There are a lot of good things about working as a teenager – not much responsibility, any amount of money is great, etc – but one of the bad things is that some employers think they can treat you like crap and get away with it.

They never think you’ll fight back – but sometimes, people do.

OP worked at a spa and liked the job.

I worked at a small local spa company. There was only about 6 workers there. I worked there for a year and a half and only met the owner once, but talked to them on the phone a lot.

She was crazy, but that’s besides the point.

Anyways, I got hired because my friend’s mom (Pam) was the manager and someone had quit in the middle of their shift so they needed someone fast. I worked really well there and learned very fast.

I was very good at the job to the point where after a couple of months they sent new hires to be trained by me (turnover here was bad).

Despite this, I didn’t get a raise or anything. It wasn’t a big deal, but it would’ve been nice.

Anyways, I was always a closer. There would be a list of things I had to do after we closed like vacuum and dust and such. Janitorial things.

That is, until her boss started accusing her of things she didn’t do.

As months go by, Pam begins to pick apart things. A string was left on the rug, the candy bowls weren’t filled (even though they weren’t even half gone), etc. nothing too big, but they made it seem like I liked their mother.

Slowly, things started to get worse. Eventually I was being told that I was not cleaning rooms that I know for a fact I had.

Now I admit that once in a while I would forget to clean something, but I was a getting yelled at for things I knew for a fact I cleaned.

My other problem was that when my coworkers would forget the same exact things she wouldn’t yell at them, but would just say “try to remember” or something along those lines.

Her coworkers even got in on it.

Eventually, Pam got other coworkers to lie so that she could report me to the owner. Many days I came right from school and would be wearing jeans.

Pam left right when I got there so after I clocked in and counted the drawer, I would go and change into my work pants. Well, it turns out other coworkers would lie and tell her I never changed.

After this, I began taking pictures and time-stamping them. This worked for a little while, but then my coworkers would say I changed back into jeans after that picture. And when it came to cleaning she would say I didn’t clean it well enough, etc.

All of these would get turned into the owner, but she wouldn’t fire me because they were so desperate for people and no one wanted to work there (I wonder why).

OP quit to go to a better job and they refused to pay her final wages.

Eventually, I quit because I had a job for the summer that gave me many more hours. In my summer job I made the same amount of money in 7 weeks that I made in a year at the last place.

Right after I left I learned why Pam wanted me gone so bad. Pam hired her son (my exfriend) because he was too lazy to work a job where he couldn’t sit around all day.

That made me mad, but even worse they wouldn’t give me my last payment (we were paid in cash).

I sent multiple emails and text messages to Pam and the owner that reminded them that I needed it. When those went unanswered, I then threatened legal action. Being a high schooler I don’t believe they thought I would do anything.

How wrong they were.

So, she reported many transgressions to the proper authorities.

Well, there were many reasons I was mad about this and so I decided I’d document every single thing about it that place. These include:

• 8+ hour work day with no breaks or a lunch (both of which are required in my state)
• Rats in the basement
• Ant infestation
• Fake security cameras
• Allowing underage drinking
• Pam faking the amount of money we had to pay her son and daughter for “under the table work”
• Child labor – Pam’s daughter was not old enough to work
• Not fixing things like building framework, mold, etc.
• Allowing temperatures to go above and below the legal limit (on bad days it’s was above 100 or below 50 inside)
• Drug use
• Pam giving themselves a raise (even though they already made more than everyone else there)
• Selling client information
• Pam compiling clients for another worker to take with them to a new company (usually not illegal but the way they went about it was. I don’t remember the exact details)
• Not doing anything about harassment
• Not paying workers – there’d be days where we didn’t have enough money in the drawer and the owner and/or Pam would be too lazy to go to the bank so they would just straight up not pay us.
• Not only this, but prior to me leaving, I recorded some of the verbal abuse from Pam. Believe it or not, I even got them to admit to making false write ups on me.

The place was shut down and none of them could work in the industry again.

There was more, but I can’t remember what else right now. Anyways, I compiled all of this and sent it in an email to OSHA. Shit went down. In the end, both Pam and the owner were served with some hefty fines and Pam is even facing jail time right now for fraud.

The owner had to shut down their business and sell it. I don’t know if the owner is facing any jail time. I also emailed every spa within 50 miles so the owner, Pam, and some coworkers have been blacklisted from working within an hour of where we’re located.

I never did receive my last payment, it wasn’t worth going to court over, but what came out of it was so much better.

Tl;dr My first job made false claims against me to try to get me fired and when I finally left they hired the managers lazy son and withheld my paycheck so I reported them to the state and black listed them from working at every spa in a 50 mile radius.

Why are managers like this?

This person is desperate for even more deets.

Sometimes it still doesn’t work out.

But this commenter has a bit of concern.

This doesn’t seem right.

I think the lesson might be not to mistake teenagers for pawns.

There are a lot of people who could stand to learn that.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.