Making My Stomach Sink
I worked at an independently-owned coffee shop and wine bar. Most of the people working there were young women because my boss was a class-A pig who liked to yell at them and periodically make them cry. Every few weeks, he would find some minor little detail that someone did or didn’t do (grinding flavored beans in the non-flavored grinder, for example) and literally yell at that employee, sometimes in front of customers, calling her stupid, empty-headed, etc. I witnessed these little tantrums on my shifts and I’d always try to help console the poor girl.
One night, I was working with a girl who had just gotten torn apart by him the day prior and she was trying her absolute hardest not to mess anything up to the point where I was actually doing most of the work. It was an evening shift and we “turn into” a wine bar in the evenings, so there were certain things we had to do to prepare for that. Heidi, my coworker, had turned the lights down and we were busy doing other prep work when the phone rang. I answered and the boss said he was watching us over the cameras. He sternly told us to turn the lights down.
I informed him that we’d already done that, but that I’d turn them down even more. I did so and then went on with my work. An hour went by and he suddenly walked through the back door. My stomach sank–he never showed up to the shop later than 2 pm unless something was wrong. He said, “Who turned these lights down”? I told him that I did. He started lecturing me on how to turn the lights down, what the place needed to look like, etc. I just stood there and let him finish his rant. When he was done I said, “I’m sorry that I didn’t turn them down enough. Could we maybe put a line on the light switch, so we know where they should be every night”?
Well, that started another rant! This went on for a good 20 minutes. Customers started watching, and Heidi did her best to stay behind him so as not to somehow evoke his wrath upon her. I, on the other hand, just stood there, letting him yell at me. Each time he would finish one rant, I’d just say something like, “Well, if I’m not doing it right, then there should probably be some regulation”. And it would start him up again, yelling about how there shouldn’t be any regulation because we should be smart enough to figure it out ourselves.
Finally, I just walked away from him. This caused him to blow up: “What do you think you’re doing?!” he yelled at me. Very calmly, I said, “You’ve repeated yourself plenty of times. I know what I did wrong and I know how to fix it. I think you just want to yell at me in hopes that I’ll cry so you can feel good about yourself. That’s not going to happen, so there’s no point in me standing here taking this abuse when I could be getting work done”. Surprisingly enough, he actually left the store and never bothered me about stupid stuff again.
Story credit: Reddit / anotherworkingstiff