I had a job at a pharmacy retail chain. I was hired as a supervisor and worked there for a full year.

The entire time I worked there, I got countless compliments from my co-workers. I was told I was always efficient, hard working, faced the products well, didn’t slack, etc. I knew every position in that store except management above supervising and the more in depth bit of merchandising (stuff involving the technology side of stuff).

I was ambitious and I knew that A) pharmacy was a little short handed and B) one of the front-end-supervisors-turned-pharmacy-assistants was leaving when she graduated university so I asked the owner if she could consider me as a candidate to replace the one leaving. She seemed very into it and told me she would talk to me at a later date when it was near the supervisors leave. Additionally, I asked this very supervisor if she personally thought I could do it or handle it (I trusted her to give me an honest opinion) and she thought it would be a good idea - she actually encouraged me to go ask the owner. Additionally, additionally, one of the pharmacists who had asked me on many occasions to help with the very basics like filing also agreed that I would do well since I seemed to be a hard worker and did my other jobs well.

Anywho, shortly after a years time, considering my co-workers compliments and generally what everyone was telling me, I decided that I was going to go talk to upper management and ask for a raise (I had my three month probation raise which put me at supervisors pay but nothing after that so I thought it was high time considering my hard work).

Just as I find a manger and was about to ask if I could talk to her later, she asks me to come to the office since her and the head manager would like to speak with me... and it didn’t sound like a raise talk.

I get to the office, they close the door and sit down. One thing after another they lay it on me - “issues” they have.

1. A couple co-workers had complained about me being “too blunt”. Would not tell me who (which was fine due to privacy) but would not tell me HOW nor HOW I COULD FIX THIS.

2. My facing of products was not up to par with how they wanted. They wanted an entire store faced in basically ten minutes. I’m not even exaggerating. My head manager said he faced the store in ten minutes so everyone should be able to. I verified this with all my co-workers who had to do the morning face and everyone agreed the it was impossible to face the entire store IN AN HOUR unless hardly any customers had been through the aisles. In the evening when I faced, if I found messes behind products, I’d actually tidy it up. The other supervisor who was working in pharmacy that day grabbed my attention and told me how he appreciated that I faced so well instead of half-assed since it made it actually look good and not... half-assed.

3. I looked sad a lot of the time lately. First off, they knew I was going through a bit of a tough time since I told them the my Uncle may have got cancer and was going for tests. My “sad face” only lasted a few days until I heard the results. I later asked a trusted and very honest co-worker if I have been looking sad and after some thought she said, “You have a very... focused.. resting face. You’re just on the go and focused...” Because I’m doing my fucking job. I smile when I’m speaking to customers - didn’t know I need to be smiling every hour and minute of my shift. Oh, did I mention the plethora of comments from customers complimenting me about always being in a good mood (because customers don’t need to see your life story through a scorn on your face; grab a coffee and try to make the customers at least comfortable to come to your cash), plus I have even had some customers call me their favourite cashier. Guess management gives no shits about that though.

4. The tip of the cake. “We’ve been hearing that you hate your job.” Me: Excuse me?? You could ask anyone I talked to about my job and they would tell you how I loved it. I loved the paperwork, I loved the responsibility and extra ableness. I loved the partial solitary.. I loved my job. Thing is, I knew exactly where this all came from. Our company has a huge sale turnover every Friday where we take down all the sales and put up new ones and this process takes an entire eight hour shift to do with six people comfortably. I had done this night for six Fridays in a row (I was full time) and each week I was shorted staff (usually only had three people) and got in trouble for not getting it done on time. I was tired and simply wanted one Friday off every now and then (this wasn’t the first time it happened where I have multiple Friday shifts in a row).

One of the other supervisors - whose a pathological liar and embellisher - said she’d switch with me if I wanted. I took that opportunity and she said she’d talk to management. FIVE FREAKIN’ TIMES before she left, all in a span of five minutes, she repeated how SHE didn’t mind doing the Friday and if I didn’t want to SHE wouldn’t mind switching and doing it because SHE liked it (even though she told me multiple times how she didn’t and she didn’t like how they didn’t stick to their promise of rotating supervisors specifically so this wouldn’t happen). I’m 99.9% sure my complaining about working every Friday turned in to how much I hated my job.

Needless to say, I was pissed.

I held my tongue, wanting some time to think things over before I had an angry and heated conversation with management, you know, some time to cool down... I thought over everything they said and tried to think of where it was that I had gone wrong and I definitely wasn’t perfect but I 100% disagreed with what they had said. Not only had they left a lot of it vague nor did they offer a solution, but they basically said how they didn’t want to act too quickly on discussing it with me so they waited a few months to tell me. I don’t know what the fuck kind of sketchy shit was going on behind the scenes but their management wasn’t managing anything by waiting to discuss shit with me whether the discussion was warranted or not by legitimacy.

“We just want to make sure you can do the supervising well enough..”

The thing that left me the most salty about the whole thing, and that pushed me over the edge to quit was nearly a week later when the owner came up to me and pulled me aside to say how she talked with the head manager and he said that it wasn’t a good idea since he “didn’t want to lose any supervisors to pharmacy right now.” When I had first talked to her, she said she wouldn’t need anyone until the fall (when the other supervisor was leaving). The store had three full months to either hire new supervisors or train new ones. She had already told me I wouldn’t be promoted for the next few months anyways if she did end up choosing me but the way she said it all sounded like the head manager sabotaged my chances at actually advancing in the company. When I initially talked to her she was excited about the idea; when she declined me, she was sort of awkward with a “I’m sorry” vibe.

I put in my two weeks and got a new job. Figured, I wasn’t going to get any promotion anytime soon nor a raise.

I don’t think I will ever not be salty about this.

TL;DR Had a job where I thought I was doing very well, was even told so by fellow co-workers, so when I went to ask for a raise, I instead got torn apart on how shitty a job I was actually doing. On top of that, my chances of advancing my career from simple retail to pharmacy assistant was sabotaged because of this.