Sorry in advance this is going to be a long ass post.
TLDR: my exboss was a friend, she used that position to overwork me and used my illnesses to tell employees that I was not a good person and faking it.
I (25NB) worked for her (31F) for about a year (until last year).
We were friends wayyyy before when I started my first job and we were colleagues.
We kept in touch and I was so happy for her when she opened her own coffeeshop.
When I finished uni a year and half ago, I was looking for a job and she was looking for a barista. Naturally I applied, I had experience as a barista and I mean we were friends what could go wrong haha..
During the interview she told me that she wasn’t organised and needed someone to balance that. Fair enough, I already knew that, but I didn’t think it would be that bad.
Also, I was very open about my mental health, she knew I had severe anxiety and depression and seemed comprehensive about it (she originally had a psych degree before finding her passion for coffee)
First months were so good, she was promising me and my colleague (whom they were friends as well) a raise as soon as she could, more hours, a manager position. She even implied multiple times that she wanted to open more cafés and if it did happen, I would be in charge of the first one.
I was over the moon, I loved being a barista.
Fast forward after new years, taxes comes up and she has a huge sum to pay (she was horrible with admin) and then she started to panic.
We were already working overtime, sometimes not paid, sometimes very late. But we had to work more and it was never good enough. I had more and more responsibility without the pay, without the thank you and thus, with huge anxiety.
We worked every weekend, without exception, working 10h a day with a 30min pause that was always interrupted because we all felt so bad leaving each other.
And to be fair, she was working more than us at first (time wise) but she loooved to remind us that as in we shouldn’t complain about our hours and how we were exhausted. And it worked, I felt so bad about her schedule, I tried to help in whatever way I could. I wanted to prove that I was capable of handling things and be a manager. I started doing communication, administrative stuff, being in charge of brunch service. I was the cook, barista, server and so much more.
But I still had anxiety and being told that everything I do is never good enough was making me go insane.
I didn’t want to listen to my brain, so I got sick, all the time (my colleague as well).
I wasn’t eating before shifts because I was so stressed about wanting to do things the right way. I ended up passing out, having migraines that would make me go insane and ugly crying on the floor of the kitchen.
I tried to tell her that something wasn’t right, that we were all tired, but she was “doing more” so how could we complain?
During the summer, she left for a couple weeks to go on vacation (we couldn’t, we were so precarious we were just dreaming about a weekend off). She told us that the café would close 2 days a week.
The day before she left, she showed me our schedule, cafe wasn’t closing 2 days a week. I was working 45h the first week with a day off, second week 37h with 2 days off. Told me my colleague (with same schedule) said yes. I didn’t wanted to be a burden.
I was in charge of the kitchen, stocks and making sure that everything went smoothly along with everything that I was doing usually.
At the end of the first week I ended up at the ER with an ulcer, my body couldn’t take it anymore. I was terrified to ruin her vacation and would prefer ruining my health. She wasn’t happy, told me it wasn’t convenient.
I ended up deciding to quit after that, when we had a meeting after her vacation she cried and told us that we didn’t respected her, that she couldn’t work with us anymore because we weren’t “in on it” enough.
And I think something finally snapped in me, I saw the months of disrespect.
Always cleaning up after her, because let me tell you she was a disgusting person inside and out.
I would never eat there knowing she would be the one in charge of the kitchen. She would order so much stock and it would end up rotting and we’d have flies everywhere. We would be scolded if we weren’t the ones cleaning up. It was sooooooo much work for her taking care of the cafe. She was always making a mess, never cleaning her fridge.
And I’m not even talking about the classic “your boss coming to help during rush and leaving a mess” because it was way worse than that.
Always telling us we weren’t doing enough, never smiling enough, never cleaning enough, never listening to her enough.
But she was my friend so we tried so bad talking to her to make the last month as easy as possible for her and for us. I tried to tell her that my health wasn’t following the rhythm.
I ended up doing damage to my body that I still have now and I had to take a medical leave until the end of my contract. I sent her a text saying how sorry I was but I had to take care of myself. She didn’t speak to me the entire time I was away, never answered my text. I had to contact her at the end to ask how we were doing things (last paycheck and stuff).
I asked her if we could talk, in person, about everything. She answered weeks later telling me that she’s always at the cafe and I could come whenever. But that’s not what I asked so I never took the time to go.
I learned early this year that she was telling her new employees how awful I was and faking being ill to have weekends off. I felt heartbroken, because deep down I cared about her and I wanted her business to go well and her doing better I guess.
I’m still so mad, I’m so mad that she used something that is very difficult for me to talk about and told random persons I don’t know that I was faking being sick. It took me so many years to take the courage to get a diagnosis.
But I never said anything, I think truly that I’m a coward to protect my own peace because I don’t want to bother with feeling bad or having difficult conversations. I also think it’s because I already know how it’s going to be and I don’t think I can put up with her telling me she’s the victim in this.
But I’m still so fucking bitter about it and I really don’t know what to do, if I should go and talk to her or tell her to fuck off ? Tell anyone that this is a bad establishment and the boss is abusive.
Or just never think about it again and just let time heal everything.
I also can’t take it anymore that people take my silence for granted and then random people think I’m a bad person.
Thank you for reading this! :)