So I work in retail, my assistant manager won't get off my back. She constantly walks around the shop with a look on her face like she's in a foul mood which is enough to make anyone uncomfortable around her but, all year since we went back from lockdown in April, she's been picking on me at work. It seems like she has to have somebody to pick on.
The team leaders never act the way she does with me. I'm not going to the manager about this as the two of them are very close. Going to head office about this is a risk because they're all mates and have a habit of sharing stuff. I don't want to leave the job without getting a better one because I need the money and I'm good at the job when I'm not being targeted.
So, the assistant manager is a severe person and is a complete jobsworth; she'll nitpick the slightest thing constantly and every single thing is 'by the book' with her. She even comes off her break early to look for things to nitpick about and I'm not exaggerating that. I make mistakes around her because she puts me on edge, partially because she's so unapproachable and everything else, sometimes she'll just stand there and glare at you, other times she'll stand next to you and watch you as if she's waiting for you to make a mistake that she can jump on.
Usually, I'd just think screw this and wouldn't care too much about getting into trouble with my manager if I know I'm right and I'd just go to head office about this (there are people in head office you can go to about this kind of thing, in principal anyway) - but to alot of people, it's a good company to work for and I want my manager as a reference as I'm now a degree holder and I don't want to explain in interviews why I couldn't put one of my current/most recent employers as a reference - it might look bad. I guess there's the option of putting one of the management at my second job as a reference instead or maybe somebody else within the company.
Anyway, every single shift that I have with her now, she nitpicks at me in that jobsworthy way at least once over something tiny that everyone else does; I don't know whether she does this to others (for the most part anyway, I have known of one instance) when they do this, to be honest, as I try to avoid her as much as possible so I don't always hear her interactions with others. But what's really got to me recently is how she treated me due to an issue that arose at my second job.
Recently, I injured the muscles in my back at my other job and had to sign myself off work for a week (it should've been longer, but I was intimidated into coming back). When I phoned my first job to tell them that I'd signed myself off for a week, as is my legal right, the AM got irritable and said something stroppy that I utterly and completely know was a very subtle threat. I worried the whole week that I was off that if I have too much time off with this injury, they'll get rid of me, so I rushed myself back to work before it had healed; I hadn't felt the pain for a few days but it wasn't healed.
I did a return to work form with the AM and she subtly threatened my position there again but more obviously this time; she said that she has to check my attendance and inform me what will happen if I have any more time off. She wasn't just saying this matter-of-factly or because she had to - I know for a fact that she's telling me that I'm not allowed much more time off at all.
What's most galling is that my attendance was pretty much flawless before I had that week off; in over eighteen months of working there, I had one sick day and one occasion of being sent home just over an hour early due to a non-contagious illness.
There are other staff members with attendance much worse than mine - ones that have called in sick once a month or so, sometimes for a week at a time give or take, their attendance must be somewhere around 75% and they've never had this treatment. The manager is apparently treating my absence as 'five seperate absences' - the equivalent to calling in sick five shifts in a row - this is complete tosh as I didn't miss five shifts as I don't even work five shifts a week there, I work three. A team leader told me that this calculation system that the manager is using is wrong as it's one reported absence, not five.
On the return to work form, the AM tried to put the likelihood of the injury re-occuring at the job as 'probable' and a 4 out of 5 chance of coming back - I disputed this and refused to agree to it. She even asked for evidence of my physiotherapy appointment (my second job never asked for that) and acted incredulous because I didn't have a text confirmation of the appointment - my GP practice don't do texts anymore, she's a complete jobsworth. She spoke to me like I'm an idiot and made me feel like I'm an imbecile when she asked me something about dates (she put me on edge, as she always does, so my knee-jerk mental reaction was to ask, not to mention that I'd been off-sick for a week doing nothing apart from worrying, so the days got blended up). I felt like I was on trial and made to put a defence up rather than having a formal conversation about coming back to work.
I shouldn't have to feel like I'm doing something terribly wrong because I missed three mingy shifts at work for a genuine reason. I felt so angry that I was intimidated into returning to work early that, during one shift, I was on the verge of marching into the office and just having it out with them - when I went back, the manager got me lifting heavy things which I said I couldn't do on the return to work form.
I really want to go to head office about all of this and how it's affected me and continues to affect me and my performance at work. We were all told when we started the job that we have the option of going to a specific member of head office that deals with mental health etc for support, basically if we're struggling to cope or anything like that, but I don't know if I can go this person about this matter; the manager and assistant manager will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you contact anybody from head office - the manager's chief concern is attaining targets that head office set the manager of each store. Anything that makes her look bad to head office is a big no-no to the point of a severe grilling at the very least and likely some attempt at forcing you out. This happened to one staff member last year.
Another instance that's put my back up is that today, the AM moaned at me in front of the manager in a deriding manner, not angrily but more incredulously, as though she couldn't believe it, because I asked the manager for something that a customer needed. It was such a small issue that she felt the need to make a meal of; the AM told me that I should've looked on the phone item lookup in the cupboard that's "been there for a year" (it's been there for a few months, not a year and I told her that) instead of asking the manager for help with this customer. The fact that she said this in front of the manager made it so much more irritating - I felt like flipping out back at her.
When I said that nobody had ever shown or told us to use the phone lookup, which is completely true as indeed nobody has ever shown or told me about it, she lied and said she's seen me use the lookup on that phone: I haven't ever used the lookup on that phone and I told her that. It was another instance of their lack of training and poor communication - it may seem like a trivial thing that you should know yourself but how're you supposed to know you have an option there if you're never told?
The real reason I asked the manager for help was out of anxiety that the both of them cause which scrambles my mind a bit - I so badly wanted to say this earlier. The AM immediately picked up on my request when I asked and jumped on it. It seems that these little things that I do bug her and she just starts passively-aggressively flipping out.
I arrive at work and never enjoy it because I'm wondering three things; when the next nitpick/moan from her will occur, how many nitpicks there will be and how bad they'll be. These nitpicks that occur don't happen from any of the team leaders when these tiny mistakes happen and they happen much less frequently around them; a large number of these mistakes happen specifically because she puts me on edge either by just standing glaring at you or just standing there watching me. It's caused a mental block in my mind whenever she's around.
When a large queue at the tills forms, we're supposed to ring a bell that alerts staff in the shop to help on the tills due to the queue; whenever the manager or AM answer this bell (which they sometimes don't as they sometimes choose to ignore it when standing around chatting or sitting in the office doing nothing), they have a look on their face of pure annoyance and irritability and sometimes it feels as though it's aimed at me for having gotten them to the tills.
This makes me not want to ring the bell again next time if they're around and deal with the queue myself which only makes them moan at me that I'm not ringing it. I feel like saying I'd be more willing to ring it if you didn't have a look on your face that you're off at me!
I want to go to this mental health support person in head office but I don't want the manager or AM finding out - my reference will be gone/become an unusable one if they find out - a staff member just left and she said this person in head office told the area manager who told our manager.