Anxiety Support Group
Anxiety is a physical condition marked by intense and persistent feelings of distress, fear, angst or dread. General anxiety caused by routine day-to-day stresses usually passes quickly and is experienced by almost everyone at one time or another. However, such feelings that linger over time and are very difficult to cope with, and which lack a clear cause, may indicate...
Hi-
I am not sure if this is the right group to post in for what I am feeling right now. But I am scared.
I have dealt with a lot of anxiety starting from in high school. I also just got broken up with and I have had a lot of anxiety in that relationship for 2.5 years because of his friends. He left me three weeks ago and I have been trying to accept it but today was a hard day for even more reasons.
I have anxiety right now because my shift at work today just sucked. I work at Starbucks and my shift supervisor was literally on my last nerve almost the whole time. So I have worked at Starbucks for 2 years now and I really haven't been too happy there most of the time to say the least. The problem started over a year ago after the pandemic started. So normally when you first start at Starbucks, you get put working the drive thru a lot I guess for the first few weeks or whatever how long I don't know because that is not how they did it for me and its not how they are doing it with others at my store. I literally HATE working drive-thru. I hate it. customers are so rude and I hate handling dirty money and stuff ever since the pandemic hit because I was really freaked out about getting COVID so I was really uncomfortable working the window. Also, my boss had the nerve to tell me that I "wasn't making any progress" and I was like with what? Literally all I do is Drive-Thru.... obviously I'm not making any progress because I am not given the opportunity to do literally anything else! So that was frustrating. But that was like a year ago. So I had been asking to get out of drive thru and do other things and nobody was listening to me. So, I was like fine I'll do it myself so I just started making drinks lol. Then they were like well shit, she actually knows what she's doing. People were shocked. So then they started putting me on bar. Flash forward a year- new people were hired and LITERALLY THE FIRST THING THEY DO IS BAR (sorry I'm yelling) which puts me back in the window and I'm like are you kidding? That is so not fair to me. Why did I have to wait a year and now when these new people come in they take my bar time away that I have waited and fought for? Makes me so mad.
SO then TODAY, frickin my supervisor (who I have had MULTIPLE conversations with about why I don't want to be in drive for MONTHS) told me that he was going to put me in drive and I literally looked at him and gave him the dirtiest look. He said "just for like 2 hours". I laughed because they always say that and then 6 hours goes by and I am still there. And what do you know... my entire 8 hour shift I was on drive thru while the brand new people, not even 6 weeks as an employee, are taking over bar. I actually almost left work today I was so mad. So my shift today put me on bar for a little bit but after I made my first drink, I was connecting with a customer at the window and my supervisor was like "you need to focus on making drinks" and I was like "there's no drinks to make" and then he told me how he was worried about the amount of time that the customer was waiting for their items. That was very hypocritical of him to say because an hour earlier, I was waiting on him for 5 minutes with a customer at the window for sandwiches because he wasn't paying attention and always takes his headset off. So if our drive times are bad, it's not because of this, its because I was waiting on YOU for five minutes because you weren't paying attention. But I did not say that to him. I just ignored him and continued to make a drink. Then he said to me "you need to be able to be coached". It's not that I am not able to be coached, that isn't the issue.
In addition to that, he also told me to get off my phone in the window when I wasn't even technically on my phone. I got a notificationa dn I took it out to silence it. But that annoyed me because literally he is on his phone throughout his entire shift. Also, it really pissed me off because there were other people actually ON their phones yet he yelled at me. Also, he had the nerve to tell our manager that I was "taking too much time off of the floor" (like taking too many breaks) which is false. I took like 5 minutes to have some water because I was literally having an anxiety attack and could not breathe. SO many people take breaks all the time and like go in the back and eat and stuff and talk and go on their phones and leave me to take care of getting all the food, all the orders in the store, making all the drinks, cashing out all customers, and taking drive thru orders while they sit back there and snack and drink and gossip. So for him to report me and say that I am "taking too many breaks" for ONE TIME while he and everyone else is doing that all the time, is hypocritical and unacceptable. I needed a moment because I was having an anxiety attack. I could have left but I didn't. There is a partner who leaves work ALL the time, another shift was telling me that he leaves work everytime it's nice out and uses the excuse that his brother in law just died, which, I think is a very strong accusation but I'm not the one who said it. But for me to get in trouble because of a break that I took because of an anxiety attack while he is literally not doing his job and others are literally just "hanging out" back there is not acceptable. I am sorry I am going off but I just couldn't take it anymore.
How should I go about the way that my supervisor acts?
Thank you everyone for your time!
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
Do you generally like working there?
You could start looking for a new place to work.
Not sure if this was the case, but possibly those new hires had previous experience at their last job, and that is why he put them on Drinks right away? I dunno, just a thought.
If you generally like working there, you might have to put up with some bad days and some bad attitudes, as long as most of the time you like your job there.
In any work place, being confident, smiling, and professional, even with ... managers, you'll have a better feeling about doing the best you are able to.
You've done the right thing in writing it out here, expressing your feelings, and there's a solution right in your writing.
Best wishes as you find your better balance.
did you know that "covid anxiety syndrome" is an official thing now? there is even tele-help available for it.
as for your problems with your boss, does starbucks allow transfers? a transfer might allow you to experience a different management style while maintaining continuity in your career development. just wondering.
gentle support while you sort. vent freely. vent often.
One thing I would say is try to focus less on what others do, get, don’t get, etc, and just focus on you, how you perform, what you can do, leading by example, etc. So much of our issues at work are just based on perceptions, our boss’ perception, our coworkers’ perceptions, our own perception. They all are probably versions of reality.
I say this with kindness, and I can appreciate the affect anxiety can have when under stress, but no one’s coworkers and supervisors care that we have anxiety. It’s because they either don’t understand or are just not interested. You have no idea what your coworkers may be going through either, and that’s ok because no one really knows what anyone is dealing with, not really. So that’s why I think, just focus on you and don’t get so bent out of shape about everyone else. It’s not worth it. If your boss is a turd and you aren’t happy at work, find something else. You are young. There are so many opportunities awaiting you,