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!

Yes! I was given a formal ‘warning’ for apparently poor performance on a waitressing job. I had no idea why as I’d worked really hard and had been warm and polite to all the customers. On another occasion and other shop assistant and I were told off by a manager for talking on the job when we’d been in separate sections of the store both tidying stock!

On both occasions I can only speculate that the managers had themselves been pulled up on something by their superiors so they decided to find junior staff to blame.

I practically think management courses should be mandatory, because there are plenty of really poor managers, and not one of them has training. I think it's a point of principle in my town not to have it, as my DCs have met some shockers.

I worked as a admin person part time. They were horrible. The wouldn't let me use windows so i had do use DOS which was a nightmare. After about two / three weeks they sacked me. They said they had asked the other staff and they said I was unfriendly. I was very shy, was in a different room to them, they were all qualified and it was a very odd set up generally.

I recently had to deal with a manager who was bullying a new graduate, so unfortunately I have recent experience of it happening. Pleased to report grad is now doing fine and the manager chose to leave us after a warning. It's nasty though.

Yep, two different roles.. I ended up with the sour faced old nurses on my side in my first role after an old witch of a woman pulled me by the arm out to a corridor and told me “listen you’ll do it my way I’m 20 years older than you I am your senior” and got told “the way you’re doing it is illegal, my seniors are nurses not anyone on the same level as me especially someone unqualified and the woman in the bed is 70years older than me does that make a blind bit of difference”. One of the nurses came up removed her from the room and the other helped me finish what we were doing, while commending me for not listening to her or taking her crap.

I took a temp job when I moved to cover me until I got into another healthcare role, wanted to find a nice place to work and one nearby etc so made sense to take a quick job that’d pay my bills, met the dragon.. literally several of the staff called her that.. anyone under 25 who breathed were wrong including management. How she still had a job was insane. Anyway we industry was fast food, we had a child vomit out over a table and it was me, the dragon, the manager (on his lunch) and two 16 year olds on shift. The two younger girls turned a greenish white as we all seen it happen, so I instantly said I’ll do it vomit doesn’t remotely bother me. Mum of child was extremely apologetic desperately trying to mop with napkins and I told her not to worry gave her a wad of blue roll to help clean her child and a few bin bags, one for his and her dirty clothes one to make a makeshift dress/car seat cover to get him home and another two for barf bags. I started cleaning it and sectioned off the area around me so no one trailed it further, I did take my time and made sure it was 100% sparkling as well who the hell would want to sit down n find vomit under their table while eating. For reference the blue roll I used to soak it up filled a bag. I changed out my sanitiser and mop buckets and re did the area to make sure it was properly clean.. no massive que had appeared nothing thrilling happened while I was elbows deep. I went back in and the dragon herself told me I’d took too long that I’d been fucking about and I should’ve just wiped it with a cloth the sanitiser would kill the germs... the manager came out with a wtf look and told her before I did that I indefinitely knew infection control policies better than her and no way in hell would a wipe be sufficient (poor bugger saw it on cctv) and that it didn’t matter how long it took as we’d had 3 customers in the full time I’d been out there. She made my shifts hell until I left.. anything she could’ve done she did, I’m so glad that was a job to fill a gap not my only hope of income. She also berated a colleague in front of me (kitchen staff) for being “fucking stupid” as he was colour blind so couldn’t work the tills as he couldn’t do any orders that didn’t involve just 1 section of the menu.

Yes. A job at 15. They paid me in 20ps . Shouted at me when they were fed up of telling me what to do.
The manager's husband touched my bum. Scumbag

My daughter is going through this is at the moment- three colleagues are being vile to her - she reckons they are in their 50's. They do things purposely to trip her up. Manager asked their side over hers as she is only a slip of a thing.

It is really affecting her mental health.

I am a 50 yr old woman and for the life of me I cannot understand why anyone can bully anyone else.

Yes, happened to me twice. Once at 17 and then at 23/24. In both cases they didn't like anyone they deemed intelligent, young, pretty and popular. The bullying is because they are insecure and it makes them feel better about themselves. Take it as a compliement and try not to take it personally. Politely and calmly stand your ground and never, ever let them see you cry. It does help build a back bone for working life. Look back and pity them.

yes. In Oxford in the 90’s. Manager suggested I apply for an internal promotion and I got the job ahead of a woman who’d been there forever. She wasn’t great at her job and spent ages making personal calls. She was fine with me before I got “her job” and a complete bitch afterwards. Making deliberate mistakes to try to get me into trouble.
Ignoring me. Getting others to gang up. I left to have a baby. Would have gone back if it wasn’t for her. She even wrote something shitty on the maternity leave card they wrote. I didn’t go to my leaving do to avoid her and the bitchy others!