Ok, so this is how it went...that little meeting that I was going to have with the owners turned into a burning of me and everything that I am, or rather everything that they think I am.

Around 7am I saw them pull up to the store and walk in. Immediately I got that feeling like someone had just punched their way through the walls of my chest, grabbed my heart and started to squeeze. Then I decided to calm down, after all the owner had assured me in an email that it wouldn't be too bad, that they just wanted to clear the air. So, I went about my business and smiled and did what had to be done and everything appeared to really be fine. Then around 10am while I was washing dished the owner came up to me and said that although she had to run some errands, that before I left for the day she wanted to sit down and talk with me. I said, half jokingly and mainly serious, "But I don't want to talk to you" (mind you I had a fat grin on my face while saying it). She said, "No Norma, it's nothing bad, just a coaching session". To these people, you must strive for perfection at all times, at any cost and with your full heart, mind and soul. Which to me never seemed so bad, except for the fact that they have pretty fucked up views of what "perfection" means.

Anyway, around 11am the now ASSHOLE manager walks in, saying hi to everyone except for me, and instantly I knew that this would be a fucked up meeting. So, it's now 1pm and I was scheduled to leave by 10am. The owner says with the utmost sweetness, "Norma let's all sit down now and get everything cleared up". I thought, "COOL! Yeah, let's clear everything up. Let me speak my side and we'll get past all this crap ass misunderstanding". We sat down at the table located in the very front of the store right where customers go in and out. The ASSHOLE was to my right the owners to my left and infront of me (round table). So it began, "Norma I'm not going to say who's right and who's wrong. I'm not going to take sides here, I just want to clear this all up and move beyond it". I could do that, so I relaxed a little. After all it's what I wanted too!!! Then I hear, "Why did you tell -ASSHOLES name- that I had told you not to come in?" "I didn't tell him that. I told him that I had had a conversation with you that morning and that you and I had discussed different training methods to help me be a "better" leader." Interject -ASSHOLE-, "Norma, you know that you said, " ' I just got of the phone with -owners name-' and that you weren't coming in because '-owners name- told me not to' ". WHAT?!?!?! "No, that is not what I said." At this point the ASSHOLE starts to get so angry at me that the owner had to tell him to calm down. Throughout a 45 minute talking to, I was told that SEVERAL employees had complained about me. That they thought I was too aggressive. If anything could have lead these traitors to say something like that, it's only do to the fact that I ask people to work when they are at work. I hate slackers and have never hidden that fact from anyone, including the owners/managers. But to put things in better perspective for you the actual words used were, "You come off as very agressive with people. You're just a little too confrontational. You tend to be rather like a Nazi with how you get your point across." BOOM!!! That was it. That was the moment I was done there. All of my efforts in the store and out had been solely for making that place better. And now I'm a NAZI??? That was the load of bricks that crushed my will to stay there. Then the ASSHOLE had one last thing to say. "My best quality, the thing that makes me me, is that I am not a liar Norma. If you just come clean and admit that you lied then we will be fine. Just admit it, even if it's just to me when no one else is around, then you and I can get past this." FUCK YOU!!! You want me to lie that I lied?? Then at some point I was told that if they, the owners have to come down and talk to me again, that it will be a short conversation. Interject ASSHOLE, "Yeah, it's too bad you're not getting fired today, but oh well." For the rest of the talking to, I just sat there and controlled my extreme anger (Anger of a Nazi can be dangerous!!!), shock (Shock about the fact that people whom I had invested time and energy in could be so treaterous), disappointment ( That I had thought so highly of this place and the people in it) and held back a well of tears. Their big thing is always to that they hate gossip, but everything that they were basing that meeting on was from the ASSHOLE fishing around to people for any issues that they might have with me. So it ended with the owner saying, "Now Norma, you're not going to throw up your hands and give up right?" NO ASSHOLE, I'm going to stop caring about you, your staff and this place, because I have given you, them and it more than any of you deserve or even care to acknowledge.

So yeah, I'm currently looking for a different job. I will be going back to school, and thanks to the back stabbers I have decided on a major...I will be majoring in Physicology with a minor in Communications. I know that I will probably have to go through this shit again and again with people, but I want to be able to speak up eloquently and without fear. One of the main reasons that I said very little in that meeting, was because when I get aggitated I become a babbling idiot and my emotions take over everything that comes out of my mouth = Communications. And although I will never be able to accept peoples falsities/hypocrisies, I want to understand them better...tear down their walls of crap and know them for who they are, BEFORE I get bit in the ass by them = Physicology.

KT, I don't know what to tell you other than I think you might still be ok there. I'm hoping to leave there by the end of the month. But you my friend, just don't give more than you have to. Don't confide in anyone. Don't trust anyone. Don't go into a higher position without realising that there are people there who will want to see you fail. Take the job, atleast you'll be making money and in the meantime seek life elsewhere.