Am I in trouble at work?

[Thecakewhisperer9]

For background before I begin: I was abused as a child along with my 4 siblings by our parents. It continued until I was a teenager and ran away to start a life alone. I tried to help my siblings but they turned on me and accused me of lying about the abuse, taking our parents side and to this day still have a relationship with them and made me the black sheep. I haven’t seen them for 3-5 years but I know vague details of their lives/ where they live etc as we still have mutual friends and live fairly local. I’ve been very lucky to never bump into my ‘parents’ or had any contact so my life has worked out great for me ever since as I was always terrified they’d hunt me down and force me to come back.

Today my mother walked in to my place of work and came over to be served. I noticed her immediately as I got a horrible feeling and sensed something wasn’t right before I looked up and recognised who was coming towards me. In fear I ran away out of the back door to the kitchen and asked a staff member to serve as I’m feeling very unwell. They told me they cannot serve and I need to go out and serve ‘the lady’ waiting to place her order. I refused and went to the toilets to cry. Luckily someone else did serve and she left before knowing I worked there, but I was in an awful state shaking and crying as it brought back all the abuse I’d endured for many years. If she knew I worked there she may come in often to intimidate me and I would have to leave so I had no choice but to hide for my own safety and security.

I somehow managed to continue with my shift until lunch and came home as normal. I just received an email from my manager telling me to come in early tomorrow as my actions were very unprofessional and they need to speak to me. I’m scared I will lose my job. It took me a lot of effort to get any job when I had no home or money at 15 so I have worked hard to get where I am just for my so called mother to ruin something else for me. If I come clean is it possible my manager will be sympathetic and give me another chance or do I continue with the feeling unwell story for confidentiality?
thanks for reading and sorry it’s so rushed I’m still shaking and my partner is at work so I have no one to have a proper conversation with about it until later tonight.

Tell your manager, they might be able to help you make a plan for if she comes in again.

Tell the truth

My son had this exact experience with mother who we've been NC with for 10 years. She came into his place of work - not knowing he worked there and approached him directly to be served when she could have joined one of 3 other queues.

He did serve her. Unfortunately, she was true to form and tried to destabilise him and speak badly of me in the process. she showed no awareness or concern for the fact he hadn't seen her since he was a child, nor that he was at work.

He handled it well, went on his break immediately afterwards and broke down in the work staffroom. His manager came in and found him, my son explained what had happened and was told he'd never be expected to serve her again and could effectively close his till or call for someone else if she came in again.

He no longer works there (it was a part time job while he was at university) but was reassured by his managers response.

There is a code of conduct you are expected to follow but your employer also has a duty of care to their employees.

From your manager's perspective, without knowing the details, I can understand why they would think it unprofessional. You need to be honest with them at the meeting tomorrow and tell them your reasons. You shouldn't be in trouble.

Thank you all I emailed my manager an explanation so hopefully that will help, but I’ve made the decision to find another job as I will never be able to relax. It’s 45 minutes from where she lives and she doesn’t drive so I’m not sure why she was there. The worry is that she has moved locally and will be a regular customer so I can’t take that risk. Unfortunately we can’t move further just yet as my partner is tied to a work contract for the next 10 months, it’s on our doorstep and would be silly to spend extra money before it ends.