Fast Food Graveyard Shift Hell: Nightmare Slacker Coworker

Beautifulburgerthing here, still haven't figured out a new name, if anyone has a suggestion please let me know in the comments :)

Anyway, this isn't a post about getting a new relevant name for myself, rather it's about a night of work that literally brought me to tears. And NOT the good kind :/

So anyway, I have two coworkers usually on nights. One person up front with me, and another in the back doing production. Between myself and the other girl upfront we switch on drive thru every once in a while. We work together really well and have a great time all night. Sure some nights are kind of stressful and bat crap crazy due to the high volume of customers, but we have fun. We have our regulars who we have slowly started learning their actual names, or have given them nicknames ("Our newfie ladies", 330 asain man in a van, and cranky piercing guy, plus steeped tea lady among others). We joke around with eachother and just laugh all night. I've literally laughed so hard with B that I've had to run to the bathroom because I thought I was going to pee my pants. Then there is the useless fucktard A (I complained about her before I think in my last post a little while ago) but Wednesday night took it to a while new level.

We all have computer training to do. It's annoying, it talks to us like we are morons that don't know how to make a flipping pot of coffee let alone wear the uniform properly. It actually hurts to sit in the same room as these training videos. But B was scheduled to do her's Wednesday/Thursday. I already knew I would be on drive thru and A would be on store front. Guaranteed. And sure enough I got into work and my supervisor told me I would be on drive thru all night and that A would be store front but would have a headset on to listen in and help if I needed it. Well problem with that is this: A is NOT a team player. She regularly comes into work talking about all the places she had dropped off a resume at, or had an interview with recently and how much she hates this job but has to have it for the moment otherwise other bad shit will happen in her life or some crap. Not exactly what you want to hear from your coworkers...

She refuses to put on a headset and when she is forced to she bitches the entire time about how the cord keeps pulling at her head, or the thing keeps sliding off the back of her head and other such crap. Yup that's what the headsets do. We all hate the fucking things but we all put up with it. We have all figured out a way to negate these issues. Basically it just takes some time to figure out the secrets. Plus she complains that she can rarely hear the customers and she gets snarky if a customer starts getting frustrated with her. I've explained to my supervisor that we all need to take turns on drive thru. That we all need to take our turn there and work as a team. His response? "A has such a short fuse, and is NOT good at drive thru, and when she works on the weekends they WON'T put her on drive thru because she just can't handle it". 

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

He happens to know her from highschool and has been protecting her and coddling her since the first day she was on shift with us. She doesn't want to do a certain chore? Doesn't have to, B or I have to do it now. Her back hurts? She gets an extra 5 minutes on break. She forgets to go on break at the right time, that's fine she still gets her full 20 minutes, meanwhile the person next in line for breaks has to take a shortened break. (Breaks are at a very concrete time, if you go late tough titties, your 20 minute break is now 15. We just don't have time to goof around with the break times due to our peak periods being directly after break times). But she never gets in trouble with things.

Here's where things get ugly on Wednesday. So I'm on drive thru, and I'm swamped. But I'm good, I've worked drive thru enough that I know how to handle a rush and can work through it without going batshit crazy. That being said it was getting to the point where having a little help would have been nice.

Well the problem is this: A was NOT wearing her headset like she was supposed to. No I don't mean she had it hanging around her neck, or the ear piece above/below/infront/behind her ear, I mean she wasn't fucking wearing at all. The rule states that the store front employee MUST wear a headset at all times so that they know when drive thru is getting busy and needs help and all that good stuff. She wasn't, nor was she in trouble for it. 

Well I manage to get through my rush and she is off doing chores since, you know, store front as the ability to run off to the other side of the store to do cleaning. The moment I think "oh hey, I'll go fill the hot chocolate machine" and walk two steps the fucking headset chimes and there's 10 people in line at drive thru.

Every. Fucking. Time. And this goes on for the entire G Damned night. And that's typical, especially for a Wednesday/Thursday. B and I, have figured our shit out, I do most of the chores during the overnight period and when the 5am relief comes she does most of the running around for last minute stock up.

5am comes around we have a reoccuring order of one small urn (portable coffee for like office parties) with all the fixings. So a sleeve of small cups & lids, sugar/sweetener/stir sticks and cream/milk. A small urn also takes 6 pots of coffee, which each take 5 minutes to brew, while still keeping coffee in stock for walk in customers. It has to be done for 5am. Thing is this, urns are store fronts job. She refused to do it, when I asked her about it this is her response:

"I did every fucking thing all fucking night, so you fucking do the fucking urn. You are so God damned lazy I can't believe you still have your fucking job. Everytime I work with you and B I do ALL the work."

Whoa whoa whoa! Hold up one second. She came to me at 4am when she ran herself out of coffee to steal mine from drive thru (BIG MOTHER FUCKING NONO!) I did MOST of the cleaning/stocking for the actual behind the counter stuff AND I was on drive thru serving everyone and their second cousin coffee. It was a brutal night. This went on and on for a while.

All through the 5-6 period when B and I do final stock up I'm running around super stressed out, I want to hit A because of the way she has been treating me all fucking night, but I can't risk my job. At this point I'm in full blown panic mode. There isn't enough time for me to get everything done. Not even sort of. A refuses to help me with the stock up since she still has to clean the bathrooms and she refuses to stop dealing with those or just half-ass the job to do the more important things such as stocking cups/lids, take out trays, and things like that, leaving it all for me to do. I only have an hour and I still have to stock and clean the sandwich counter which takes an hour on a good day.

I looked at my supervisor literally with tears in my eyes and tell him that something isn't going to get done and I can't handle getting yelled at by day manager because I will breakdown completely. He claims he will go talk to A to help me, no surprise nothing happens and I'm still left alone.

Long story short, I talked to day shift manager and she made me cry by saying to not worry about it, it won't last long (A has numerous customer and employee complaints against her) and that I'm a hard worker and not to let this affect my work ethic (It won't and hasn't yet) and I also called the store owner to complain because he HAD to know just how brutal it was that night. He checked the security cameras and clearly agreed with me, and as such he called my supervisor on Thursday night saying that if she starts pulling this crap with me, she gets sent home right away. Maybe he called her as well because Thursday night she was just amazing to work with. It was strange. She even apologized. She strung a line of "Poor me" crap that I won't believe and don't feel should have been brought to work. I realize life sucks and its stressful but at work you leave that at the door because work and home lives are two seperate things. End of story.

Thanks for listening to my rant, sorry it was so long. I just know that it was something that has been bugging me and I knew you guys would LOVE to hear it.

--Beautifulbugerthing out!

(again if anyone has an idea for a new name tell me! I work at the Great Canadian Coffee Store!)

 

Comments

[Fluffernutter]

*huggles*, BBT. You got this. And your nick-name totally works. I'm not suggesting anything else. :]

[NC Tony]

3D's. Next time, keep track of what she doesn't do that she's supposed to. I really need to get Freddy to permalink my post on the 3D's on the side somewhere. Basically, dates, times and exactly what A did (or didn't) do.

[TimmieHoe]

I would document everything; times, dates, what happened, who was there, was it resolved at the time, just everything you can think of. When I go into my overnights I go in early and write down all the stocking that needs to be done and anything evening has forgotten or will have no time to do. If the list is too full with things evening has not done I check with the supervisor or manager about it. I work alone so the less chores the easier my night is.

If it gets too much and the supervisor who babies her keeps at it report him to management. Favoring employees is not what a supervisor should be doing.

[Bug]

It sounds like you work at a Timmys. I used to have a job at one and let me tell you, If you ever get the chance, get a new job. They just do not treat employees well. As for A, document, document, document. That way if she tries to stir up some shit, you'll be ready.

[Sales Agent Guy]

Oh man, she sounds like Mr. Lazy, only worse. I mean, whenever we were to vacuum the store (I'd do one half and he'd do the other) he would tell me to "go vacuum the store." Now that's a big no no, since he's not even a supervisor. But he'd still say that I have to do the whole store. I tried talking to a supervisor but they just said to do it that 'one time.'

That was, when he wasn't messing up the cigarettes by restocking ALL of them instead of just the ones that needed to be filled or chatting on the phone with his buddies without permission.

[MuSicko]

I christen thee TittieHorton.

[Skittles]

I would definitely follow up on the documentation thing, that's the best advice anyone can follow in virtually any situation. Hang in there I sure hope it gets better. As for a new name the old one is fine but you could try "Hot Coffee Slinger" sort of a pun but really just a bad joke.

[converting flv to mp4 free]

Beautifulburgerthing here, still haven't figured out a new name, if anyone has a suggestion please let me know in the comments