It can be hard to work for a company that has more than one owner especially when one owner is great and the other owner is unreasonable.

In today’s story, one woman finds herself in this exact scenario, and things spiral downhill quickly when the great owner is out of town and the unreasonable owner is left in charge.

Let’s see how it all plays out.

I’m not “barista” material. Okay!

Years ago (1990s), I worked for an LGBTQ themed coffee house in Hollywood (name redacted).

There were two locations; one in Hollywood in an LGBTQ community center, and the second in West Hollywood.

Both places were busy.

My best friend Sumatra (30F), and I (30F), worked at both locations, and we loved it there.

We made decent money, great tips, and made friends with most of our customers.

Macchiato sounds like a horrible boss.

One of the owners, Macchiato, didn’t like female employees.

He’d hire buff guys in their 20s he’d shamelessly flirt with, and then fire if they didn’t reciprocate.

The deal between the owners was that Tea ran the Hollywood location, and Macchiato ran the one in West Hollywood.

Macchiato wasted a lot of money.

Macchiato was a guy who loved to show off; he’d spend too much on supplies, expensive food, overpriced coffee beans, and would give raises to the employees he liked (the ones he hired).

He’d also give his friends free coffee and sandwiches.

The Hollywood location was consistently making a profit, while the West Hollywood location bled money.

Now Macchiato is hanging out in Hollywood.

Eventually, the West Hollywood location closed, and the remaining employees were integrated with the employees at the Hollywood store.

Macchiato started to hang around the remaining coffee house to “supervise”.

His business partner, Tea was on a three month vacation in Europe when all this went down.

There’s a new manager.

Macchiato decided to hire his new bf, Espresso (M 18), as our manager.

Espresso didn’t know how a coffee house worked, and Sumatra and I were instructed to train him.

He refused to learn anything, preferring to stay in the office, or leave for three hour lunches.

Sumatra and OP were both fired.

Sumatra told me our days were numbered, and she was right.

A week after Espresso was hired, he fired Sumatra for no reason, which left Espresso and myself as the only employees.

Three days later, as I was getting ready for a film festival the community center was hosting, Espresso showed up with my final paycheck, and told me I was being let go.

I’m sure nobody actually complained.

When I asked why, he said there were “complaints”, from customers.

I asked him, as manager, why he didn’t bring this to my attention earlier.

(Note; we had an employee manual that clearly spelled out a robust correction policy).

He scoffed at me, and took off.

I then called Macchiato, and asked him why I was being let go.

Macchiato’s answer wasn’t any better.

He gave me the same lame answer.

I read him the correction policy from the employee handbook, which made him mad.

“It doesn’t matter,” Macchiato said, “You’re being let go, immediately. You’re clearly not barista material.”

I love what she did here!

I took a look at the two block long line of film festival attendees who were waiting for the coffeehouse to open so they could buy drinks and snacks,

I asked, “Macchiato, if I’m being let go, who is going to help all the people who are lined up outside?”

He said,” Oh! Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d stay and finish your shift.”

I hung up the phone, opened the door, and told the line, “We’re open. Help yourselves,” and then left.

She got out just in time.

I had my last paycheck, which didn’t include the hours from my last shift, and since I clearly wasn’t barista material, I didn’t need to be there.

I took my paycheck to a check cashing place, instead of depositing it into my bank account.

That next week, I got hired for an admin position with an accounting firm.

I later found out from Sumatra that it was a good thing I cashed my paycheck instead of putting into my bank account.

The owner of the check cashing place sent over two big dudes and made Espresso give them all the cash from the register to cover the bad check Macchiato had written.

Macchiato clearly isn’t cut out to run a business.

I bet Tea was furious when he found out what happened at the Hollywood location.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Tea never should’ve left Macchiato in charge.

I’d like to know this too!

I liked the coffee themed names as well.

And, let’s end with a joke.

Firing every employee was a really bad idea!

Who would have figured?

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.