It’s OK if You Do
My shift had already ended 3 hours earlier than it was scheduled to. We were all irate and exhausted. It’s understandable that food service workers often work late, but the people from the next shift were already there. There was no reason for us to stay for three more hours.
Someone finally asked to go home. I will never forget what happened next. The manager lost his cool in the middle of the floor. “JUST BESIDES YOUR SHIFTS IS SUPPOSEDLY ENDING AT 10 DOESN’T MEAN YOU GET LEAVE THEN. I’ll tell you when you can leave. “YOU ARE JUST A NUMBER ON A SPREADSHEET TO US. WE COULD REPLACE YOUR IN A HEARTBEAT IF THEY DON’T WANT YOU TO BE HERE.”
Then I said “Replace me now”. Later, I found out that the restaurant lost almost half of their staff because everyone followed my example. The next day, there was a big football match across the street. They had to handle that without servers. I had a great time at the game.
