My first job was at this really terrible outlet store, sort of like a TJ Maxx but even shoddier. I only worked there for two months, but it was maybe one of the worst two months of my life.

First of all, from the beginning, the manager hated me. Literally the first time I met her, she rudely told me to “call back at the end of the week” about my application and then wandered off. In retrospect, that should have been a huge red flag but I wanted money and experience so I kept at it. On my first day, she asked me what position I felt most comfortable with and I said “stock, not register” and she agreed but told me I would have to be trained on the register in case of an emergency (which is understandable.) By the time I got let go, I could count on one hand the number of shifts where I wasn’t put on register. On top of that, she was horrible at managing people (you know, her literal job.) She would tell any other employee, not just me, to do five different things at once and then come back ten minutes later and borderline demand to know why you were doing what she told you to do. She also played favorites with two other employees who worked there because they were the same ethnicity as her. They got to do literally nothing any time she was in the store, even if there was only other one employee besides them and the manager.

Second, the store itself was older than the hills. My mom actually had her first job there thirty years earlier when it was a different store. The fluorescent lighting gave me headaches so bad that I had to keep a bottle of aspirin in my car, and I took aspirin on my break (if I got one) and on my way home pretty much every day. The store smelled like a** at all times- usually a combo of cigarettes (I’m asthmatic on top of being sensitive to smells, and people would smoke out front all the time, and it would blow in through the doors to the register if they were close enough) and body odor- it was constantly hot, and the place was always dusty, no matter how much we swept. Any time I had to clean out the fitting rooms I actually had to hold my breath because it smelled so bad in there.

The clientele was also pretty awful. I never had anyone climb over the counter or anything, but people would be pretty disrespectful. In one particular incident, a woman straight-up called me a “f*ggot” amongst a load of other swears and then nearly got in a fight with the man in line in front of her. Also, while I don’t want to judge what situation anyone was in in life, half of our customers smelled terrible, adding to the bad store smell. I remember one family smelled so strongly of feet that other customers complained about it. Again, I never want to mock someone who’s in poverty and can’t help it, but if you can afford to come and shop for clothes, you can afford soap. I also got hit on by creepy old men at least once a week, including a guy who hit on me right in front of his wife.

But the worst part of it was the last two weeks I was there. So, let me start on the Thursday before I got let go from the job. I went to my shift (opening to around one or two? I can’t really remember, but it was well before closing when I got off.) Shift went great, got to work with one of my coworkers that I already knew from school (I got along well with pretty much all of my coworkers except for manager and a supervisor I’ll talk about momentarily, the one saving grace of this job other than that it paid above minimum wage.) Went home pretty happy. Came in for my closing shift on Friday. The first half of it was fine, worked with the same coworker from the day before, but she left around five. Then, another coworker called in sick, so it was just me, supervisor a, and supervisor b closing.

Supervisor a was pretty chill, but he messed up the scheduling so that I couldn’t go on break until about an hour late. He told me this, I was pretty pissed, but I let it go. When my blood sugar bottoms out, I get really sick and can be super moody because of it, but I was doing my best to be nice and do my job. This entire shift, before and after my friend coworker left, I never said a single word nor was I approached by manager b. Remember that.

So I have a terrible shift, go home, and was off until Monday. I come in to open on Monday, and my manager pulls me aside. She says “supervisor b has reported you and [friend coworker] for insubordination because you ignored her when you closed Thursday night.”

I was like “she never approached us, on either day I worked with her, also I didn’t close Thursday. I worked opening on Thursday.”

Now, there was another coworker (who actually quit about two weeks after I did because of the terrible management), who has the same last name as me and looks similar to me, so the manager said it was possible supervisor b got us mixed up and would talk to her. Never heard anything about it for the rest of the day. Went to go pick up an application from a different store during lunch break because I was done with that nonsense. Didn’t hear anything about it the next two or three days I worked, either.

That Friday, at the end of my shift, my manager calls me and supervisor c into the office. She sits me down and says “I don’t think you’re the right fit for the company, today will be your last day.” I’m close to tears and would like to get the hell out of there before I start crying, so I just stammer “Okay, thank you for the opportunity” and go out to my car and have a breakdown.

I get home and my mom demands to know what happened. I tell her, and she wants me to call and ask why I got let go, since no explanation was offered. I’m too scared of my manager to ask her, so I ask for supervisor c, who was easily my favorite supervisor. She had no idea why I got let go either, and was as surprised as I was, and manager only gave her some vague explanation about me not “doing something right.”

My dad, when he heard the story, said that they were letting go of Christmas staff (I was hired literally the week before Christmas) and they couldn’t just say they were cutting staff because that looked bad. Which, if anything, they were woefully understaffed because there were several days, especially the last month I was there, that I was the only person in this massive store. I even had a guy try to fight me once because I didn’t see him at the counter because I was the ONLY PERSON IN THE STORE, other than a supervisor who was in the back doing something.

My dad’s probably right, but I have an extended theory. They had no valid reason to fire me; I showed up on time for every shift (the latest I ever was was maybe five minutes, which is so little time that you don’t even have to call in saying you’re late first), I did as I was told, I sold more credit cards (THAT ABSOLUTELY NOBODY WANTED) than any of the other sales associates, I was the person who usually stayed past my shift if something needed to be fixed, and I came in several times when someone called out sick. I was essentially a model employee, if a little awkward (I have horrible social anxiety that I had to swallow daily at the damn register.) I think, either they were getting rid of holiday help, OR, supervisor b wanted to bring on someone else and they got rid of me because I was new-ish and timid and wouldn’t put up a fight (unlike my friend who also got reported, who was super assertive and would have probably fought someone.) So, basically, they created a fake conflict in order to fire me. I don’t know, and I never will considering how long it’s been since it happened.

But yeah, I was in hell for two months. It was awful.

Also, once, I found a hypodermic needle in the fitting rooms filled with a red liquid (presumably blood.) According to a coworker, this was a common occurrence and whoever was doing it would usually leave it in some weird place, like on top of the stall dividers or in the door lock. So that was wild.