Drama & Work Don't Mix

I moved to Saint Augustine and the first job I got was a part-time gig for Firehouse Subs. It was only ten to thirty minutes from my new apartment. I started working the day Steven Hawking died, but who cares.

The thing about working at Firehouse Subs: sometimes the co-workers have more tension on their plates and in return, the spite and small punishments they give you are because they just don't have the balls to deal with the problems in their day.

I have co-workers trying to make ends meet with two jobs. I have co-workers who are being presented to management positions and then all of a sudden, they don't show up after they have been promoted. There is even a co-worker who listened to his mother to quit school to get a GED when he was just 12 credits shy of graduating in the first place. The general manager is a nice man, having raised six children and most of them being women, he knows how to keep his cool. But when you are put between two female managers it's like WW III and everyone is getting a-bombed.

Sandwiches & Drama

The drama didn't start until I was about three or four weeks into the new job. I got hit with the nomination for manager, but I haven't been there long and I only was nominated for the fact I just show up to do my own work. Then it went into the worse kind of relationship you could have with your managers. We don't get breaks unless you smoke during your five or six hour shift, so the minute I get home, I just want to box away what happened that day and not look back on it. Tomorrow is something new and sometimes the customers who show up are even weirder than some of the things people order on a daily basis.

I tried my best to get things done right and done well. But apparently it's not good enough for one manager. Yet despite that I had sandwich making experience, albeit with Cuban sandwiches, they seemed okay with letting my work out the kinks versus having to watch me all the time.

However, one day in particular I forgot to print out a ticket, which I had no idea how to print it in the first place, but that it was something I was supposed to have for a delivery. The next thing that happened was the person who ordered started yelling at me until I got the manager on the phone and I ended up making her upset at the end of the line because she thought I was agreeing with them and not trying to relay the message in case she couldn't hear them.

It got worse as the days progressed. She was nice to me, but since the slip up, she hasn't been saying hello or greeting me in her happiest of moods. If anything I have become the worst employee and everyone has been turning a more negative eye on my work. Too much mayo, too much sauce, too much of anything. It's not my fault that I am learning as I go and that my memory is often a blank when it comes to the next sandwich.

At the end of the shift, I feel like either hiding away in bed, going on a vigorous run to get it off my mind, or just crying my eyes out and continuing to talk about it, to the point my boyfriend has to move his relaxation time to the bedroom.

I get that everything has to be perfect, but sometimes life can be a little annoying. I try to be a good worker, I try to do my best, and sometimes when I do my best, it is often shunned upon. The biggest outcome I am looking for in this job is learning from the bottom down what it is like to deal with customers and then seeing where my outlook on customer loyalty takes me. If I can't be a good employee that handles customers from every personality type on the planet, then what good am I being a sandwich maker, journalist, or secretary for the most part?