#labor practices

And like, friends, you might be too young to remember this. But in the days where things were not all corporate-owned or franchises that have to follow impersonal corporate rules or pay the penalties... in the Before Time and the Long, Long Ago... a business NOT owned by a corporation could just put a sign on the door that said, "Closed due to a family emergency" or whatever and customers grumped a little but accepted it and came back the next say.

Businesses had the freedom to do that. To change their hours and staffing *as needed* and it was fine. It was not the end of the world.

Corporate manager types... you are miserable and you treat others like shit because you work for an impersonal entity that does not allow special hours due to emergencies or anything like this.

When I worked for a franchise, and when I worked outright for a corporation, special hours were not allowed. There was a book of instructions we were supposed to follow in case of natural disasters (hilarious, btw, and no, we just closed the fucking store and went home. I'm not taking your money to the bank before I flee for my life???? fuck off.) If an employee at our store died, no one got time off for a funeral or memorial unless we got people from other stores to work for us. No joke. With Covid and employees (rightfully) quitting public-facing jobs in droves, we were STILL not allowed to limit our hours without special intervention from corporate. Overworked staff in a pandemic was fine with them.

That is entirely corporate think. They do not allow flexibility and they don't care about workers from their DMs all the way down to the lowliest PT hire and it shows in the culture. Smart managers see this and leave if they can. Others absorb it and become cold-hearted little tyrants.

And I was a manager, at several different levels of management, so I am telling you, all their asskissing whining about how their employees suck should actually be directed upward at the executive who can and will be casually cruel by creating those policies.

Personal time for health or grief, or illness, is a necessary, human thing, and it is not the responsibility of the employee if that means shorter hours that day, or whatever. Days off for sickness are good and also *really fucking necessary* and no employee of a retail or food service place or wherever should be ill and calling around for shift coverage. That is a) the manager's job and b) corporate understaffing at its worst and c) working off the clock. No executive has to justify calling in and their jobs involve almost no skill.

The Fat Jew