Snoskred - Life in the Country

It may not come out well or in any kind of order at all, but it has to come out. Jo from This Life’s For Me is going through something which is triggering something in me.

Every time my mother and I find ourselves alone together recently, she keeps asking me “Do you think you’ll look for a job”. And every time she does it, I have to bite my tongue. It’s all I can do to keep myself from screaming.

The reason is, we moved here because both of us would be able to work for my parents in their store. After two extremely bad work situations where I was bullied, I thought I would be safe working for them. I thought they would stick up for me - as long as I was right. I didn’t expect them to stick up for me if I was wrong but I thought they would back me up when I was in the right on things. I thought they would at the very least not let their staff get away with inappropriate behaviour towards me.

The situation in fact turned out to be the opposite. One member of the staff never spoke to me. Not even to say hello. She was disrespectful and rude (to the customers as well as to me) and the workplace soon felt like high school. It was a frequent topic of discussion after work between me and my parents. To my surprise, they backed *her* up. They told me I should “let it go to the keeper”. WHAT the FUCK is that supposed to mean? They told me it was “normal” for people in the workplace to act this way towards a family member. They told me that my sister had been treated similarly in their previous store when she worked there, and it was nothing new, and in essence, I should suck it up and get on with my job.

And worse, that member of staff treated the other half very badly. She had to talk to him because they worked in the same department, but things were unpleasant for him as well. Especially having to watch me dealing with the situation - I think it was harder for each of us to watch each other go through it. I stuck it out for over six months until the day the shit hit the fan and looking back I’m amazed I did.

But the other half still has to work there, and it is taking quite a serious toll on him. He’s just not happy there. It upsets me to see it, it makes me want to yell at my parents for allowing it. So this week the parents have gone off to a conference and The Other Half was dreading it - rightly so because whenever the parents aren’t in the store, the female staff find a chair, sit on it, and chat - and ignore the customers. So every day this week he’s come home more and more annoyed and down. Then to top it off, Dad won an award at the conference he went to, which will boost his ego nicely and make it even less likely that he’s going to do anything about the issues in the store. It’s performing, so why worry? Well worry because you have a lot of unhappy staff.

When my mother says that thing about me getting a job, I want to remind her that I did have a perfectly good job. I enjoyed everything about it other than the bitches. They chose to keep the bitches rather than keeping me and finding some other decent staff instead, which is why I no longer have a job. They didn’t back me up when it counted, and as a result I have no trust left in me for an employer, none at all. And I think I’m mad at my parents for not dealing with the situation. Always with my mother in these situations, she tells me to shut up, say nothing, don’t rock the boat because you’ll fall overboard instead of standing up for what is right.

The real final straw for me this week, well there have been three. One I can’t talk about here yet but I will so watch this space, it might be a couple of weeks.. One was this post by Jo from This Life’s For Me. One was this post from Chani.

I’m proud of my Dad, he does work very hard. Its going to be difficult to seem enthusiastic about this award, though. Imagine what he could have achieved if.. is all I can think - not to mention that he has some very unhappy staff there right now who would leave in a second if offered something else. Not to mention that The Other Half comes home from work wanting to punch things.

I’m sick of people treating each other badly. I believe there can be something different but maybe it is something I have to build myself.