I don’t want to go to work today.

[EmpressOfTheSofa]

I’m stuck.

I love my job most of the time. I’ve only been there for six months, and it was meant to be a sideways move to do fewer hours/less stress than my previous role. Haha.

But this is my second week in a row of working a six day week. Today is day one of an eight day run of working. I am not coping well at all, I’m on my feet all day so when I get home I have nothing left. The house is a disaster zone, DH wfh and does most of the housework and childcare but he’s shit at cleaning so on my day off I end up blitzing.

My team are fucking useless, mainly, will never work extra hours even when it’s to save me from 16 hours unpaid overtime, call me constantly when I do get time off. Head office are horrendous micro managers, I got audited recently and only got 85% because there was an extra price label on a shelf (not incorrect, just duplicated) and two items were in the wrong order on the shelf (four things the same but diff flavours, middle two were the wrong way round).

I’m stressed all the time. I need to change something. I’ve just called and told the team I’ll be in late because I can’t get my head round getting up this morning, I am literally still in bed and need to leave in ten minutes.

I left ‘early’ last week on hour 54 instead of staying until hour 56 and one of the team reported me to my area manager (he gave her short shrift, thankfully, but that is the attitude they have towards me).

I’ve lost all love for the place and the role.

WIBU to jack it in and get a min wage job for less stress? Or will the stress follow me? I earn £28k for context, not mega bucks.

Yes, jack it in if you can afford to. Or at least seek other employment before jacking it in.

I'm fairly sure there's a lot less stressful jobs with fewer hours for that sort of salary! I earn double what you do and there's no way I would be doing 16 hours of unpaid overtime a week.

Doing 16 hours unpaid overtime when you’re only on 28k is absolutely absurd, I’d be taking a sick day and spending the day looking for and applying for other jobs if I were you.
I don’t say “only on 28k” as a scoff by the way, that’s more than I earn, but there’s no way in hell I’d be working unpaid overtime on a regular basis for a job with that kind of salary.

Retail management is underpaid and underappreciated. I earn nearly that in an admin job after 3 years of payrises. Jump ship!

Start looking for another job! In the meantime, can you get a cleaner?

Why are you working 2x 6-day weeks? Why is it unpaid overtime? Are you understaffed?

Why do you give a fuck about 85% and labels/merchandise slightly wrong? Laugh it off. None of the consumers care.

Are you putting extra pressure on yourself and should you be pushing back to management more about staffing levels?

Phone in sick and spend the day looking for alternative work.
They're taking the piss and life’s too short

Sounds like you need firmer boundaries with your existing staff too. Have you had management support/training?

Taking into account the extra hours you are doing, are you actually earning less than minimim.wage? You certainly cant be more than a few pence over.

No way is that salary worth that much stress (or any salary, if.you ask me - but if they are going to treat you like that they should be making it much more worth your while in some way). Jump ship now if you can afford it; if not, have a sick day today and start applying for job. Any jobs. Leave the second you get one.

I think there's a bit of a clue in the fact you moved sideways from a job where you also worked unpaid extra hours and were stressed. Sympathies as I have a similar character.

You need to work what you're paid for and sod the rest. I don't have as much of a choice as I'm just about in the higher tax band so expectations are naturally higher, but working unpaid overtime at £28k is not right.

So I’ve got two members of staff off sick, and neither of my full timers (ha) would do the extra days for me despite only actually working 30 hours each this week. I managed to make today a 10-2 for me instead of 8-6 but they fucking moaned about covering that.

they all get paid hourly and don’t seem to understand that I don’t. I’m here now and I’m the office crying ffs.

YANBU to feel head office are useless, unsupportive and micromanaging and that the situation is unacceptable. However I do feel YABU to be so unhappy with the staff who are also subjected to the poor management from head office and (from what you’ve said) may be on zero hours contracts. To be honest if I worked somewhere where the head office was awful and I wasn’t always given the hours I needed I’m not sure I’d be falling over myself to help out when the place was short staffed, particularly if the stressful working conditions had contributed to my colleagues being off sick or I’d already made plans for my days off. I think you are taking the fact that the staff don’t want to do the extra shifts personally when it’s actually a reflection of the the poor company culture, insufferable working conditions and unreasonable expectations that you are also finding difficult to deal with.

In all fairness it’s not your subordinates place to cover you

I wasn’t asking them to cover me. I was asking them to cover the member of staff who called in sick for the rest of the week. They all ask for more hours when they get the rota and then never want to do any when it’s offered.

And the job itself, for the team, isn’t at all stressful. It’s a cute little gift shop with a cafe. The actual job is super easy, we have lovely customers, there’s very little drama. But all they do is moan about how stressed they are. They’re all very young and seem to have no resilience.

One of my team moaned all day yesterday about being exhausted; she had the raging arse with me because I was doing a short day and she was angling to go home early. She’s worked roughly 30 hours this week and was complaining about it. I had to sit her down in the end and tell her I’d had enough of her attitude, that she was treating me as though I was skiving off.

Also they constantly call me for help. Like yesterday I was doing the end of week banking and rotas and general admin. But I could tell their whole attitude was that I was skiving in the office. They called me out to the floor every few minutes because they were ‘busy’. They weren’t. I had to be really blunt in the end and tell them I was unavailable for serving customers for a while.

I am very hands on and do everything they do, it’s literally just Mondays and Fridays that I need to do office based stuff and the rest of the time I do the exact job they do, except they all lose their minds if there’s more than one customer.

This coming week is probably our busiest outside of Christmas and I’m working everyday now except next Sunday. But because I left ‘early’ yesterday I’m being slagged off for skiving. I feel like I’m losing me mind a bit.

My mind not me mind.

Also I have bipolar and I’m pretty sure I’m not quite right at the moment.

Im just not coping.

It sounds horrendous OP.

If you can afford to quit while you look for something else then do it.

Don't get to the point when your body decides for you that you need a break.

It sounds like you need to lay down the law a bit more and put yourself first a bit too. Do the rota so the full timers are working full-time hours, schedule yourself management days so you don't get called to help, display the rota so it's clear to everyone, accept 85% in most cases is bloody brilliant and be firmer with your team. All the while looking for a better job, I work in retail and really worry about the expectations forced on store managers at the moment.

Is there a reason you can't get another job?
It sounds awful.

One of my kids worked for a coffee shop - a big well known chain. She was treated really badly and often ended up working unpaid hours and would end up working 13 hour days and 65/70 hour weeks sometimes. Luckily it was only a short term job before starting a grad scheme.
£28K isn't too bad. What other jobs are there locally.

You don't sound like you like your staff that much. They probably know. It's also a bit off that you are complaining that they are rg resilient when you are struggling so much too.

I do like them; it’s just the last couple of weeks have shown me a different side of the two I thought I could rely on in particular.

And there’s a difference re resilience. I’m struggling with not having any time off and working 8-6 every day. They work four or five days a week and at least two of those days will be a shorter day. If I happen to be off and someone calls in sick, I go in to cover. If I’m already there (ie most of the time) and someone calls in sick I ask for help, don’t get it, and then work on my own for the day. Last weekend I had to go in literally in the middle of my Sunday lunch out with the family because someone went home sick and the supervisor said she wouldn't work on her own so was going to lock up and go home. She is now under a disciplinary for this and other issues but that’s the kind of attitude they all have.

Plus they are all terrible gossips so I hear what they all bitch about me, which isn’t helping.

I work in a similar sort of place and even though we have been short staffed, I won't cover shifts atm (neither do any of my colleagues). What no one knows is that I'm pregnant (don't want to be) and struggling badly with sickness and fatigue. You don't know people's circumstances or reasons for not taking on extra hours.

This sounds very like the reasons I left retail management. I swapped to administration. Honestly, try and swap again before you're burnt out completely by it.

Your staff also don't sound helpful- can you chat to your area team about some strategies you'd like to use for nipping some of this in the bud so they'll back you up?

start looking for something else, this sounds like too much stress to be worth it.

Surely you should get paid overtime for the extra you have been doing

or get more bank staff

OP you need to take care of your own health. Do you get sick pay? If you do, I suggest you get yourself signed off for a couple of weeks, Bipolar is not something to take chances with.

The whole set up sounds off. It sounds like more staff are needed, if you're constantly short every time someone is sick. The staff don't sound great, but just ignore them when you're doing paperwork, or offer to swap as a joke.

I wonder if you're not seeing things clearly because you're so stressed. The staff sound pretty much what you'd expect on a low wage casual job. They're not victimising you, unfortunately you appear to be the only solution to any shortage of people etc.

Get yourself signed off please - and I never say that.