In the times of stress and uncertainty that we face as a country, it tends to bring out everyone's true colors. It has brought out my own, and it has brought out those of people I am surrounded with on a regular basis.
It's so much easier to hide your true emotions when things are going well, and even "going according to plan". When daily life is guaranteed, and there is little to no worry about anything much more than just getting up and going to work like clockwork and like everyone else. It's easier to hide how you feel when someone says or does something that you don't like when the times are not already adding stress to everyone's lives since life is full of its own stresses, that any extra stress can cause wear and tear and bring people to their core instincts and reactions.
As circumstances have proven my own true colors as well as those who I had once interacted with (receiving threats of harm and the like), I have also realized that some of my coworkers are not as mature as they try to portray themselves to be. I will give credit though in that they are doing a solid job at working a couple of jobs to pay their own way at age 19, but in reality they are just a kid still, like me. I don't say "kid" to make it sound like I'm an adult and they are a kid. No, we're both kids, and we both have a lot to learn before anything can really prove either of our adulthood.
A coworker of mine would brag about saying "oh today when I get off at 4, I'm going to go home, have a couple of beers, and go to sleep". They would brag about all sorts of things, try to be the shift lead meanwhile both the assistant manager and the general manager were on the clock, telling me what to do and the like. Telling me stuff such as, "Geoff, can you sprinkle this" (sprinkling is the term we use for dressing the subs with vegetables, dressings, spices, etc), "Geoff, can you go ring up this customer", "Geoff I need you to do this, I need you to do that". I know that while I am among one of the lesser experienced on staff given my 2 months of work, but I also have a pretty firm grasp of the knowledge and information on the store. I know how to do tasks, and sometimes I'm in the middle of something, and I cannot just drop what I'm doing to go do whatever task that coworker assigns to me.
I do try my best to fulfill their requests. I know that I don't have to listen to them necessarily and there are other people that can override his requests, but I try to not be so stubborn and say, "I'm already doing this, why don't you go do that yourself", although admittedly I do think that sometimes. That coworker was firmly rooted as a slicer, even though since we are understaffed a bit, or at least shorter on staff because of the virus, you've gotta be a flexible worker and just do whatever needs to be done and just go from one task to the next.
I get it that slicing is a pretty fun task to do. I guess a bit dangerous, but there are safety precautions in place that if you just don't be stupid and put your left hand in the slicer, you will be find (it's more meant for a right hand usage, so your right hand will be fine as long as you know where to place your hand, etc.).
At some point today, the GM says for me to stay on wrapping duty since we got backed up a bit, tells me coworker to get off the slicer and sprinkle, and tells the AM to do slicing. Immediately, you can see that my coworker was not happy about that at all. I would assume they don't like the GM or at least don't like getting told what to do because they feel as if they are an adult and can do things well enough, I don't honestly know. But they started slamming the oil and vinegar bottles down. I guess not all that hard, but you can hear that it wasn't placed down and it was carelessly dropped from a mild height. You could hear the metal spatula we use to spread the mayonnaise be thrown back in to the tub, you can hear subs being carelessly shifted across the cutting board with no regard of keeping it nice and running the risk of toppling everything from just pushing it with excessive force as compared to moving it to create more space for the next orders.
I guess I can't really get on their case as I've done things like that before, just not in my workplace. I guess the main part is how carelessly they were treating customer's food, and the fact that there was a customer standing in front of us (don't worry at least 6 feet away) and she could watch everything we were doing.
I would have to assume that my GM and the store owner had talked to him about it because at some point, I did kind of mention it to the GM saying, "oh _______ did not like it at all when you told him to sprinkle. [They] were angrily putting the bottles down, kinda throwing things around". I didn't say it to be a snitch or a tattletale. I said it more because it bothered me on how unprofessional it looked. How there was a customer and this was how they were going to behave when things didn't go their way.
I also kinda mentioned it in passing to the AM, saying, "_____ doesn't seem very happy" to which he responds, "yeah [they're] not in a good mood right now". So everyone saw it.
The GM did pull my coworker to the back and I guess talked to him? I figured it wasn't my business and I didn't need to listen in. Then I did notice later on the store owner was having some level of a serious talk with my coworker.
I don't know why I wrote such a long post about this, nor why it was in the forefront of my mind. I guess I should use this as an example for myself that even if times are difficult and when things or people are challenging me or saying things to me that I may not like that I need to watch how I react, because I never know who is truly watching me. It's more for my own character development and my own integrity to just do as I'm told and save my gripes for later on when I have other people I can talk to about it rather than express it in the here and now, especially in the workplace.
Like I said, I have had my fair share of immature moments. That's what brought me to a lot of these negative points in 2020. I could have very easily still had the Liberty Batfamily to talk to. I could have very easily not have had threats made to me or lose people I considered best friends, had I not reacted immediately and immaturely as I so point out my coworker had done.
Let it be a lesson to both you and I that we are always being watched and that our reactions can be examined and change the evaluation of our character and us as a whole. That we should know what is appropriate and what is not for any given situation. That there is a time and a place for everything.
Stress brings out our true colors, so I will be looking to work towards making sure my true colors change and just show a more level-headed thought process and not overreact or immaturely react to anything anymore.
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