Imagine working at a deli in a grocery store, and you have the flu. Would you take a sick day or go to work?

Please tell me you answered that you’d take a sick day because the idea of someone with the flu working in the deli at a grocery store sounds so very wrong.

Unfortunately, in this story, one employee is in this situation and tries to make it through the work day. She ends up realizing she needs to go home, but her supervisor doesn’t seem to be concerned about anyone’s health.

Let’s read the whole story.

Worst supervisor/coworker I’ve ever had the displeasure of working with, or why we need sick days.

So I work in the deli of a fairly successful “chain” of grocery stores (there’s only 4, family owned), and for the most part my job kicks butt. My manager is awesome, my coworkers are cool, and I rarely have nightmare customers. HOWEVER:

The supervisor, the person above me but below my manager, is a freaking headache. She’s lazy, works at a snail’s pace, bossy, incompetent, and overall just a bad person.

Her perceived authority over the rest of us has gone straight to her head.

Really, the supervisor position is more of a “fill in for the manager when she has days off” role, in terms of ordering supplies and doing paperwork. She can’t write us up or discipline us, but that doesn’t stop her from throwing her weight around.

The supervisor sounds mean.

I have too many encounters to list in one post, so I’ll stick to the ones that come to mind.

When I first started, about 2 months in, she took it upon herself to inform me that I have a “bad personality”. I’m still trying to figure out what she meant by that, 6 months later.

I’m a fairly sarcastic person, and my sense of humor sometimes extends past what is generally accepted as funny, but I’m also a good worker, priding myself on customer service and getting my work done on time.

She’s pretty efficient at sandwich making.

I’ll use sandwich making as an example.

Everyone in my department hates making sandwiches, myself included. They’re time consuming, don’t sell well (they’re overpriced, WAY overpriced), and probably the number one thing we get complaints about.

We don’t make them to order anymore, since there’s a sandwich fast food place across the street, and hardly anybody orders them anyway.

When I make sandwiches, I put my head down and plow through the list, taking anywhere from 1-2 hours to make all the sandwiches we need for that day AND the next.

The supervisor isn’t nearly as efficient at making sandwiches.

When SHE makes sandwiches, it’s a 4-5 hour ordeal, no matter how many she has to make. She also only does enough to get through the rest of the day, meaning more work for whoever makes them the next day.

Why does it take her so long?

She wanders out of the department to chat with other employees, takes her breaks (both her 10 and then her lunch) while just leaving the sandwich stuff everywhere, and somehow can’t quickly assemble two pieces of meat, a piece of cheese and a piece of lettuce.

Seriously, that’s 90% of the sandwiches we make. The wraps have one extra step, but it adds 30 seconds per sandwich for anyone who isn’t bad at their jobs.

At least they’re not overworked.

Now, our department has tons of downtime. It’s almost criminal. It’s not unheard of to get done with the daily list at least 3 hours ahead of schedule, then basically stand around until it’s time to start closing, while helping the odd customer here and there.

Even on days where I’ve done 75% of the daily list (which she often contributes 5% or less), she’ll bark at me if I’m standing around for even one minute, even if I’m transitioning tasks.

Her favorite phrase is “what are you working on?”. Whenever she utters it, I feel myself slip one step closer to homicidal rage.

It’s hard to avoid getting sick when everyone else is sick.

Now, for the sick leave part.

I’ve had the flu for the past 5 days. Everyone in our department has been sick over the last week. I covered for a variety of people that week, since I was the only healthy one. This included my manager and dumb supervisor.

On my last shift before a much needed, much looked forward to 3 day weekend, I started to have a mild cough. I spent the three days sick as anything, trying to rest and intake as much fluid as I could.

I called out for my 5 hour shift yesterday, but tried to troop through and go today.

She should’ve stayed home.

I threw up within an hour of clocking on.

Now, health code dictates that any employee, upon throwing up, must go home.

I tell superwitch that I have to go.

“You’re not leaving until I find someone to cover for you” was her reply.

It took awhile to find a replacement.

Whatever, I’m too delirious to argue at this point.

Then she goes on to say “Well, there’s nobody to call, so I don’t know what to do.”

I remind her that both the bakery employees currently working are crosstrained for the deli, so she goes and asks them if they’ll cover. Thankfully, one girl will, but she has to finish her bakery shift first.

“You’ll have to stay here for an hour until she gets here.”

Does her supervisor want all the customers to get sick too?

I say fine, because I’ve learned at this point that trying to argue health code with her is like trying to teach a rock to speak Japanese.

I say she needs to put me on something non-food related, and she comes back with “we work in the deli, what’s not food related? suck it up.”

I say either put me on dishes or send me home now, because I refuse to touch people’s food.

She says fine, do dishes.

Her supervisor should be reported.

An hour passes, and my relief show up, so I say I’m going home.

She has the nerve to look me in the eye and say, super sarcastically, “Ok, never call out anymore, and don’t show up for a shift you don’t intend to stay for.”

Had I not been fever sweating and delirious, I would have argued with her, but I just wanted to get home.

So, her supervisor isn’t very good at the actual job and wants her employees to work while they’re sick? She should be fired.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is crazy!

Here’s an interesting question!

LOL!

Another person makes a good point.

If she can’t fire you, why listen to her when she’s wrong?

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.