolish my role and replace it for some time and they had only employed me because they didn't think I could hack it and therefore would fail and they could replace the role so my succeeding made them annoyed not proud and they looked for excuses that I was bad. Eventually the role was replaced, the external funder said they were happy for me to be moved over into the new role without having to interview. Charity insisted it wasn't their policy and made me redundant. I knew that if I applied for this job I wouldn't get it and I refused to be humiliated. I knew I was being sacked under the guise of redundancy even though they had no grounds for sacking me other than finding me uppity and an upstart

Later, someone I knew at a volunteer gig who knew some of my ex colleagues, told me that two of my former colleagues had left the charity and both had cited me and the way I was bullied in their resignations.

Though this was a bit satisfying, on reflection, neither of those men ever came to me and told me what they thought, asked if I was ok, or offered me support, they just sat silently by, and then left in this "I have principles" way. So it was bittersweet.

Yes. I was 16 and on my first day the manager was vile to me. Just eye rolling, telling me off in front of everyone and speaking to me like shit, told me I was stupid. I went home on the bus in tears, but luckily she left a week later and moved to another branch and I went on to work there happily for 4 years.

I had a cash-in-hand job aged 14 at a cattery on Saturday mornings. A friend from school and I worked alternate weekends and while she was always treated kindly, for some reason I was not. I was told off by the owner for spurious reasons - petting the (lonely, crying) cats, having finished my work early, trying to do "too good a job and showing everyone up", being too generous with the amount of litter in the cat litter trays... the list went on. One morning I went to find the owner as usual so she could give my work the OK (something my friend did not have to do). She was nowhere to be found in the cattery so I knocked on the front door of her house (adjacent to the cattery building), to be told, "I don't want you at my house. That's why I have a separate building for the cats - so people like you don't come here."

My mum was horrified when I told her and told me she'd give me the same wages in cash not to go back.

It's been more than 20 years and I still don't know what I did to offend the lady. Cow

Yes - summer temp job, not quite my first job but I was 19. Woman who had to have her tea made in a particular way by dunking her teabag 7 times (not 6 or 8) into the water and then giving it to her. She was horrible in many ways but her ridiculous tea making requests stick out the most. Thankfully it was only 2 months

Yes, at my first real job after graduation there was an older collegue who was sneaky and very blunt at the same time - horrible combination.
She even falsely accused me of stealing something from her in front of my manager and an intern. I complained about it later to the manager but he just brushed me off saying I should complain to her about it. Looking back, I should have reported it to HR and raise hell: it was completely out of line. I was too scared back then to get bullied even more.

A few years later, I had climbed up in the company, being a senior/teammanager at that time in a different location whilst she had stayed in the same position.

Guess who applied to work in my team and wanted the job really badly but got rejected by me?

Yes it was my first job after leaving college. Major government department and i was bullied by a woman who was one admin grade above me. She was vile towards me, used to criticise my work and 'warn' me about the big bosses temper. I was young and naive and I internalised it, in hindsight I should have spoken out and I did after 6 months of misery and I moved to another department.

What got to me was the way my colleagues behaved, all a lot older and more experienced. They just sat back and ignored me being bullied but I heard on the grapevine that they had been commenting privately on how I was being treated but they didn't help me. Utterly disgraceful.

Not really. I've been in various jobs since aged 13 (17 years ago).
I've done waitressing, cashier etc through teenage years and uni and never really experienced anything much. Other than one supervisor trying to tell me what sort of bra to where to work, but she was just weird.
Since graduating, I've worked in the construction industry and never had any trouble. There's no bitchiness, but the team and department are male dominated and they just get on with it. No ill treatment for either my age, or gender.

Yup. Worked in Monsoon/Accessorise and the manager had the biggest chip on her shoulder and was a downright bullu and was horrible to everyone who worked there. I remember her once arguing with me that she’d been told by her doctor to drink 8 LITRES of water a day, and wouldn’t back down when someone else pointed out that you’d drown if you drink that much and perhaps it was glasses and not litres?! Eedjit. Would argue that black was white if she thought she was right. If you’re reading this Janice, you are a twat.

Yep. I worked as a receptionist at 18 and the other receptionists were nicknamed 'the rotweillers' after what they did to me. Putting me down in front of people, blaming me for things I didn't do. Teaching me to do something then saying that was the wrong way to do it.
It seriously contributed to a struggle with anxiety and depression which went on for years afterwards.
I left and moved on, it taught me a hell of A alot about how not to treat people. And about how I react to certain things. The nastiest women I've ever met, I only worked there for 8 months but it felt like a life time. I'm 24 now and often wonder if they realise how much of an effect they had on my life in a negative sense

Oh God yes! My first seat for my Training Contract! I was working alongside a Solicitor in Family Law. She was a really really vile woman, clicked her fingers to get my attention, absolutely awful to every member of staff she encountered. Awful. I did actually learn a lot from her, including how not to turn into a person anything near resembling her!

Worked at a very small company who made circuit boards. They'd finished an order and piled the boxes on the chairs and workbench. For some reason the cleaner thought they were empty and threw them out.

Next morning the boss starts screaming at me that it was my fault for not making sure they were put away properly (not remotely part of my job and I was in another part of the building - long gone home by the time the cleaners came round). Wouldn't listen to anything I tried to say.

He made me climb in the skip with the youngest bloke who worked there to find them.

I wish I could say I never went back but I stayed another two months.

I used to work in a restaurant where the chefs would tell me to fuck off. All/ most of them. Every day. Every time I tried to talk to them. As in "can table 1 have chips now while they wait and not with the main meal". I'd get as far as "Can table...." And they'd say "fuck off". Not in a funny way, really hostile. So table 1 would have to wait for chips to arrive with the mains. I don't know why they disliked me so much. Bizarrely it didn't bother me though. A colleague said something about it to me one day and I just shrugged it off.

I asked one of the prep chefs one day if it was ok to use a chopping board for bread, that it hadn't been used to chop raw chicken or something and he patronizingly and aggressively lectured me about "never making assumptions" . As if it's likely that you could never be sure a board in the kitchen was clean before using it. On reflection maybe that was his point, but he could have just said "if it's over there it's ok to use" . Dickheads, the whole lot of them.

God, yes! I was surprised when people started being nice to me (mid-twenties by that time).

Even then I knew the causes: resentment of young women liable to be more successful than the aggressor; fear of being ‘shown up’ by somebody cleverer with new ideas; bitterness at somebody having had opportunities they were denied, the desire to feel more important by taking me down a peg or two.

My first proper job, on a prestigious grad scheme for a manufacturing business, was characterised by women (always women, I’m sorry to say) deciding that I ‘thought I was better than everybody else because I’d been to university’ (I didn’t, actually; my parents had worked in factories), and ‘should start at the bottom like everyone else’ (and, presumably, stay there, being put in my place daily by them).

In sixth form I had a summer job in the office of a local business (imagine that now). When my colleagues found out what A levels I was doing, and where I was applying to study, didn’t they try to put me in my place! The office manager told me that if I studied really hard and was very lucky, I might one day get a job like hers. Yeah, I’d do a maths degree at a top university then come back to this crap business to sit around smoking and supervising filing...if I was lucky!

Yes. My first job straight out of school was as an office junior, I was a skinny little thing and she didn’t like it for whatever reason, she was always telling me I was too thin and I needed a decent meal, she used to bring food in for me and literally force me to eat it, I mean stand over me and tell me to eat it up. It was a tiny little office with no heating so she had 2 smelly electric heaters going whilst chain smoking and no ventilation. I went to college one day a week, I broke down and told my tutor, she found me a new placement within a week. Horrible experience.

Yes I worked in an Estate Agents as Office Junior. The Manager was awful to me. I did my job well and often worked in the Accounting Department which I loved. She was always stinking of alcohol and garlic.

One day she called me into her office and accused me of hiding filing. I told her I hadn't but she just kept yelling at me, so I calmly walked to my desk got my bag and walked out. A work colleague found me sitting in Rose Street an hour later scared to go home. Thankfully my parents were fine with me. The next day her boss the big guy at top phoned me at home but I didn't want to go back, I found another job in no tine.

She was proper evil though. Her name was Lesley.

Yup. My first job straight after school. I started working in a very small theme park. I started on the rides and quickly was moved into the tills and became head of tills soon after. An administration role come up and my manager suggested I applied. I did and got the job. I was replacing someone who had been there for years and new the job inside out. I had 1 shift has a handover and that was it. I didn't know how to do a lot of things (there we're other admin that did) so I would often have to ask them. The theme park manager (not my first manager) HATED that the girl I replaced was leaving and just went out of his way to be a cunt to me. Wouldn't let me leave on time, would shout at me for no reason in front of the entire staff and customers. Blamed me for things I had no baring over (lights going out?!). Eventually after a pretty horrific shift of being blamed for not submitting working time regs (not my job, the admin manager's job!) and being made to work 4 hours after my shift ended I plucked up the courage to walk out. The theme park closed a few months later and I laughed and laughed as it was his literal baby. I blame him for my anxiety issues and massive imposter syndrome I have.
Subsequently every manager I had after that said how brilliant I was (not to toot my own horn) and couldn't believe some of the things he did to me (threw my bag and purse out the window into the carpark for example because his coffee was late). TWAT

Yes.

I was 13. Owner treated me appallingly but I told him where to go, very loudly, hoping his wife would hear. I thought I would lose my summer job but I didnt and he never tried it again. I moved jobs for next summer season.

Also something not dissimilar in my first real "career" job. That could have ended so differently so I just complained to him that he had made me feel very uncomfortable and next time I would raise it with my training manager and ask to never work in that office again. I crossed my fingers a bit on that one but it worked and he never repeated it.

Thats all! Everyone else has been great.

I worked in a supermarket as a teenager. One of the managers was a middle aged woman who had just been left by her partner. She was vile to me. Always making fun of my height, my hair, my (large) boobs. She frequently made me cry in the stockroom. Until one day when another teen working there stood up for me. He was amazing and put in a formal complaint. She went in the office and we never saw her there again. I understand she was having a shit time at home but that was no excuse. I still think of him and how brave he was to stand up for me when the other adult staff wouldn't ❤

Yes

Temp office job...late teens. Women leaving the office at end of day, saying goodbye to everyone. Gets to me says "bye.... clearly can't remember my name so continues with "bye girl". Fucking bitch..

I started work at 17 years of age in a police station in the 1970s, and all I'll say is that Life On Mars wasn't a complete work of fiction.

In my case the bully who was an arse licker to those above her, was feeding negative & untrue stuff about me to the big boss of the dept. This boss on one occasion, screamed at me across the office in front of other colleagues, utterly humiliating me, and is now a self employed ' executive coach'. Horrible woman. Some offices are just utterly toxic.
I do look back and think it's a shame that my first taste of real employment was so horrible and damaging for me. It was an early but useful lesson to learn that in the workplace, you really are on your own. No one will support you or stuck up for you. Self employment all the way for me now....

Def think my bully felt threatened by me, don't know why, I was just a young person, who could have benefitted from a bit of kindness & support. I just wanted to do my job and do it well but I was never welcome from day one.

To many to add and prob outing....

17 working in a pub, one of the managers used to follow me into the basement and was, well, inappropriate... he was in his 40s and had kids older then me.... I was like a deer in headlights and no idea what to do.

First job in London at around 19/20 on a pub night out, one of the "traders" who was a wanna be toff... called me a chav in front of everyone... not just in a banter way... but he was asking me to say things to see if I would say them incorrectly ... then he said you don't sound like a chav but you are one. And then proceeded to cal me a chav all evening. Again I was young and he was in his 40s... I did stick up for myself to an extent but gave up after a while.

Same job I was talking to a friend about what dress I'd worn to a work Christmas party... I said it was low cut.... male over heard and said "why would you wear that... you don't have any breasts"
At that point in my life again was young and unconfident, especially about my boobs! I cried on the way home.

I like to think that I'm more savvy and now and not so much a push over, and if someone said something to me know I'd have the front to give it back. But I'm also hopeful that I won't ever have to!!