My co-worker called in yesterday. Had a closing shift. Who better to work it, but me? We don't have many service desk workers, so if someone is sick or whatever we sometimes have no choice but to work from 6 am to 10 pm. That wasn't my case, but I am getting major overtime for being the only one off that day - despite my (college) school schedule. That was yesterday, and today I opened the desk at 6 am. Perfectly 8 hours between shifts, so from what I know it isn't "against the rules" for that kind of scheduling. I woke up late though. AT 6 am, and dammit I have never been so sluggish. I was a brave soul going without my morning coffee.

     Eventually I perked up, but I couldn't avoid our Produce manager. She always has some sly joke to make fun of you - even at 6 am. (I won't mention the Halloween one, for I am sure it could lead to legal disputes if I were to follow through with it. Despite her "just joking" sense of self.) So... paperwork... agitation... lack of sleep (I didn't fall asleep straight at 10pm)... and our store was panicking to prepare for a Key Retailing Audit. Been preparing for it all week! Scraping tape goo off windows, vacuuming rugs, and sweeping behind things people don't even see. It stresses people out trying to make a store perfect. My... uh... Assistant Hr. I suppose that is her official title. I am never sure since out store is so small. Our baggers can become store managers in a week depending on how they are scheduled. We all do a little of everything.

     Anyway, it's my lunch time. 30 minutes, no big deal. At 10:30am I am supposed to be replaced by A.HR and there is a meeting going on downstairs. I can wait, so I do until 11 when she is free. Ask for her to cover me so I can go (as she is scheduled to), but she tells me no. Her duties are too important for her to break away to cover my 30 minutes. (Can people even do that!?) On top of that, she gets on to me for sending someone on a break while another is on a lunch. I see where I could have gone wrong, but because it was That Day, I was bickered too. I was up front to help, it was slow, I saw no wrong in it at the time, and I was obviously up there to help anyway since my lunch kept being postponed. Why was her work more important? Because she was preparing for the Audit. Whatever. I was a bit irritated and eventually convince the only other person I could to cover me, to do it, even though she was scheduled to be on our main register.

     Keep in mind just how small our store is... there is only 4 registers. With limited people so early in the morning, it can be difficult to switch people around, and in my case - **** with the scheduling. I get back from lunch... la dee dah... the day goes by, and I am informed that we won't have an audit BUT! Corporate is gonna come by anyway. Great, a little relieved and stress can be seen rising up into the air. Hour later? News hits: They aren't coming at all. REALLY? We went through so much trouble to make our little store that much more presentable, for stress to rise, for everything to be perfect and ready, as to be audit worthy and they decide they are too "busy with the Holidays and all...." to drive the 15 minutes to our store too.

Defiantly a day in which I would have rather got hit by car then to show up to work, but I got it out of me and I feel a bit better.

TL;TR (Too long to read): ****ty day of work, as long as management has "work" to do, scheduling and everyone else's plans don't matter (on corporate and store levels)

PS. If you got through it, thanks for reading!

You should re read your rant and imagine it came from another person. Then without a much thought you could advise that person to give up that slave treatment and that any other job would be less stressful and less disrespect. You appear to be the type that Kroger mgmt. loves- they know they can abuse you as much as needed to cover shifts, run the front end with no lunches/breaks, be the butt of a joke making you the laughing stock of the store. ON YOUR NEXT JOB... stand your ground, make college a priority over retail grunt work, and fire back at coworkers that torment you.... if you don't do these things then any job at any level you'll be inviting abuse... which from reading your rant sounds like you secretly almost enjoy misery.