So, ever since I've started, me and one other person there have really clicked as a team, and that turned into the two of us basically running everything because the last manager quit/got fired depending on how you want to look at it. They recently promoted my "partner" to manager, but we secretly agreed to keep it a flat team structure, since that's what worked the best.
Ever since pandemic, we ran the place. Call outs, no shows, surprise orders, terrible other co-workers... We handled it all without complaining. Hell, neither of us wanted to lose our job during the pandemic. I got a friend of mine hired in there, and once we got him up to standard, he became a part of the flat team structure, or the "core group" as we like to call it.
Like a good commie, I've been slipping in bits of workers rights dialogue into our conversations. Stuff like "if we present a united front, we can demand change". Nobody really wanted to rock the boat that bad, and to be fair, our bosses mean well, they're just very out of touch. We tried the approach of talking to them individually about problems, and we used to see a lot more results that way. Well, recently, their attitude has been a little more shitty towards us. It's a husband and wife team that owns the place. The wife is always self diagnosing with the worst possible illnesses and going to doctors who keep telling her nothing is wrong with her, so she hasn't really been coming in a lot because she's "in pain". Maybe she is... The husband is a shell of a man who gets ordered around all day every day by his wife, so he's about ready to snap. I get that they've been having a hard go of it, but that's no reason to lash out at us and make work a living hell.
Anyway, they just got back from a THREE WEEK TRIP and had the audacity to get mad about petty things like an employee getting "too many hours" because they had to pull three different doubles in a week, to cover someone else. No "thank you for running the place the whole time we were gone, and all of the last two years when we decide to fuck off to Timbuktu"
This was the first day they came in since the trip, and we all decided today was the time to form an unofficial union and pledge to have each other's backs. Today was the day that we were going to strong arm some change.
They came in, we made our demands, and they folded instantly. They even gave up the crucial bit of information that with the current crew, this is the first time they have turned a profit every month since opening 12 years ago.
So, this is a general thanks to the "lefty internet" for keeping me on the path, and standing up for myself at a job. My whole life I've been taught to bend over backwards for a job by my bootlicking dad. Fuck that. We aren't stopping there. And, it's all for the betterment of the business, so I don't understand why the bosses wouldn't want to hear us out. Obviously we are doing something right.
My dog just makes it worse when there's bears in my yard. I've never meant "shut up" more than when she trees a bear right in my front yard