When you work with managers or other leaders who don’t like you, it can make your job miserable.

What would you do if your head server was always yelling at you and acting unprofessionally while you were at work?

That is what happened to the woman in this story, so she is thinking about quitting her job, but she isn’t sure if that is the right move.

Read through the full details of the story here and see if you think she should quit.

Awful head server and managers, what should I do?

For some background, I’ve been working at a sushi restaurant for a little over a year now.

Bad managers drive good employees away.

In that time, I am the only server that is still there from when I started. Everybody else has quit due to the management, some have left because they moved away, but majority have left because of two specific managers/owners.

I also have ADHD and some anxiety, so sometimes at work, I get a little overwhelmed and cranky, but I always do my work and get the job done with my fellow servers.

If the managers need her to stop acting angrily, she should do her best to comply.

These two managers have been telling me that I get “too angry” at work and that it intimidates my coworkers. When I was working with some servers I grew close to in the beginning, they all told me that this wasn’t true, that they knew it was just the stress of the job.

However, the managers have still told me a few times that I’m too angry and I slam things. One of these managers in the past also yelled at me so much that I started sobbing and had to go home an hour from finishing my shift, which is something that had never happened to me in my 10+ years of restaurant experience.

Why would this new person not like her?

Flash forward to a few months ago when all my friends had left, they hired a new server that quickly became basically the head server.

Her and I got along well to start off, but I don’t know if I did something wrong or if it was just that I had been at the job longer than her, but she started speaking to me less and less and started acting passive aggressive with me.

She seems to get upset over silly things.

This hostility grew until it reached a point that I now felt like every time I worked with her, she was mad at me. Once during a Sunday brunch rush, it was just me and her serving all the tables.

She had left a small tray on an empty table after she dropped drinks off to a different table. I was walking back towards the server station, so out of habit, I picked up the empty tray and brought it back to the server station.

When I turned back around to do a scan of the tables and see what needed done, she had realized that the tray was gone and angrily stomped over to where I was standing.

How unprofessional.

She then slammed her hand down on the stack of trays and aggressively picked one back up, all while glaring directly at me. The dining room is very small (only about 12 tables) and the trays are kept on the sushi bar, so she did this right next to a couple tables that had customers dining.

I saw their reactions when she did this and they all looked either shocked or confused or upset. The manager also saw, but just stared at me and went back to making sushi.

What is wrong with these people?

Another time, I was putting the tips from the credit receipts into our card reader (we have to do it individually because the card reader is old, it’s tedious but it really does not take long) while another server was putting in an order for a table.

This server and I were just making small talk when the head server came over and threw a check book at the cash drawer in front of us. I just stood there kind of shocked that she actually threw something at me, then she stomped away again without saying anything.

These people clearly don’t know how to manage others.

There was another time when we were training a new server. It was the new server’s second day and she messed up the flavors of the ice cream macarons we have. The head server, after she clocked out, came up to the new server in the server station and just started ripping into her.

The head server was yelling “I told you what flavors we have. Why would you tell them the wrong one? You don’t listen. You need to listen to me.” The new server started arguing back saying “I’m new. I didn’t know what flavors we had. I tried to ask you, but you kept ignoring me.”

Again, both managers were standing behind the sushi bar just watching this happen. One of them was even peaking out from behind a kitchen door to watch. There was table nearby that was also watching and becoming upset because the new server was supposed to be helping them with something.

If she shouldn’t be doing this task, the manager should have told her right away.

Eventually, after a couple more incidents of passive-aggression and regular aggression, she came up to me while I was doing the tips and started saying “I’ve tried to be calm about this, but you need to stop putting the tips in. It’s not a real job.”

I replied trying to say “Oh I’m sorry, but when I was trained here, we-” to which she cuts me off and starts just angrily saying “Noooo, no. It’s not a job. Nope. It’s not a real job.”

Later that shift, after I had composed myself, I came up to her and said “I feel like if there was something I was doing wrong that was upsetting you, you should have told me sooner.”

What is her problem?

She said “Yea, but you shouldn’t be doing it. It’s not a real job. I spoke to the managers and they said it’s not.” I’m not sure why the managers would say this, as it is something the old head server had trained me to do.

I replied “Ok, but you should have said something instead of being annoyed with me all the time. Throwing something at me because you’re annoyed is not ok.”

Her response was “Yea, but you shouldn’t be doing the tips.” At this point, I just walked away because it was clear that it was going no where.

It is good that she is confronting the actual managers.

Later, I texted one of the managers explaining everything that I wrote above, and how it’s has been affecting me at work. She was making me uncomfortable and anxious to even show up to the restaurant.

The manager’s response? “I spoke to her, I told them not to throw things,” followed by him telling me to listening to the head server and not to do tips.

This should have been a conversation the next day.

I had this text conversation with my manager around 9 pm that night after I had clocked out of my shift. Around 12:30 am that same night, the head server sends me a long text that basically says “I’m sorry if you felt uncomfortable, but…” with a bunch of awful statements about me.

She berated every little thing I do at work and said that nobody liked to work with me and I create an uncomfortable environment. She also called me racist (she and the managers are Korean, I am white) and said that I don’t respect them.

Finding a new job is definitely a good idea.

Ever since, I have been depressed and trying to find a new job. I called off the next shift I was supposed to work with her because I just felt awful, and since then the managers have cut my hours even more.

Before the head server started being upset with me, I was full-time employee. Now I’m barely getting 15 hours a week and I’m struggling to pay bills. I’m sorry this is so long, but it felt so therapeutic to write all of this out for the first time.

She wouldn’t get unemployment if she quits.

I was thinking about quitting and trying to get unemployment, but I’m not sure I would qualify since I wouldn’t be getting fired or laid off.

I really don’t want to work at this place anymore for the sake of my mental health, but I won’t be able to survive here in California without a new job. What should I do?

There is no reason to stay at a job a second longer than you need to. She should be aggressively looking for a new place to work.

Let’s take a look at what the commenters have to say about it.

This commenter says she was doing the right thing.

Something is suspicious about this.

She might qualify.

Never quit a job before you have a new one lined up. At the same time, however, she really needs to focus on finding a new job that she actually likes.

It is clear that she will either be fired or have her hours cut even more, so there is no reason not to look for something new.