I just turned 20 and got my first job working at Walmart for the summer.
I’ve been there about 2 weeks and things have been fine up until yesterday. We were severely understaffed and I had the work load of about 3 people on my shoulder and I didn’t really know what I was doing
Long story short my manager was berating me and being extremely hostile and condescending, I ended up tearing up in front of my manager and like 5 other associates.
I feel extremely embarrassed and disappointed in myself. In the moment it felt like I surprised myself with how weak I am to let something so trivial get to me. I also felt/feel a lot of anger and hatred towards my manager.
What’s the best way to process these feelings? How can I grow thicker skin and not let stuff like this affect me? Even just thinking about it upsets me all over again.
13 comments
It comes with practice.
You already took the first step in realizing that you might need to become a bit more resilient to this kind of animosity, especially if it was largely unwarranted.
Having dealt with similar issues myself in the past I would recommend you a(n audio)book called “No More Mister Nice Guy” which taught me some healthy mental models with which I and many others before me managed to get stronger in their state of mind at all times. And remember: This is not a manual you have to follow step by step, you take what you need from it and leave the rest. This is not bibke study, this is you trying to improve at your own pace in those areas you feel need improvement.
All the best!
Your manager sounds like a dick. Berating an inexperienced team member for not knowing how to do work they haven’t been trained to do in front of their co-workers is terrible management. Don’t feel weak or bad about being angry and a little emotional about that, that’s a totally reasonable reaction.
As for developing “thicker skin”, don’t be as hard on yourself. Your reaction seems to be because you feel bad about this situation but you shouldn’t, this is on your manager.
No one has a right to talk to you like that, not your manager, parents, strangers…I know it’s hard as an employee because you don’t want to lose your job or whatever, but you don’t need thicker skin, you just need to stick up for yourself and calmly tell them, “I’m here to do whatever you need me to do for you, and I’m happy to do that, but you’re not going to talk to me that way.”
I know that’s hard to do.
No dude, fuck that, you approach your manager and tell him/her you don’t appreciate being berated in front of other employees, the only way to get over that is to make it right. You’ll get better at controlling your emotions with practice, but anyone who will lay into another person until they cry at a fucking Walmart doesn’t deserve to be in charge of people. I would quit right now if I was you, there is a reason they are understaffed. I’d talk to their manager or call the Walmart employee hotline I’m sure exists. If you made it through high school without having that happen to you, who the fuck is this person to do it?
Time. Time and constant, constant abuse.
Seriously, once you know you’re doing the best you can, blow off the shit that comes from any assholes around you. Don’t get hostile. Just find that detached place where you don’t take things personally. Maybe your boss had a bad day, maybe your coworker was abused as a kid… nothing you can control.
Just realize you’re there to give an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, and let the rest slide by.
You’re doing it right now. You grow thicker skin by being hurt.
In order to get tougher, you need things to be optimally sub optimal. Kinda like weight lifting, where you beat up your muscles but no so much that it causes an injury, just enough that they respond and grow. Same with your mind. You don’t want it so bad that your traumatized, but just being uncomfortable and being in tough situations will make you tougher.
Unless you really really need the job don’t put up with that shit. “Don’t speak too me like that or you’ll be even more shorthanded”.
If you do need the job just say “yeah yeah whatever you say” in the most condescending way possible. Do your job and only your job and if they be choose to berate you just stand there and give them the old bored dead eyes until they’re finished.
First off, your manager has a manager with expectations of getting the job done despite staffing shortages. Try to understand that, and that his managing style is not the best, but he is your superior and you have to deal with it to some extent. I am a retired manager; I have never conducted a corrective action conversation with an employee in front of others, unless the employee is female. In the current environment it is too much of a liability to do such without a witness, so I have another manager with me when I have to correct a female. You have every right to tell that manager that you are a new employee still training, you are trying your best but, in the future, if I require a corrective action conversation, I would appreciate it if you would in private instead of in front of other employees.
Secondly, I do not know if this is actually getting a thicker skin or just a way to cope with a job. Realize that you were looking for a job when you took that job, and it is no big deal to look again. There are plenty of other jobs, if you decide that is not for you resume your search until you find the right job for you. Retail work especially today with raising pay rate and stockholder expectations is a tough environment. A lot of businesses for allocation of payroll dollars have a formula that is- payroll dollars are not to exceed a certain percentage of sales, if you are paying your employees more but sales are stagnant to keep the percentages in check you have fewer employees and expect more from them. With inflation and the recession, I do not see it getting better anytime soon.
My shortcut is reading history and letting it sink in how indifferent the universe is to the rise and fall of human beings. The innocent that were butchered while the butchers sometimes get statues of gold and marble.
The resulting disillusionment does a great job at chipping away my attachment to avoiding pain and death which is a privilege that is incredibly fickle.
Combined with experiencing extreme highs and lows from the joys and sorrows of life you’ll be indifferent to small things in no time. Beware, that can include good things of you’re not careful
You got this homie!!!
Life happens, feelings happen
What helped me a lot is remembering this “you are just an employee and they are just your employer.” No need to get worked up about stuff. Do the best you can, get your money, get out
Yo I’m late to the party but fuck your manager in the mouth.
There’s not a lot you can do with someone like that. In a perfect world you’d talk to HR, and that manager would get some sensitivity training or something. But at Walmart, a place totally known for treating employees well, I don’t know what it would accomplish. That manager sounds like he is great at getting the most out of his employees (note: that’s most, not best) so who knows how entrenched he is.
I’ll offer this though: that guy is probably at the highest point in his career. In ten years you’ll be somewhere else and he’ll probably be dead in the $10 Walmart camp chair he uses as an office chair.
Gonna be honest retail and fast food places are some of the most stressful places to work I remember when I worked at them when I was younger before I got IT jobs I was chasing.
My stress level then 100% my stress level now 15% stand up for yourself and try not fuck up and be fast if you don’t need the job argue back look for another if you do then be professional lol.
I was always able to deal with shouting for 2 reasons my teachers and heads in primary school some of them could scream like mad lol and gaming I’m immune now but depends how you grew up I guess.