When I worked at this huge well known department store the summer of 2021, I had more bad moments than good. The supervisors were always complaining about me even when things weren’t my fault. I was always given attitude by them and had to always stay shut just so I didn’t lose this job. At the time I needed it to help my mother pay bills since it’s just us and my siblings. I pushed my mental health to the side and took all the negativity from that job just for my mom.

My first run in with a supervisor was on my first day. She kept arguing with me over hangers while we had a long line of people and threatened to get the co manager on me which she did. My second run in was with a different supervisor getting mad at me because our register froze and shut down. I was ringing up a customer while this happened and they weren’t able to get their receipt so they had to wait a while to get it back. That supervisor argued with me about it in front of the customer trying to blame it on me even though the customer saw the machine shut down too. Only after the customer intervened and said he saw it shut down as well made her stop talking and blaming me.

My last straw with this job was when a co manager got physical with me. I was ringing up a customer for a return on a couple bags and clothing items. The way I was taught to do a return was to ask for a receipt, scan their receipt, and then scan all the items they want to return. If the items show up on the screen while I scan them then they match with the transaction. If not then I can’t return them that item. As I’m processing this customers return, everything went smooth and she was able to get her money back. Right after she left my register and I was ready to call on the next customer, my co manager stopped them and came up to me and told me to turn off my register light. Confused, I turned off the light and asked her what was wrong. She told me that she was watching me do that transaction from a far and was blaming me for allowing the customer to steal from the company. I was so confused as to why she was making this claim about me when I clearly had done it the correct way. I explained to her how I did the transaction and even showed her the copy of the receipt. She said that the customer that came to me was someone that always comes to the store and steals. I asked her how was I suppose to know if I only been working there for about almost 3 months. I didn’t know who were the customers that were known to steal. She grabbed all the clothes that the lady returned and told me that I failed to read each tag to match the code number to the one on the receipt and that’s how she was able to steal from us. Reminder, this wasn’t taught to me at all from the training. The tags were also marked by a different store. However after reading the code numbers to the ones on the receipt, they did indeed match. As to the tags marked by a different store, I have no clue why that is. I also explained to her step by step how I went about processing this customer’s return. After she saw I was right, she didn’t say anything at all but started to throw all the clothes to me back to back and told me to alarm them and hang them up with an angry tone and then walked away. I was shocked since I never had anyone from a job physically throw things at me and talk to me with such anger. After that I decided I wasn’t going to allow these supervisors and co managers treat me this way. The next day when I was suppose to go in for my shift, I went late and went straight to the main manager’s office and told him all about the issues I was having with the supervisors and other little run ins I had with them because there were plenty more, and told him how draining it was for my mental health. Coming in everyday to a workplace for hours to just be treated less than the others while I was doing my job was not what I was going to keep putting up with. I quit that same day.

It was very sad since I know my mom needed the help but I was at my lowest point mentally during that time of the year and I was afraid it would get worse if i didn’t act soon enough. Thankfully, my mom understood and also was able to find a second job the same time to help with bills. Since then, i’ve been putting work on hold mainly because it was such a bad work experience that it made me worried to work again and go through the same thing. However, this time around I know what to allow and not allow and I feel like i’m ready to start working again.