People usually don’t mind working hard, as long as everyone else is pulling their weight too.

That’s what this shift lead was struggling with after watching two of his supervisors disappear into the back while everyone else stayed up front doing the work.

What made it even worse was that those same supervisors expected everyone else to stay busy every minute of the day.

So, after watching it happen one too many times, he finally decided to say something to the store manager.

Unfortunately, that decision didn’t stay quiet for long, and one of the supervisors confronted him about going behind his back.

Read on to see what happened next.

AITA for asking the Manager to talk to my Superiors?

I (23M) was working with a coworker (17M) and the head lead for the front (23M). I’m one of the front-end leads. We work at a parts store and are typically stationed at the front desk.

The assistant manager (AM) comes in on a specific weekday to finalize timecards and clock-in/clock-out times.

The AM is absurdly hard on the staff and has a “make work” mentality, piling extra tasks on people when they’re already working on something else she assigned them. She also questions why things aren’t done when people are trying to balance their regular duties with all of her additional tasks. Staff have complained to me about her.

The next thing he knows, they disappear for more than an hour.

The head lead (my superior) has a similar attitude, depending on the day. He flips between working everyone so hard that people complain to me and I have to mediate, or doing next to nothing, making it a chill and relaxed day once everyone’s tasks are finished and we’re just finding small extra things to do.

The issue comes when the assistant manager arrives.

She goes to the back, and the head lead goes back as well. They talk about work stuff at first, but then the head lead and AM disappear for another hour and a half.  The other two had already taken their lunch breaks, and I was waiting for mine.

When he found them, they were basically hanging out.

I headed to the back to check on them and found them talking full-on conspiracy theories and just generally hanging out while my coworker and I were left up front.

So I texted the store manager (25F) and simply asked her to have a talk with them about visiting during work hours, since those two are so hard on everyone else whenever people are laughing while working or even take two minutes to sit down because their hips hurt.

Fast forward to today. The head lead pulled me aside and asked why I had “tattled” on them.

Then, the lead threatened him.

He started giving me **** about how, because he’s on the clock, it’s his *** on the line, and that he was listening to see if the front was busy (he wasn’t).

He also threatened me, saying that “if I wanted to play it that way, he would too,” and that he could be nasty and awful instead of overlooking the small things that happen.

So I can see why I might be the ** because I didn’t go directly to him and the assistant manager and ask them to stop chatting and come back up front. I definitely could have. However, I believe I’m justified because they do this constantly whenever the assistant manager comes in to finalize timecards. They get into weird conspiracy theory rants and don’t stop.

AITA?

Yikes! It’s easy to see what he did, but he should’ve expected this to happen.

Let’s check out if the readers over at Reddit agree.

Maybe so.

This is true.

That’s why he didn’t go to him.

He should do that.

He made the right call.

Unfortunately, once a supervisor starts threatening you for speaking up, the writing is probably on the wall. That’s not the kind of place where most people build a long career.

However, with the experience he already has, finding another job shouldn’t be all that difficult. There are plenty of companies out there that would appreciate someone who’s willing to do the right thing.

Life’s too short to work for people like that.