after 9 months of me growing stronger and getting better and better at not only this job (serving at ihop) but with life in general, i never thought i'd be feeling this way about it. i'll try to sum it up but there'll probably be a lot of missing information

i've been working the same schedule with the night manager (ms b, we'll call her) for months now. she and i have grown about as close as a manager and employee can get, and honestly i thought i knew her. she and i love to joke around but she also knows that she can rely on me. or at least, i thought that was the case. and that's what she said to all of my coworkers apparently, including the new hires during their interviews. "she talked about you for 10 minutes"

i don't know what happened or what i did to set her off her rocker, if anything at all, but she's acting ridiculously different. since tuesday she's been like... a little hostile. she would tell me to do stuff and that's it, but with like a slightly aggressive inflection. i couldn't talk to her without her telling me to do something in her response.

i was off work wednesday and she was off thursday, so i didn't see her again until friday (the shift before tonight's shift). d, the other manager, wasn't there yet, and ms b. was. i had slept in a few minutes so i didn't show up right on time. my clock in time was 8:09 when i was supposed to be there at 8. and i'll be the first to admit i have sleeping problems... even when i set multiple alarms i still sleep in sometimes. even when i choose not to stream or do anything else and i try to prioritize getting to work on time i still wind up barely making it. i'm just a tired person, i guess. but i had my phone on do not disturb, so on the drive up to work yesterday (friday) i didn't hear her text messages or her two phone calls. i clocked in and, out of fear of hearing the same lecture i always hear about how i "gotta start coming into work on time" (because i never show up on time? i guess?) i avoided her the best i could until she forgot about it, and it worked.

throughout the shift she would just disappear, or go sit down at one of the tables and just eat some food or talk to a police officer or a friend of hers (which is bullshit that she gets to do that, by the way, instead of actually, yknow, managing the place, since she's a manager yknow?). but every once in a while she'd scan everything, notice that we're doing really well together as a team, and find something brand new that's wrong.
i tried my best to make a small conversation with her because i was really excited about how well i was doing, and how i felt that everyone as a whole was performing really well, no complaints were being made or anything like that. i told her "hey ms b, i think we're all doing really extra well tonight, like we're killin' it!" and her response was "go pick up the menus." thankfully there were a couple other servers around to make the conversation less awkward and turn it into a joke, but i was honestly really upset after that. there was no praise given whatsoever, instead she just looks for any minor imperfection she can find and power trips off of us being wrong.

toward the end of the shift we had to do our drops (any sales that we're holding onto that are owed to the restaurant we have to give to the manager so they can sort out the register), but instead of letting my do my drop myself like i usually do, she did it for me. which, that's cool, because i was busy trying to help clean up the place, but for whatever reason this time she didn't check before running the report if i had all my checks closed. i didn't. i had just placed an order for myself (because every shift we get an employee meal) and i need the manager's approval for the employee discount so i can close it, so naturally i hadn't closed it yet.

normally what the managers do is they'll just close it for us and hand us the ticket to give to them at the end of the shift, but she just straight up didn't do it this time. since she didn't check if my checks were closed, she ran my report even though i had a check open. which, cool, no problem, mistakes happen. i would have thought nothing of it. all she had to do was run a second report (which takes 30 seconds) and give me a second drop slip with the amount that i now also owe. (the first one was $156 and some change, the second one was $2 and some change) but she FLIPPED OUT. and not even on just me, but on everyone in the room. "okay, you guys need to be telling me as soon as you put an employee ticket in so that i can close it and this doesn't happen." so all the servers and i are looking at each other in sheer confusion! because she just made up a completely new rule for us to follow on the spot! instead of owning up to the mistake that she clearly made, she dreamed up a new way in a split second to put the blame on me for something so fucking minor!

after she said that and she printed my new report, she took the old report and the old drop slip and threw them away into the trash. (I WATCHED HER DO THIS.) so i was like, cool, since she threw them away i guess i don't need them. i'll do the quick mental math and just give her the new slip as well as the combined total (156.xx + 2.xx = 159 pretty much, so that's what i gave her). when i handed her all that stuff, without turning around, she asked me "where's the other slip" so i answered, quote: "oh, you took it and threw it away." she turned around, gave me one of the scariest glares i've ever seen her make, and said, to me, quote: "i never touched it." without a word i turned around, trudged my way back to the pass bar, to the trash can where I WATCHED HER TOSS THE SLIP AND MY OLD REPORT, and sure enough, there it was, sitting right on the surface. I wasn't ready to sass her or anything, but GOD i wanted to. i just gave her the slip and walked out of the office, without giving her time to count my money or check if my $100 bill wasn't counterfeit.

so at this point i'm like alright man, you're actually full of shit. like when someone does shit like this to me i don't usually think anything of it, yknow, like it takes a lot of shit like that to really anger me, even slightly. but this is ridiculous. she straight up lied, directly to my face, in order to put the blame on me for her having thrown the slip away. i would have thought nothing of a simple "oh yeah, that's right, i did, i'm sorry honey, can you go get it for me please?" i would have said oh yeah of course!!! and i would have ALSO said i'd keep in mind for the future that i need both slips if this ever happens again! but i guess she'd rather just reach for the short term solution, and lie to me. To me!!! like are you kidding me? and this is on top of the way she's been behaving in general lately. it's like i insulted her family or something. i have no idea what could have possibly set her against me like this. i'm losing my mind over it.

tonight was worse though.
with everything that happened last night (friday night/saturday morning), i had a lot on my mind, including all of this, so i was feeling very depressed and unwilling to work. not even in a lazy sense, like i really want to make myself able to work any shift any time, always have enough energy to do it and never play lazy. it was just one of those days where even talking was hard, and that was just depression hitting me, i guess. thankfully ronnie, the server i was working with in the second dining room (he's an older guy but he's been doing this job for a long time, known ms b for over a decade, is a very skilled server and a very genuine and funny guy) understood that and of course, since he loves making as much money as possible, he was hella willing to cover as much as he could handle for me. i only made $45 tonight, but sometimes i make the sacrifice if i'm really not feeling good and i need a break, like i did tonight. but what was worse was this

around 3/4 into my shift, i had a table and they were a couple, a guy and a girl. on a date, i guess. so i did what i normally do as a server, the whole spiel, yadda yadda yadda, and i did my best to make sure they were okay before going to the restroom. i had just brought them drink refills and they were less than half way into their meal, and everything else was fine as well, so hey, why not make a quick trip to the restroom so i don't have to hold it anymore. i was gone for "3 or 4 minutes" (which, okay sure, it shouldn't take me that long to use the restroom ideally, but i mean of course i was gonna quickly check my phone while i was in there, take my apron off and put it back on so i could take a fucking piss real quick, and wash my hands before returning to work), and when i came out of the restroom, i saw the guy from my table casually leaving the restaurant. i had never dropped the check on the table.

i made my way over to the table with a half-sprint, and sure enough, for the 9th time in my career as a server, i'd been dine-and-dashed.

i guess not long after i left and went to the restroom, the guy was fiddling through his wallet and he pulled out his card, so ronnie asked for my number to log into the POS and dropped the check on the table, assuming i'd be back shortly to pick it up. i guess the guy put his card away, left $4 cash on the ticket after getting impatient, i guess??? and the girl he was with left first, followed by the guy. so as fast as possible i ran the check over to the table where the managers were sitting and eating (not doing any work as usual), and told them "guys, my table just walked out. there's only $4 here." d asked me, "who?" so, despite being confused as to why that was relevant, i said "72." (the table number). d picked up the $4, kinda ogled it, and stacked it up neat in his hands, and probably said something along the lines of "dang." while ms b said nothing. they continued to sit there, do nothing, and not go outside after the guy. around 10-15 seconds had passed without them saying a word (it felt like an eternity), so, not knowing what to do, i just. threw my hands up in the air, and walked off.

after seeing the expression on my face, my fellow server aaron asked me what was wrong, and my heart was racing almost too much for me to explain that my table had just walked out on me. normally i wouldn't be afraid to tell the managers that, but with everything that had been going on, it was one of the most anxiety-inducing experiences i've ever had on the job. i told him (taylor, peter, and ronnie were all also in the room) that they made their way out of there while i was in the restroom, and after i tried telling the managers as fast as possible, they didn't react at all, they just sat there. because normally they would literally chase after whoever ran out, or tell the security officer (who had also arrived to the restaurant while i was in the restroom) to go after them. but they did nothing, they just sat there, and i have zero ideas as to why. it makes no sense to me.

taylor said "i know it's gonna wind up being your fault somehow." because i remember the first time she got walked out on she got a lecture from ms b as well about how she needs to keep an eye on her tables better. but for this instance it wasn't even like i got complacent, like after eight times you have to know i'm paying so much closer attention to my tables to watch out for this kind of thing. but since the guy asked ronnie for the check and he placed it down, i had no knowledge of it, so they had the opportunity to walk out.

after ms b and d watched the cameras back to watch what happened, like 30 minutes later whenever they felt like getting up, they went back to that same table where they were eating at, and they told me to sit down.
d didn't do any talking, but ms b told me that i was gonna have to pay half of the tab because the restaurant wasn't negligent for this happening, *i* was negligent. i spent (an unspecified amount of) "long periods away from the table", i was in the restroom for "3 or 4 minutes," and since the guy was getting impatient, i "granted them the opportunity to walk out on the tab." i knew something like this was gonna happen, especially after the way ms b's been acting lately, so instead of retorting like i wanted to, i said "ok." i probably said "ok" like 8 different times, lol. and nothing else. after the whole dine and dash situation was done, she continued to tell me that i "need to go and do some soul-searching" because i haven't washed my uniform lately, and out of the last week or so i've only clocked in on time once. which is, to be blunt, completely untrue.

i wanted to shove last week's time card in her fucking face, but i can't reprint it. i was on time or minutes early every single day between last thursday and this thursday. (i had only clocked in late last wednesday because i arrived on time, and i clocked in, but before i got the manager's card swipe to approve the clock in, one of the newer hires didn't know what it was and closed it out so they could use the POS. d knew this, and he told me it was fine. my clock time was 8:13 that day, but only because of that mistake.) i was on time thursday, i was late yesterday like i said above because i slept through my alarms, and i was on time on the dot today. so i have no idea where she got the idea from where i've only been on time once. i've been LATE once. it's the complete opposite. but for whatever reason she gets to use that against me, and since i have no proof of last week's time card i can't come back and tell her she's wrong. (if i tried to anyway though, she'd find a way around it. she'd tell me i need to come in 5 minutes early which i haven't been doing, because why should i other than because of her weird "if you're on time, you're late" moral standard?) i got up after i felt like her point was done being put across, said "ok" again, and walked away to resume all the cleaning i was doing.

ronnie overheard some of the conversation, and i was venting to aaron about it. aaron told me "big fella like to be honest with you i thought when you were ranting about ms b that you were trippin, but no bro you ain't. this is like, irritating ME." i told him i appreciated that, and that i understood why he'd think that i was just trippin, because all of us like to complain about minor stuff the managers do all the time, lmao. it's normal. but this is the first time she's legitimately done something like that to genuinely upset me, when i know in my heart i haven't done anything wrong, really. when i told him, ronnie, and peter that they were making me pay half the tab because i was "negligent," ronnie actually really quickly started a small collection from each of the three servers for me. they each chipped in $5 and i was really shocked at the gesture, but i almost cried to be completely real. i had never appreciated anything that they had all done so much, it really meant a lot to me. i told each of them that i love them, and they all told me "we gotchu. we're a team. that's unfair to you."

when she brought me the ticket with the totals and everything, she told me that she comped "more than i should have, i took off $20, gave you the $4 that they left, and you paid the rest, which is $9" (she points to the subtotal, not the actual total) so i'm like wow, fucking thanks. i appreciate the kind motherfucking gesture.

like when the stuff that ms b is doing is even sketching RONNIE out, of all people, you have to understand that there's actually something WRONG going on. i told him i wanted to approach the GM about it, but he told me that was a bad idea because the GM would just back ms b up, since she has to because she's a manager. he said it'd only make things worse, so i trust his judgement on that.
he and i like to joke around that having logic and thinking for yourself in response to what the managers tell us to do is "not allowed at this restaurant," so it's been elevating to a new level, lmao. it's funny, in the moment, but now i feel genuinely uncomfortable in the workplace, and i'm afraid to approach ms b about a single goddamn thing. i shouldn't feel this way. i shouldn't be reminded of what my relationship was like with my own goddamn father while i lived with him. i have no idea what i did wrong. i have no idea why she's acting like that. but i'm really scared because what if after i take off for two weeks and i come back, her attitude with me doesn't change? what if my schedule changes from what it's set to have been and she won't revert back to what it was before? what if this results in me not making as much money as i have been anymore? what if i lose my job? i've been talking lately about how i love my job and i'm proud of myself and how far i've come, i just bought a car for fuck's sake. and now i'm genuinely scared of losing all of that, and i don't know what to do.