During the summer of 2018, I was struggling to find a job. I passed out resumes to over 20 stores I made a Linked-In and applied online. I made direct phone calls to places asking if they needed any help. But despite these efforts, I didn't hear back from anyone. I'm making some payments throughout the year for college on my own, so it was important that I find a source of income for the summer in order to pay the monthly fees.

Randomly, I was contacted by a glorified Chuck-E-Cheese type thing that was dinosaur themed. I was excited that I had finally found something. However, during the following weeks, that job ended up making me absolutely miserable.

I'm pretty great with kids, and about 500 a day wasn't an issue at all. I would help them find their mom or get them coloring pages. But the coworkers ended up being the part that was hard to deal with. Two of the shift leads had an "in" with the manager and would leave for hours in the middle of a busy day.

One girl, in particular, knew she could get away with anything and would taunt the other workers. Once when I was vacuuming she spilled a full dustpan on the floor in front of me to vacuum up. I was so desperate for the job and couldn't find anything else so I ended up staying for three months. The girl got my hours cut from 20 to 10 which was a lot lower than any other employee. She had me do ridiculous tasks such as wiping down the bottoms of the tables. One guy, who was also a shift lead, spoke up and was demoted to a regular employee.

It was just a really toxic experience. I didn't know that there were places to call when mistreatment took place while working. So if you encounter a tyrant shift lead or co-worker don't sit quietly. Look up organizations that deal with these situations.