So I work closing shifts at my job, and there’s this girl I’m actually really close with. Like genuinely she’s one of my favorite coworkers. We always close together, she’s super funny, really fast, and just makes the shift better.
She was out for about a month because she had nose surgery, and I honestly missed her a lot. So when I found out she was coming back, I was excited to finally close with her again.
But the first night back… things were different.
She told me she can’t use strong cleaning chemicals (like bleach) because of her nose. Okay, fair. Then it turns into her not being able to wipe down certain things. Then she says she can’t lift anything heavy. So I’m like, alright, she can do dishes.
Except… she couldn’t really do that either.
The dishes were too heavy, so I had to carry them to her. Sometimes even wash them myself if they were too much. Then with trash—she said she could handle it, but couldn’t actually lift the bags out, so I’d have to do that part too. Same with mopping—she couldn’t dump the water.
It basically got to the point where I was doing like 90% of closing. She was putting liners in trash cans, doing a few light things here and there, but that was it.
I started getting overwhelmed because closing is already a lot, and now it felt like double the workload.
So I mentioned it to one of the shift leads. I said something like, “I don’t think she should be closing right now if she can’t really do most of the tasks. Maybe she should be on mornings or mid shifts until she’s fully better.” I wasn’t trash talking her at all I even said I love working with her, but this situation just isn’t working.
Well… I guess that got back to her.
Now my store manager messaged me saying we need to have a talk about “talking bad about coworkers” and how we’re “a family” and should communicate directly like adults.
And now I’m being told I might even get written up???
I honestly feel like I wasn’t being mean I was just frustrated and trying to point out a real issue. I didn’t insult her or anything, just said the situation wasn’t fair workload wise.