Psycho pet store manager, semi- firing..?!?

I started working for a pet store a few weeks ago. Things seemed to be going well, I did my job, worked very part time... They had me working almost non stop and then nearly a week off.
The manager is new, and just completed her training at the corporate headquarters in FL...
She called me at my other job on my cell phone on Friday of last week. I had to have her call me back on the house phone. I am a part time nanny as well. I told her that I usually have my cell phone turned off.
And said she needed to call me at home.
We had a strange conversation about some one being angry that I told their un-attended child that they could not wander around the store with a ferret that we have in a display.. and how we as employees cannot recommend any other store, to a customer for liability sake.
We had a mandatory meeting this last sunday, and it was also the first time I had the chance to see the up coming week's schedule.
Their calender/schedule sheet starts on sunday as the first day, and I made an honest mistake, I thought I was due to come in to work for a short time on Monday... it was in fact the meeting scheduled for sunday. I came in for work on Monday, realized my mistake...never clocked in, purchased some items I needed and left.
We laughed about it.. I did not help any one, and left soon after I arrived.
While I was driving in, the manager again called my cell phone to see if I could work on short notice on Tuesday. She did not mention Monday night, and we worked together ALL DAY. I left at 5 pm, I and another person cleaned cages and fed/watered, did normal things one does when one is
working at a petstore...
I again told her please don't call my cell phone, I rarely use it. And gave her my home phone number again...

24 hours later she called me at home to ask if I had watered the reptiles. Well of course, she also asked if they had been fed, and the small animals/birds. I said yes. I reminded her that we were almost entirely out of greens for the tortoises, and beardies. And reminded her that I had told her when I was leaving, to feed more food to the love bird since she was
eating a lot of her seeds.

I did make another mistake, I was scheduled to come in this morning, and thought I was working the afternoon shift. A phone call from the Asst. Manager and I was bustling to get ready and in the car on my way to work.
I got there, and got down to business. We have lost a few lion head rabbits, due to an RI, and two of the newer rabbits that came in with them were also sick. One of the Lion heads died at some point yesterday and the other two
were in the tank in the back room with it. The smell of death was bad and the Asst. told me to clean out that tank.
And to put the surviving ones in another.
Apparently while driving in, the manager, who was off, called me on my cell AGAIN... leaving a rather long winded message.
I only heard it as I saw the message sign on my cell phone stated as I was turning it off. I had it off while driving and had turned it on
to call my husband...
So I am doing my job, and the manager calls the store, and says, "I wanted to give you a nice call since the last ones have been a little
down on you." She then starts to berate me again, and this time bringing up the apparent unauthorized showing up for work on monday.
Even though I didn't clock in or work. The apparent lack of water in their enclosures, which are shallow, and i have added extra dishes,
and some one else added a deeper metal dish for the fire belly toads.
I try to converse with her, which she then gets angry about saying I am interrupting her, And when I try to give her answers to her one sided questions, she says I am not listening to her... And that I am still interrupting her. I shut up at this point and am almost in tears, and I am still trying to do my job while on the phone with her.
She says, "I will talk to you when I come in, in a few hours, do you have any questions?" I ask, "Will I have a job?" She says, "I'm not sure. You have had two schedule mistakes and then the thing with the animals on tuesday..."
And then when I try to talk to her about THAT, I am interrupting again. And she gets angry and won't talk to me on the phone...

At this point I cannot work there, I cannot work for this woman, and the owners are in FL... I had to buy my work shirt, so I write a note to her, telling her that I can understand the scheduling mistake of today, I should
have double checked the schedule, I wrote it down, and then put a bunch of stuff on top of it. But I did my job on Tuesday...
In the note I made three references.. one.. I was not interrupting, I was Interjecting, that is what one does in a conversation.
Two, She was rather unprofessional to call me on my cell phone at my other job, and to keep calling me about issues on my cell phone. She should have had me stay after on Sunday to discuss it, or on Tuesday. We were both there a half an hour before the store was due to open.
And Three, if she was going to state that my coming in to work on monday, was considered a major breach of policy by the company...
Her current Asst. Manager, and the former manager who has found another job, but is still on the payroll, and can be called in if need be...
The Asst. manager came in on Tuesday, with her BF, and their carpet python, that had just been force fed... carrying him around.. handling..
She starts working the cash register, helping people... answering questions... The former manager had also come in last Thursday, and basically did the
same thing..., both on their days off, and not in uniform AND not clocked in...
Bit of a double standard there....
Any way I gave the AM my name badge and keys to open cages... and clocked out.
Saying here is a note for the manager, I am sorry but I cannot work with such a person, and not knowing if I had a job in a few hours.
I did sign the note "Thank you for the opportunity, (my name)".
Around 3-4 o clock the phone rings here at home.. I don't answer it, as I just want to be alone and depressed.

Guess who called... yes, the manager... saying in a super uber perky voice that is her norm...
We have your shift covered for saturday.. please call me to let me know if you will be working next week as I am making the schedule.

WT(Blank) F...??!!
What part of my note did you not understand, and what part of turning in my keys and name tag did you not understand??

I had already started to find another job closer to home, as they only had me scheduled 13 hours for the WHOLE week..
On my application I stated I needed 25-30...

Psycho manager....ARRGH...:8:
And of course their animals are either dying, or slowly starving to death... perhaps I should turn them in to the SPCA...

Thanks for reading... any thoughts, good, bad or your own stories. ...all are welcome
MP

Yep, sounds almost exactly like my experience at Petsmart.

When I was hired, the manager was cool and seemed to care. A week later, she was transferred away and they brought in the manager from Heck. She was also a recent graduate and thought she knew everything...about managing. She knew SQUAT about animals!
The scheduling thing - same here. I signed up for Part Time, saying that I couldn't work more than 30 hours a week with no back-to-back long shifts. This was stated in a Doctors note...twice! The result: she scheduled me regularly for 38-39 a week, with two 10hr shifts back to back! She also expected me to 'work as fast as she did' and always told me I was 'too slow'. Ok, one: I couldn't move very fast, as per the doctors notes. Two: you do NOT move fast when working with skittish, cramped animals! I stayed and put up with all that crud for 9 months...but could finally take it no longer.

To make a long story short, I did similar to what you did by turning in the keys and such... but I included a long letter to the general manager of the area which outlined her treatment of me, the animals, and my co-workers. :D I found out she was fired a week later.

Good for you for leaving such a horrid situation!

I don't have a response to the general attitude of the manager but the scheduling issues, in my current job mistakes such as not knowing when to work have cost people jobs. It's the employees responsibility to know when they are working, not knowing causes a lot more problems for the other employees.

And these days most employers need verbal confirmation that you are in fact quitting.

I'm not defending the manager but as a manager myself these are my two cents.

I think the concept of managers should be removed entirely from petstores. Just have owners, perhaps one store director, and the employees. In my experience, things just go smoother when managers aren't around.

I once had to tell a place I quit 5 times before they actually took me off the schedule. 5 TIMES PEOPLE!! I quit!!! LOL, then they went on to bad mouth me to whoever would listen and told others that they had FIRED ME for not coming in to work! LOL, doesn't matter I wrote a letter every time they tried to call me in stating I had already quit weeks ago, quit calling me... :rofl: