Tower Moments

When something no longer resonates with you, it is time to walk away because it no longer serves you in any capacity that would be fulfilling. Three weeks ago, I walked away from a job I was happy doing and from a place that I found great joy being at. I quit my job at the gas station. Yes, the new manager was a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler and Attila the Hun all rolled into one. Usually I omit people’s names when I blog about them to spare feelings and legal bullshit, but this time I won’t. I’m not going to say the new manager is evil, but I will say Misty is probably the worst person I have ever worked with/for in my entire working life. If there were a “white trash” version of Donald Trump, Misty would be it. It’s one thing to be a “policy person” as she proclaimed herself to be (yet she violates the policy every day in the color of her pants - they’re too light). It’s an entirely different matter when the “policy” is Misty’s perverse way of managing a store.

Cashing out a big winner on a scratcher? Usually by afternoon it’s not a big deal, but in the morning when the cash register was just opened? Can’t do it unless the winner is “reinvesting” their winnings. Evidently, that wasn’t “policy” according to Misty and she tried getting the cashiers to cash out the big winners from the safe during her first two weeks. The problem with that is you have to pay the safe back, and if you’re closing your drawer right after(like the overnight cashier) your drawer will be short - and according to policy, that’s a firing offense. It’s not such a big deal if you were just opening your drawer because throughout your shift you can pay the safe back - if you remember. If you don’t remember, your drawer is going to be short and you’ll be fired. The only way around the drawer being short is having whomever comes in next to operate under your numbers (also against policy) and pray they remember - even with a note left it can get so busy that you’re operating on autopilot and forget. When I heard what was going on, I told the cashiers under no terms are they to cash lottery ticket winnings from the safe. It creates havoc with the bookkeeping and someone will be fired. I was right - at least about the havoc with the bookkeeping. After two weekends of the deposits being off by HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS and not even Staci, the area manager, was able to figure out why; all of a sudden, there were no more mishaps with the books on the weekends. I don’t know why someone wasn’t fired for doing it, but then, if they were new, like, oh, Misty, it would be chalked up to a mistake. I take that back, there was one mishap - Friday, Misty’s drawer was short $200 and then on Saturday it was over $200. Now, as a manager, when I see that, it tells me someone is taking money today to pay back tomorrow - which is a HUGE no-no. I couldn’t find the why of it (because usually there’s logical, non-nefarious reasons behind it - miscount, mistake in entering, etc) and left a message for Staci. Wouldn’t you know, Misty’s drawer had been in tolerable limits since. One would think that money handling from someone who stated she was a “pit boss at a casino in Washington” would be second nature. Casinos are anal retentive about keeping track of their money, so why would this new manager not put a slip of paper in one of the tubes what was done with the money or a note attached to her closing slips stating how much she needed to pay back to the safe?

Pit boss, my ass…

Also during her first two weeks, she went after the employees getting refills on our drinks while we were on shift. According to Misty, the policy is we had to pay for our drinks. Even when faced with those of us who have been working there for years telling her she was incorrect; me, her assistant manager, telling her to look at the handbook and reciting the policy; Misty still insisted she was right. We were wrong and Jamie (our beloved manager who went onto to greener pastures) wasn’t following the rules; Misty was a rule follower and no free drinks while on shift. This “policy” went on for about a week. It wasn’t until Cheyanne, a new hire fresh off of her training (and according to several customers had said “Misty was a good friend of mine”) brought up the drink policy in front of Misty. That was when Misty backpedaled, using gaslighting as her defense, “I never said you couldn’t have free drinks on shift. I said you couldn’t have free drinks until you clock in.” That’s not what she told me when she charged me for the coffee I had gotten before I clocked out from my overnight shift. She was kinda shitty about it too - though, to be fair, I was shitty about it as well. One would think that the manager of all people would know the policy about employees and drinks, but whatever - I may or may not have said that…leaning towards the may have said option. Interesting that Misty’s version of the drink policy lasted until her “good friend” Cheyanne started working there and all of a sudden, the ones who have been there longer are suddenly frigging idiots and don’t know what we’re talking about. Incidentally, Cheyanne quit because Misty wouldn’t give her the time off she needed for her sick kids.

So much for friendship I guess.

Misty’s drink “policy” even made it’s way to our local group of coffee drinkers and the rest of the community. The men who would play lottery and chat with each other in the morning and afternoon were regulars. It doesn’t matter how large a cup was or what they got, they were always charged for the smallest refill of soda. These men spend THOUSANDS of dollars in that store over the course of the year and they quite literally bounced the owners of the gas station on their collective knees. The “lottery boys” are a frigging staple at that gas station and pillars of the community. That didn’t matter to Misty. Two of them had cups that were eight ounces and because there’s no 8oz refill option, they were over-charged for fucking WATER. When I tried to explain that to Misty, she cited policy - it’s like her “get out of jail free” card. Our regulars - if they got water, we wouldn’t charge them. Not anymore. They were charged for the refill price of the cup size they refilled it in (most being over-charged because most commuter cups are 24oz and there’s no price option for that). We told her it’s just water, and it’s just for the regulars and on refills only - where’s the harm? They could just go to the bathroom and get their water from the sink there for free and they’ll stop spending money on other stuff. There’s no upside to alienating your core customers. Apparently Misty is such a “policy person” she fired a cashier for stating “I’m not charging people for refills on cups of water. It’s stupid. I haven’t done it and I won’t do it.” Or, according to Misty, the cashier quit because she refused to do it. All I know is when this cashier quit, it started a domino effect. We started losing people left, right and center because of Misty and her strict adherence to “policy” - either they quit because they couldn’t tolerate being around Misty (that was what happened to our overnight cashiers - Misty is a bitch in the morning, I guess), or they were fired for standing up for themselves like the cashier that not only told Misty that she couldn’t work weekends, she also filled out an availability sheet stating she wasn’t available after a certain time on the weekends. I was told by more than one of the regulars that they overheard Misty pressuring this cashier to work weekend evenings because there was no one else to do it (maybe if Misty didn’t fire everyone for every little infraction there WOULD be someone to do it, but that’s none of my business). Seriously, it had gotten to the point that every cashier was afraid they would lose their jobs at the drop of a hat - and some of them couldn’t afford to lose their jobs. For me, it got to the point of I’ll follow her dumbass rules of shitting on people while she’s here, but the minute she’s out the door, I’m doing what I know in my heart to be right. No one should be treated like they are less than human - which is why most of those who quit did. No one should be worried about having employment when they’re scheduled outside of their availability. And NO ONE should be told what they can, or can’t talk about.

That change cup - the “take a penny, leave a penny” tray by the registers? We’ve always used that change for people in our community - the moms who only brought so much cash in; the kids who didn’t quite have enough; the elderly so they wouldn’t have to go back to their car. Apparently, that wasn’t proper because according to Misty, the “new company policy” was any silver change had to be added to the deposit. This “policy” was implemented by a handwritten note on the registers (handwritten notes themselves are against policy), and it meant the change people left behind to pay it forward was being pocketed by the owners of the gas station - or by Misty since there was rarely a “tip” designation in the bookkeeping spreadsheet (and when there was, the amount rarely ended in logical numbers divisible by 5) and there wasn’t enough pennies to exchange for silver on Saturday mornings. Oh, there was a whole shitstorm when it was discovered that one of the cashiers were exchanging the silver found in the change cup with the pennies in her register just so the money wouldn’t be taken away from the community. I knew the cashier was doing it and I whole-heartedly supported her decision - I even started doing it myself (as I said, I’ll do what I know in my heart is right). The cashier that was exchanging the silver for pennies was trying to explain what she was doing - pretty much in defense of her actions - and a customer had approached the counter. Now, it’s not uncharacteristic of us to continue our conversations even when a customer approaches the counter, unless it’s extremely private. Misty told the cashier to stop talking about it and gestured to the customer. The cashier, seeing it was a regular, continued stating her case. Which pissed Misty off and they got into an argument with the cashier stating she was uncomfortable being told what she could or could not talk about. I had come in to get gas and a drink before I went shopping when this cashier stopped me at the soda fountain to tell me what had happened and she was extremely fearful for her job. I know her fear was well founded based on what Misty had done with others in the past, so I decided to ask the other managers of the gas stations in our district to find out if they knew about this “new company policy.”

Surprise, surprise. There was no new policy. Sure the silver change was taken into the office and locked up because of unscrupulous overnight cashiers, but that’s it. Since the one overnight cashier that was stealing the silver change from our gas station had quit for another job - thank god, he was lazy as FUUUCK - we never had to lock it up since. When I clocked in for that day, I saw and overheard Misty talking to Staci. Misty was very animated in what she was telling Staci, and from her gestures and glares in my direction, I can only presume Misty was pissed at me. Later when I wasn’t busy, I asked Staci if the cashier still had her job - I’ve been the most vocal about the firing of people just because Misty has a cunt hair twisted around her clit (never said it like that, but the message is still the same). The cashier did - Staci said it was a misunderstanding. I’ve been in management long enough to hear “misunderstanding” is code word for “I talked the idiot down off of the ledge.” I asked Misty about the “policy” and Misty said she never said it was “company policy.” I pointed to the note on the register and recited what was written, “All silver change left behind must be dropped into the safe. This is company policy.” Misty said she didn’t write the note. I said it’s in her handwritting. She said she didn’t write the last sentence. I wasn’t about to get into a debate about graphology with her. Misty had already shown numerous narcissistic traits and I didn’t want to get sucked into that bullshit again so I just let it go. The main thing was the cashier still had her job and the community had their pot back. Those two things were all that mattered.

Unfortunately, upon reflection, that was when things started going downhill for me. I’ll be honest, when the deposits had come up astronomically short and things from Misty weren’t adding up, that’s when I started having my doubts about her. Was she stealing from the company? I don’t know, but when even the area manager can’t find the discrepency and all of a sudden the cash is balancing out - that’s a red flag. When cashiers are telling me of the way they feel Misty is treating them and I hear from customers stating how they’ve witnessed how Misty treats the cashiers - that’s a red flag. When Misty, as the general manager, omits me, the assistant manager from the professional group chats - that’s a red flag. When she tells me I texted in the group chat “take me out of the chat. it’s annoying trying to get jiggy with my husband and my phone keeps going off” when, number one, I would never text that in a professional group chat; number two, I don’t have a husband; and number three, I spoke “it’s annoying that my phone keeps going off just because people are texting their name - like, we have the numbers written down in the black book, just add them when you get to work” to a co-worker when Misty wasn’t even at the gas station, AND MISTY STILL TRIED TO CONVINCE ME I SAID IT - that’s a red flag. I know gaslighting when I see it and that woman breathes it. The fact I said I had the text message that stated who asked to take them out of the group chat was when Misty dropped the subject and stated she’d add me to the next one. Since that little conversation, I noticed how things an assistant manager should know - staffing changes and equipment failures particularly weren’t being told to me, the assistant manager. Specifically the staffing changes and any “mistakes” made in those changes - particularly when it deals with someone’s two week notice.

Without going into details because I didn’t ask permission of the employee it pertains to if I could speak freely about the matter, I will say this - I feel I did nothing wrong. I took the appropriate action in a situation where NONE of the employees trusted Misty or Staci enough to do the right thing. What Misty did was NOT a “mistake.” It was something she willfully and spitefully did, not thinking she was going to get caught. And if she did get caught, like, on the last day the employee thought they were going to work, Misty could hide behind the cloak of “I made a mistake” to deflect any backlash. The lack of integrity and malicious intent was not in my actions, but in Misty’s because MISTY NEVER APOLOGIZED TO THE EMPLOYEE when her “mistake” was brought to light. Surely someone who unknowingly made a mistake would apologize to the aggrieved party, would they not? Especially if it was unintended! As for the accusation of attempting to cause discord between the employee and Misty, I couldn’t cause what Misty had started already through her actions towards everyone who worked there. Hence why this employee sent her two weeks’ notice to me and not to Misty directly. There was already discord between those two and I had nothing to do with it. I was written up for bullshit along the lines of “showing an employee information from the office” - again, it was pertaining to the employee, so its not really confidential information; and and the disciplinary action was conducted behind the register, publicly. Apparently, public dress downs are not considered confidential in Misty’s world, and it devolved into a shouting match between Misty and myself. The woman loves to say “I’m just communicating” except she doesn’t. She just repeats the same thing over and over again without giving you a chance to say anything. TLDR; I was shouting to be heard. She said I was always shouting at her (not true), I was too loud to which I said, “That’s your trauma, not mine. You not…” and she responded with “I’m not traumatized by you” and I said, “I didn’t say that” and I just gave up mainly because I saw what she was doing and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Misty is a narcissist and she sucked me in like a goddamned vacuum cleaner. I was so pissed off I was shaking so my comment of “I wholeheartedly disagree with this” and signature looked like scribbles.

Since I am not the kind of person to think I’m absolute perfection, I replayed the whole thing in my mind for days which to the outside world looked like I was depressed. I wasn’t until I realized that what I did was right, how I felt was true, and there was no way out of the situation outside of leaving, which I didn’t want to do. Misty didn’t like that people liked, listened, and trusted me more than her and she was doing everything she could to either get me to quit or get fired. Given the fact that any complaint I send to HR would be passed to Staci, and given Staci’s willful blindness to what was going on in that gas station told me I needed to quit because it would take too goddamned long to get fired - and frankly given Misty’s duplicitous and conniving nature, it wouldn’t surprise me if she was trying to set me up for theft (we were missing $600 from the deposit during Misty’s first two weekends, so it isn’t a stretch). So after very short notice about my schedule changing due to Misty’s stupidity and her dishonesty, I quit. Of course Staci and Misty were shocked and shaken by my actions. Staci incredulous; Misty trying to deflect blame off of herself; both up shit’s creek without a paddle. I honestly don’t regret any action on my part - even staying when I should’ve left sooner I don’t regret it. I now know how to spot a narcissist easier (and god help my sense of fairness - I owe my ex an apology because I thought he was a narcissist. That man ain’t got nothing on Misty!); I’m getting better at knowing when someone is pulling on my energy; and I’m getting better at trusting my gut. If something smells rotten, it probably is.

It also showed me that while I am capable of being just like Misty, I choose not to be. I choose not to let things in life kill me at my core. I will always be kind. I will always be compassionate. I will always be understanding. I will always be forgiving. I will always be loud. I will always be passionate in my beliefs. I will always defend those who can’t defend themselves. I will not allow those things in me to be dimmed again or extinguished outright like Misty allowed to happen to herself. I might wind up penniless and on the street, but at least I’ll still be me. One hundred percent.

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I only published this so that I can get this poison out of my system and let it go back to the universe. Burning shit for the last 60 days hasn’t worked. I’m hoping this does. I think it is helping. Someone was starting to tell me about their experience at the gas station. I stopped them and asked if they were telling me because they thought I would want to know, or because they were venting. I will listen to them vent; but what happens there from now on is not my concern one way or the other, and I won’t make it my concern. I didn’t feel the least bit guilty in stating it. If you feel compelled to leave a comment, feel free to do so, but please do not expect me to answer. As far as I’m concerned, this chapter is over. Thank you for reading <3