Grrrr
So after three months of unemployment with no Unemployment Insurance (prior job really pulled a fast one on me), my sister finally convinced me to apply for a job working where she does - a restaurant. Now, I've always had this guideline to not working in the food industry because I know there are things going on "behind the scenes" that I would not be real thrilled to know about, especially if it's somewhere I have eaten before, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
So I applied, knocked the interview out of the park and got hired. Started working there last Monday and since I was "in training", I didn't have any real "hands-on" work to do. I mainly just grabbed piles of clean dishes and ran them out to where they needed to go in the cooking/prep/server areas. Thursday night comes and I'm now, officially, turned loose on my own in the "dish pit". It's honest money and not terribly hard, so I'm getting some of my pride and self-confidence back. I get Friday off, so instead of crashing at my sister's house, I head on back home (an hour+ away). I noticed that I was itching really badly in several spots, but thought nothing of it. Figured it was just one of those things. Wake up Saturday morning to get ready to drive back and go to work and my left arm, left leg, and down my side are eaten up by these weird rashes. My skin looks like it's been splashed with acid, so I swing by my sister's to show her and my brother in law the patches. The only thing we can figure it being is that I'm having a reaction to the shellfish that they serve. [I have a lethal and aggressive allergy to shellfish].
Since this was a steakhouse, plus I was JUST washing the dishes, not a single one of us thought that my allergy would be an issue. I go in, show my managers, and ask what we can do. One of them gives me these great big gloves that stretch all the way to my elbow and tell me to try them out. They seem to work okay and I get through the night. Sunday morning, I wake up and there is a new patch blistering up, so my sister insists that I call them and see if they can make some kind of arrangement to get me out of the dish pit and into a job where I wouldn't be exposed to shellfish, since she maintains that they have made arrangements for other people to change jobs for medically necessary reasons. I call the General Manager and tell him that I didn't think the gloves were effective and I wasn't sure if I could keep on working in the dish area due to my allergy. Before I could even start asking about other jobs, he has a meltdown and says, "I was going to start training you in prep, but that won't work because everything back there touches shellfish. Thanks for this. I have to go now and find a dishwasher for tonight." and then he actually hangs up in my face!
Naturally, I assume this means that I've been let go, so I tell my sister and BIL, pack my stuff up and come home with a new burden of shame and disappointment. Well today, my sister goes into work and they're telling her that I outright quit and that [Manager] didn't actually fire me.
I told the GM at the interview that I've been in management plenty of times and I'd never quit a job without notice because that fruiting sucks on everybody's part and that if I didn't think I could do a job that I would talk it out and see what else I could do and he appreciated that, saying that was what he was looking for - someone who could be depended on and not just run off. I did what I was supposed to. I tried, found out there was a problem, and told them about it only to get hung up on. I would have gladly tried something else because it wasn't a bad place to work, from what I could tell, the money was awesome, and it gave me the opportunity to spend a little quality time with my family - something that my other jobs have been lacking in.
My sister just messaged me back after I asked her for clarification and they told her that I quit, but she said that she could hear my side of the conversation (I was outside their house, standing under their bedroom window when I called) and that I was clearly trying to work with them. Now, she's saying if I wanted to, I could call to try and sort the mess out, but I was pretty hurt by the Manager hanging up in my face like a child and I don't really want to go back to a situation like that. If anybody has ever dealt with a situation like this, I'm all ears. Inbox me.