When you’re doing what you love, work becomes really easy.
However, when a rude and entitled manager starts making your day miserable, staying at your job becomes challenging.
This woman shares how the owner’s sister would constantly criticize and berate her, even though she knows what she’s doing.
Let’s see how the story plays out…
After high school, I had a 6-month gap before starting college.
But the timing just happened to work out that way.
I got a full-time job at an Italian family bakery/coffee bar, doing typical front-of-the-house (FOH) stuff.
Making real espressos and cappuccinos, ringing up customers, taking orders, etc.
This young lady worked the opening shift.
There were about 6 FOH employees.
But since I was the only one over 18 and out of high school, I was given the opening shift.
Usually being the only one in the front for the first few slow hours, with just a few bakers in the back.
Meet the owners and Sylvia…
My bosses, a married couple, were not very present.
The husband would rarely show up, and the wife wasn’t much better.
The husband’s single, childless 60-ish-year-old sister, Sylvia, would roll in around 10 am most days and “work.”
But mostly, she’d just tell me what needed to be done.
Sylvia had become snappish to her.
We got along great at first, but everyone knew I was headed off to college in a few months and wouldn’t be stuck in the same place for the rest of my life (like she was).
Sylvia started getting very snippy and sarcastic with me and would read me the riot act if I didn’t do something exactly the way she wanted.
I couldn’t do anything to her satisfaction, and she criticized everything I did.
Sylvia acted like she was the owner of the bakery.
We pretty much had the same job descriptions and she was never specified as my official manager, but she acted like she was the owner whenever her brother wasn’t around.
The owner’s teenage son would put on the same airs when he sporadically “worked” there.
It was mostly when he wanted them to buy him something outrageous and they made him “earn it.”
Their entitled behavior knew no bounds and stopped just short of pocketing money directly from the register, if you need a frame of reference.
Sylvia would call the French rolls Football rolls.
The last straw was when I was taking an order for a dozen French rolls.
For those of you who don’t know, French bread is only made with flour, water, salt, and yeast.
Ours came out shaped kind of like footballs.
And Sylvia insisted on calling them “Football rolls” even though they weren’t called that on our menu.
I didn’t call them that because the first few times I did, the customers then asked what kind of bread it was.
When I called it a French roll, they knew what kind of bread they were getting.
She told Sylvia that the workers perfectly understood what French rolls are.
So, I took the order and go into the kitchen to give them their copy (this is back when we used carbon copies).
I came back out to the front, and Sylvia proceeded to lecture me on how they’re “Football rolls” not “French rolls.” And how I’ll confuse the (Hispanic) workers because they don’t know English very well.
When she’d finished her rant, I told her, “They’ve understood the orders perfectly the whole time I’ve worked here. And they’re ‘French rolls’ because they’re made of French bread, like it says on the menu.”
Sylvia threatened her, so she left.
She continued to berate me for insubordination and ended with an ultimatum.
Either I call them Football rolls or just leave.
So I left.
It seems like a stupid hill to die on, but dealing with her attitude was making me miserable, and I couldn’t resist the out she gave me.
She then got a new job at Barnes & Nobles, and went back to school after.
I called the wife and explained to her what happened and why I wouldn’t be back.
She accepted it with a resigned “Sorry to see you go. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last one who leaves this way” attitude.
I got a job at a Barnes & Noble for a few months (the employee discount at Christmas was serendipity) and left for school.
Last I heard, they were closed but had sold the bakery name so some random bakery five towns over that has the same name.
It sounds like the owners need to talk to Sylvia about her attitude before she drives more employees away.
Let’s check out how other people react to this story on Reddit.
This person shares a similar experience.
Here’s another personal experience from this user.
This person is fond of stories like this.
Finally, this user shares their thoughts on the matter.
We say it time and again… people don’t leave jobs, they leave their bosses!
If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.
