My boss is insufferable.
I’ve been working my current job for nearly two years now. It’s been my favorite workplace so far. My coworkers are amazing, my boss made me feel safe and heard, the work made me feel fulfilled. I could be myself in a place I felt safe and accepted.
Then the boss quit due to pressure from corporate. She would often stand up to them for us, telling them that their expectations for productivity were completely unrealistic. (Which they are. Stock team is supposed to unload a truck in like two hours. Which is impossible.)
She was temporarily replaced by the assistant manager, who was also chill. He helped me with an hr case for a guy who kept misgendering me. Then corporate offered him a position for higher pay at another store and he took it (honestly, I don’t blame him. Our pay is shit.)
He was replaced by Tom. Tom is a seventy year old white man. He’s rascist, he’s misogynistic, and he uses company policy to bully employees.
I worked in the stock team for ages. Due to our AC being broken I would often wear tanktops or sleeveless shirts to keep from overheating. This is against dress code, but as long as I was productive and doing my job to the best of my abilities, nobody has ever had a problem with it. I showed up on time, I came in on days off when we were understaffed, I stayed later to help with things that didn’t get done. Recently I even walked to work in a blizzard just to get to work on time.
Tom has a problem with me. He is always getting on me about dress code.
Thing is, I don’t make enough money to buy more clothing. Almost none of my clothes are actually mine because I left all my stuff behind getting out of a bad relationship. My current partner has been letting me borrow her stuff so that I can go to work and not wear the same shirt every day.
Tom doesn’t give a shit. When I told him he threatened to cut my hours. Which makes no sense. Cutting my pay because I can’t afford things??? Are you fucking serious??? He finally offered to buy me a single “cheap” shirt to wear to work. The way he said it was so condescending. I had to stand next to him and watch in front of everyone I worked with as he “did me a favor” and bought me clothes I couldn’t afford. It’s fucking humiliating.
I get it. Technically I’m breaking the rules. I should just get tf over it and find a shirt to wear for the week. I should wear the one that he bought me. But wearing that shirt would be the most humiliating thing I’ve ever done in my life.
He recently called me into the office for an official verbal warning. I tried to explain to him that he’s been blowing it way out of proportion. That nobody, not ever customers, have ever complained about how I dress. (The clothes are never overly revealing and are most often athletic tanks so that I don’t sweat too much on my walks to and from work.)
He once again threatened to cut my hours and I’ll admit, I kind of lost it. I went off about how he has no idea what others have gone through. That he was lucky to have been born privileged. He told me that he wasn’t privileged. That he grew up poor. I asked him how many times he’d been stopped by police for no reason. How many times he’d been afraid to walk home alone at night for fear of being kidnapped. He ignored me and said that he’d worked hard to get where he was.
Well I fucking grew up poor too. On top of that. I grew up autistic, trans, and asian. Now as a woman I carry a knife and pepper spray everywhere so I can walk home at night without worrying too much. People on public transit had flashed and spit on me. I was homeless after the abusive relationship until a friend took me in. My parents both (at separate times) kicked me out. He told me to pick out more clothes so he could buy him but I can’t make myself wear those clothes. I’m applying to new jobs because I can’t fucking take it anymore. He has ruined the best job I’ve ever had. I’ll miss my coworkers but I can’t work with someone like that as my boss.