Are all first jobs this crapy???

[Elite14]

Around November I got a seasonal job at a craft/department store called Joanns where I worked for about 5 weeks. While the store it's self wasn't that bad the managers there where a whole other story. On my first day I show up at 5am (I had the morning shift) and they immediately expect me to start working and know what to do, the only training I had from the day before was where my locker was and how to punch in and out. That was the only "official" training I got, everything else I had to learn on the fly from observing other employees. Every day after that was more or less the same thing. I would show up, punch in and then be told to do something without any explanation on how to do it, or if I had to restock I was given a box and was told to go over to (someplace in the store) and restock.

 On the third day we got semi-truck full of product that we had to put away. I got yelled at for doing something wrong and if I tried to respond they would say something like "don't talk like that to me". That was the worse day there because it was absolute chaos and I had no clue of what the hell was going on and no one bothered to explain anything to me.

After that the days slowly got better as I was learning what to do even though the managers where some of the dumbest people I have ever met. Like if you had a task to do you would try and find a efficient way to do it, they on the other hand would chose the most difficult way to do it then get mad at me for trying to do it more efficiently, how she got the job is beyond me.

One week before I got fired I all most got written up for something I had no idea about. When they said they were going to wright me up I said "I have not received any training of any kind, no rules no nothing" there response was "you would have learned this in orientation if you pad attention" I said "I was not put through orientation" and they went "OH.......oh.......(crap we screwed up)" after that she cut my hours and then a week later "laid me off". I have never hated anything more in my life then working there. So are most jobs like that or did I just get super unlucky with my first job? my parents want me to get another job and I know I need to but I'm dreading going through something like that again.

[Anghammarad]

Jobs can be like that yes... Not even first jobs but even further on in life... 

 

Finding a really good place to work today isn't that easy anymore... This mostly due to, and this is my observation, in many companies the least able get promoted... , then it is only "Max Profit" and not happy workers anymore, even though this is slightly changing in some areas again. 

 

Sadly the world spins that way... 

 

You can even see it in the naming... Usually around here companies that care have a "Staff Department" ... the others that only look for max profit call it "Human Resources Department"... and what are resources for? yes get abused/exploited like most resources get. See the difference?

[AntiTrust]

No man most jobs are actually pretty easy for the first couple weeks b/c people are supposed to take it easy on you while you learn. especially if your just a kid at your first job. 

 

next one will most likely be better. gl maybe try a grocery store/ restaurant/fast food next time they usually are used to hiring and training younger people

[NMS]

That is a managment failiure or their way of keeping short-term employees that don't get paid but STILL do some job. I've seen this before and experienced first-hand.

Thankfuly, here I am at my current job browsing the forums:D Trust me, it will get better. But sometimes you have to wait years for the right opportunity...

[id10tgaming28]

Some managers can be dicks and some can be really cool. It took me 5 jobs before i found one I like. Sometimes it takes a couple of jobs to find something good and you like to do.

[Volbet]

That seems like a scam. Did you actually get paid for the time you worked there? 

I heard about companies that'll hire young people to do menial tasks and then have a "trial" periode of, say, 3 weeks. When the 3 weeks are over they'll then fire the person citing learning difficulties or simple incompatibility with the workplace.

 

My first real job was at a slaughterhouse, so you better believe that they taught me how to do my job properly.  

[Monkey Dust]

2 hours ago, Anghammarad said:

 This mostly due to, and this is my observation, in many companies the least able get promoted... , then it is only "Max Profit" and not happy workers anymore, even though this is slightly changing in some areas again. 

Yes it seems the least able often get promoted out of the way, or possibly the least able can at least keep management sweet. Then there are the people who accumulate power, but no responsibility, and spend their days holding pointless meetings.

[Elite14]

8 hours ago, Volbet said:

That seems like a scam. Did you actually get paid for the time you worked there? 

I heard about companies that'll hire young people to do menial tasks and then have a "trial" periode of, say, 3 weeks. When the 3 weeks are over they'll then fire the person citing learning difficulties or simple incompatibility with the workplace.

 

My first real job was at a slaughterhouse, so you better believe that they taught me how to do my job properly.  

Yeah I made a a little over a $1000 at $10.50 an hour. It was a seasonal job so I didn't expect to be working there very long anyway, it was just weird on how they fired me a week after I all most got written up. 

[Jtalk4456]

not all are that bad. That's a lack of good management

[Volbet]

1 hour ago, Elite14 said:

Yeah I made a a little over a $1000 at $10.50 an hour. It was a seasonal job so I didn't expect to be working there very long anyway, it was just weird on how they fired me a week after I all most got written up. 

I'm at least glad you wasn't ripped off.

 

Unfortunately, the behavior you described isn't rare. The place might very well have a culture of treating workers like that, and when uncontested, that culture will just become putrid.

 

Your untimely termination could be a way for them to save face. If they fired you they didn't have to admit to any faults on their part.

Or it could just be coincidental.

[Canada EH]

Please please please format your thoughts in a way that is not a wall of words. People do not like to read a wall of words with no spacing, no formatting, no flow.

 

From the 2 or 3 sentences I read halfway through the wall of words.......

 

First jobs can either suck or be really good.

Depends on the culture of the work place.

Sounds like they just wanted to see how you would react.

Getting along with fellow employees is crucial.

No one wants to work with someone who "doesnt play along" or someone who is a cry baby or always sucking up to the superviser.

[Teddy07]

Don't let anyone treat you like crap or it will never stop.

[Canada EH]

Just now, Teddy07 said:

Don't let anyone treat you like crap or it will never stop.

You got that right. People need a backbone and if you let them get to you, they will continue doing it. That is why you gotta do what you gotta do, if that means standing up for youself and fighting then so be it. In the workplace cant do that.

[Satisfoxy]

This is to be expected at any basic wage/seasonal position. When you actually get a good job and do it well you will become so bored your face will numb up and fall off.

[Guest]

My first job was with a cathodic protection company as a laborer, i dug holes and painted things really. Carried around big magnesium and zinc anodes, used a blast sander, helped operate a truck mounted auger.

It sucked sometimes, i worked in mainly oil and gas refineries where its loud, occasionally smells like crude oil, super dirty and the entire time we had to wear fire resistant clothing. Full sleeves, thick, high vis stuff, even if its sunny and 110 degrees outside, which it occasionally was.

However i was paid 17$/hr on hire, they paid for a 40 hour OSHA course i still have on my resume 3 years later, i later got a pay raise after a month and when my training was done to 21$/hr.

Right outa highschool, 21$/hr. Yeah the work was hard and man did it suck, but wew, when you got those 70 hour weeks back to back and you come home to that kinda paycheck, yeah it was pretty baller.

First paycheck i bought my 1993 buick regal and the second paycheck i had like 2000$ worth of work done on it because i had terrible priorities.

 

So no, theres a lot of things you can get into for a first job, it just depends what youre around and what you can do. Construction and industry are always looking for hole diggers and button pushers. My second job was as a temp at a CNC factory where i went from using a belt sander to grind burrs off of forged parts to a full fledged CNC operator in 6 months. Pay wasnt as good but i needed something more local because i moved like 5 hours away from my first job.

 

Now that im 21 i recently went to a CR England truck driving school near me, and i now have a CDL and drive a semi truck. Its stupidly easy, school was like 20 days total from CLP to CDL and i make ~40k a year now.

 

[Tsuki]

thats piss poor management. not super typical. 

 

you'll learn though, everywhere you work, management is doing something fucking stupid. but its not usually that bad, and its usually upper management, not the person directly in charge of you.

[wasab]

oh crap. my first job was working at a museum, cleaning out the weed. my 2nd job was working at the NYC DMV, helping the customers applying for their learner permit and grading their permit exams. Didn't get yell at or whatever there. The admins were cool and so were the supervisors. At the end of the summer, before i left, they even treat me to a huge meal.  The museum was none profit and did the same as well.  

 

After that, i strictly work in for private profit businesses, mostly restaurants and retails and thats where i experienced bad bosses for the first time like managers who micromanages or who always find faults/flaws in how you work. they got the job cuz they owned the businesses, jointly own the businesses, or purchased part ownership. thats pretty much it. 

 

in such situations, employee morales usually is low and turn over rate is extremely high, many employees would quit in just a month.

 

 

[Donut417]

22 hours ago, Elite14 said:

Around November I got a seasonal job at a craft/department store called Joanns where I worked for about 5 weeks. While the store it's self wasn't that bad the managers there where a whole other story. On my first day I show up at 5am (I had the morning shift) and they immediately expect me to start working and know what to do, the only training I had from the day before was where my locker was and how to punch in and out. That was the only "official" training I got, everything else I had to learn on the fly from observing other employees. Every day after that was more or less the same thing. I would show up, punch in and then be told to do something without any explanation on how to do it, or if I had to restock I was given a box and was told to go over to (someplace in the store) and restock.

 On the third day we got semi-truck full of product that we had to put away. I got yelled at for doing something wrong and if I tried to respond they would say something like "don't talk like that to me". That was the worse day there because it was absolute chaos and I had no clue of what the hell was going on and no one bothered to explain anything to me.

After that the days slowly got better as I was learning what to do even though the managers where some of the dumbest people I have ever met. Like if you had a task to do you would try and find a efficient way to do it, they on the other hand would chose the most difficult way to do it then get mad at me for trying to do it more efficiently, how she got the job is beyond me.

One week before I got fired I all most got written up for something I had no idea about. When they said they were going to wright me up I said "I have not received any training of any kind, no rules no nothing" there response was "you would have learned this in orientation if you pad attention" I said "I was not put through orientation" and they went "OH.......oh.......(crap we screwed up)" after that she cut my hours and then a week later "laid me off". I have never hated anything more in my life then working there. So are most jobs like that or did I just get super unlucky with my first job? my parents want me to get another job and I know I need to but I'm dreading going through something like that again.

I myself used to work for Sam's Club. They provided a little bit better training than what you got. But the issue is most companies look at employees as expenses. They dont give a fuck about employees because they figure they can replace you in a heartbeat. This is the prime reason why customer service at most places suck balls. Because management doesn't know what the fuck they are doing. In some cases people are promoted to management due to the fact they need a manager now, and not necessarily because the person is qualified. 

[Theguywhobea]

I worked at job last year at a super high end private golf course (like memberships fees were $250K / year) and had a similar experience. First off I was 10 minutes late the first day because I couldn't find the place, and then I was put in a golf cart immediately with someone else and given a backpack blower and told to go do what everyone else was doing. Needless to say I screwed up some stuff and ended up driving a golf cart somewhere we weren't supposed to and was yelled at for it (only time I've ever been yelled at at work lol). It gets better, you just need to take your work seriously and pay attention, eventually I got the hang of it and they hated seeing me leave as I was one of the few people there who could mow in a straight line! 

 

Just remember that no matter the job you're working you should take it seriously and act like a professional, even if that job is going no where, it can lead to better places.

[Keg Ops]

Unfortunately a lot of low tier jobs are like this. They don't particularly care about spending a lot of time training an employee, because if they can't learn how to do it, there's 10 more people who could replace them. Managers generally tend to be stuck up in these kind of jobs too because they're spending their 40's or 50's working at a grocery store, so they tend to take a of their frustration out on their employees. You might want to look into food businesses because general grocery stores are probably one of the worst places to work at. 

[andrewmp6]

I'm 35 have had a few jobs over the years,Honestly what i have seen all jobs suck somewhere somehow.A lot of it can come down to the boss to have,A nice boss that won't screw you over is good to have but rare anymore.A lot of bosses now are more worried about pinching that penny working you like a dog to get a bigger bonus check for themselfs.

[Guest]

@Elite14, first and foremost don't allow this experience to tarnish your future employment prospects. You'll meet a lot of different people in your life and career, people with exceptional skill and others with none. Work provides many benefits if you apply yourself, no matter how menial your job is. Never be afraid to ask questions but also listen to the answers. Always be polite and respectful to people, even if you don't agree with them. Your manager may be a complete arse and not deserve his position, but he is still your manager. Always try to do the best you can, and here is the important part, DO IT FOR YOURSELF. If you do things for others you'll find they'll never be happy, but do things for yourself and you'll be rewarded with a sense of achievement and accomplishment.

 

And don't be afraid to innovate and do things differently. If it works and is safe and time efficient, then do it. I recall 2 instances in one of my jobs. The first one was a guy who spoke disrespectfully and aggressively towards others and myself. I went home and thought about how I'm going to react to him. So when the next occasion arose where he spoke to me in this fashion, I stopped what I was doing and walked over to him. I was very calm and well mannered and briefly said that when you talk to me you WILL speak to me respectfully and politely, as I have always done to you. Getting people to reason or think and say "yes, he has spoken to me nicely" will help you.

 

The second time someone was trying to tell me how I should do something. Now some tasks in a job require you to have a little experience before you can adopt your own way of doing things. So again I went over to this gent and said briefly, thank you for your opinion but I am happy to do it this way and ultimately this is my responsibility and task. Also be calm yet mature. 

 

These are things you'll learn though. You're in a workplace not just for money, not just to learn a trade but most importantly to learn about yourself and grow as an individual. Hope it helps you. Take your parents advice, don't let fear of hesitation hold you back and get into the workforce again. Good luck!

 

 

[wasab]

1 hour ago, cartdog said:

@Elite14, first and foremost don't allow this experience to tarnish your future employment prospects. You'll meet a lot of different people in your life and career, people with exceptional skill and others with none. Work provides many benefits if you apply yourself, no matter how menial your job is. Never be afraid to ask questions but also listen to the answers. Always be polite and respectful to people, even if you don't agree with them. Your manager may be a complete arse and not deserve his position, but he is still your manager. Always try to do the best you can, and here is the important part, DO IT FOR YOURSELF. If you do things for others you'll find they'll never be happy, but do things for yourself and you'll be rewarded with a sense of achievement and accomplishment.

 

And don't be afraid to innovate and do things differently. If it works and is safe and time efficient, then do it. I recall 2 instances in one of my jobs. The first one was a guy who spoke disrespectfully and aggressively towards others and myself. I went home and thought about how I'm going to react to him. So when the next occasion arose where he spoke to me in this fashion, I stopped what I was doing and walked over to him. I was very calm and well mannered and briefly said that when you talk to me you WILL speak to me respectfully and politely, as I have always done to you. Getting people to reason or think and say "yes, he has spoken to me nicely" will help you.

 

The second time someone was trying to tell me how I should do something. Now some tasks in a job require you to have a little experience before you can adopt your own way of doing things. So again I went over to this gent and said briefly, thank you for your opinion but I am happy to do it this way and ultimately this is my responsibility and task. Also be calm yet mature. 

 

These are things you'll learn though. You're in a workplace not just for money, not just to learn a trade but most importantly to learn about yourself and grow as an individual. Hope it helps you. Take your parents advice, don't let fear of hesitation hold you back and get into the workforce again. Good luck!

 

 

Bad bosses are bad bosses. You can’t reason with them. You try to do that, they will just argue and pick fights with you until they terminate you. I would just leave, especially if the job is low tier. Just like they have plenty of people lining up to replace me, there are plenty of retails and restaurants I can switch to. It is not worth staying in a toxic work enviorment. It’s bad for ones physical and mental health.

[Energycore]

15 minutes ago, wasab said:

It is not worth staying in a toxic [...] enviorment. It’s bad for ones physical and mental health.

Tell that to Dota players

[Misanthrope]

Most first days on any new job are like that for me, mainly due to social anxiety. It gets better once you're on an area you actually like and feel comfortable at but it's never completely ok. But every person is different some people like being the adventurous feeling of starting a new job who knows?