...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I have been working for more than 3 years, at the one college town that I now live in:
I get in on a Saturday afternoon and when the (husband) (Thai) restaurant owner shows up, it's like his very very occasional behavior that he does to everyone where he doesn't know what's going on and he acts like you're stupid and he says that you need to do something other than what you're doing at the moment or why aren't you doing that etc. -- all very momentary things done very very very occasionally to everyone, that people roll their eyes at -- but it's like he shows up and he's controlling and he wants to show me that I'm not doing my job, with his first interaction being his asking me why I'm not standing behind the counter when my coworker is there behind it and I'm hovering by the edge of it looking to see when customers lay down a credit card so I can take their bill up, and later at the slow part of the shift when there's one table (paid up) and no work and everything is done he sees me briefly and discreetly looking at my phone and he gets on me about that, and like oftentimes happens on that slow weekend afternoon shift when my one (older) (Thai) coworker is done eating her shift meal I go and eat mine from off of the top of the ice machine just inside the door to the kitchen and I have my phone out to look at something and while I stand and eat he passes by and he asks me why I'm doing that and why I'm not outside, and after I clock off at the end of shift and I am standing behind the counter with more Diet Coke in my travel coffee mug and I'm looking at my phone there to check a text message while I'm waiting for someone to get out of the bathroom so I can use it before I go, he passes by and sees that and he asks me to come into the office, and without yelling at me he says that he knows I work mostly with the tables but why am I not helping out more with takeout -- on a shift where everything was done! -- and that I have a problem with my phone and that it looks bad for customers if they look in the window and see me and that he knows that I need to eat but if I'm there and my coworker gets a call and someone walks in the door I won't be there to help them, and looking at your phone while you eat makes you take twice as long, and it's like he's just assuming the worst and not looking into facts and making up all of these hypotheticals to make it so I'm not doing my job, when it was a slightly slower-than-average shift where nothing exceptional happened and everything got done, and at most he saw me look at my phone once during an exceptionally slow period.
Like, made up stuff and just blown-out-of-all-proprotion stuff, and it just took me by such surprise that I just nodded and let it pass by like I would when he did stuff like that in small ways -- and where would you even begin with something like this, where it's like they're vigilant to invent reasons to go after you? -- and after I left I was upset and I talked to my parents and various friends and the (young) (female) (white) bartender with (pussy hat) energy at the local brewery -- "That's toxic," she was like, about his micro-managing counter-standing comment that he began the interactions with, and she said that she would quit that job -- and so I decided to sleep on it, and the next morning I realized that I had tension in my shoulders from thinking of being around the (Thai) (husband) owner, so I sent him a workplace app text that it had stopped working out for me to work at the restaurant and please mail me my last paycheck and my tax documents, and I texted my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker that I wouldn't be coming in to work in 2 hours because I had left, and then I deleted the workplace messaging app, and I immediately felt better, from knowing that I would not have to walk into that restaurant and see him again.
It's like I suddenly reached my limit, and my body was rejecting the idea of the employment there.
I didn't quite realize what had happened at first, but it was like a latent bully suddenly escalated their behavior and I didn't quite see it at first, since it was similar to what had gone before, albeit that it was of such a heightened nature that it caught me off guard and I immediately knew that something was off and that something was different.
And, I mean, I had noticed his behavior early on in my employment there and I had *never* liked it and there was always a certain amount of coolness between us, but I had been able to manage it for a period of multiple years, until suddenly I couldn't.
Just very, very surprising behavior from someone who you've known a bit for a period of over 3 years, but what can you do... It was his decision to act like that, and as the one (young) (female) (white) bartender with (pussy hat) energy at the local brewery put it, you're an employee, not a punching bag, and I'm not there for him to take his issues out on me by targetting me and playing "gotcha!".
Once someone goes to that level with you, it poisons the relationship and you can't be around them.
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