Dear Grocery Store,

After the incident I felt a little helpless.  I really felt like what had happened was wrong but I couldn't figure out what to do to make the situation any better or improve working conditions for other people.  I thought about what I wanted to do so that she wouldn't get away with behavior like this in the future.  After a while a thought to myself...well you want to be a writer so use your words and write.  I definitely knew I was going to write about it here but I also wrote a letter to people in the corporate office.  I don't know that it will have any impact or make any difference at all but it made me feel better that I had taken some sort of action.  Maybe eventually I will decide that writing a letter just isn't enough and I will go all Norma Rae but for now it's enough.  So here is a draft of the letter that I sent to the corporate office. 
 
Dear Grocery Store,

I began working at Grocery Store part time as a cashier and I recently left when I received a full-time job offer.  However, even with another full time job I might have continued to work at Grocery Store part time (maybe a few evenings a week or a weekend morning) because I need the extra money--instead I quit and I am writing to make you aware of the event that actually led to my giving 2 weeks notice. 

One evening when I came into work one of the relief managers was actually scheduled to work behind the desk as a customer service associate.  She was not scheduled as a supervisor or manager.  I came in to relieve her as the next customer service associate scheduled behind the desk.  She noticed that my shirt was not tucked in properly so she asked me to tuck it in.  As she was getting ready to leave for the day she told another employee that she "wanted to slap me in fucking face" because my shirt wasn't tucked in.  I would hope you would agree that this in NEVER an appropriate response to a disagreement or conflict between two co-workers but this came from someone that your company has chosen to place in a management position in one of your stores.  As a manager profanity and thinly veiled threats made against an employee should never be acceptable or tolerated.  Perhaps she was merely venting her anger.  Perhaps she was frustrated but a necessary part of acting in a supervisory position is the ability to communicate in a constructive and productive way even if you are frustrated by a situation.  Certainly indicating that you want to "slap someone in the fucking face" is not an effective way to resolve a problem with another employee.  After that incident I decided that I did not want to work in that type of environment anymore and I gave my two weeks notice to the store manager about a week later.

You will notice that I did not mention which store I worked at or the name of the relief manager who was involved in this incident.  The reason for that is that in spite of her inappropriate behavior my goal is not for there to be any sort of disciplinary action or to rehash the event.  Rather, my ultimate goal is to have you read this letter and seriously evaluate your process for how you select mangers of your grocery store and how you train them to interact with employees.  How your managers treat and interact with the employees in their department is important because the managers and supervisors are the face of your stores.  They set the tone for the store and they need to treat all fellow employees with respect.  I believe that when employees are treated fairly and with respect then customer service is better and I know providing good customer service is your ultimate goal. 

I hope this letter will have you begin to consider how to make Grocery Store a better place to work for all of your employees. Thank you for your time and I hope you find a way to address this situation, perhaps through training or evaluation practices so that incidents like this will not happen to any employees in the future. 

Sincerely,

Concerned Cashier