Journal: Entry for Macharius
I'm becoming rather annoyed with my wife's boss who also happens to be her best friend.
A little background before I go into details: late last autumn, Chipotle in Minnesota had to fire all of their undocumented workers. My wife's best friend is a general manager, and lost half her workforce - including her entire management team. In a scramble, she hired her fiancee, my wife, and pretty much anyone else who applied for a job in November or December. At the time, it was understood that my wife would be the #2 manager in the store and receive a rather nice salary.
1. After five months, she has the responsibilities and hours of the assistant manager - but still gets paid like a line-worker. Responsibilities include being on-call when the brown stuff hits the rotating oscillator. And no official promotion or raise in sight.
2. While my wife and I have no shared days off work, her boss/friend only schedules her fiancee for when she works. I don't really care about this, but I do have a problem when it prevents my wife from trying to exchange shifts with her boss because if the fiancee is scheduled to work but the boss doesn't go in, the fiancee doesn't go in. I know that's not explained very well, so it may be better to think of it as her boss/friend not willing to accomodate the rare request of my wife despite frequently making demands of her to be further detailed in #3.
3. Her boss/friend has been scheduling herself off for three or four days a week for the last month and not answering her phone despite being "on call" - resulting in my wife having to go into work on her days off.
My wife is not only aware of all this, but is as annoyed as I am. Obviously, I'm super enthusiastic that my pregnant wife is working 10 days in a row despite frequently severe bouts of morning sickness for effectively peanuts while her "best friend" is taking as much advantage of it as possible. But, because it's her friend, she's unwilling to assert herself to specifically ask for a shared day off with me, and the raise/promotion she was promised when the initial offer was made.
Now, my wife is an adult and perfectly capable of solving her problems so I'd never do anything about any of this myself except tell her to - but that doesn't stop me from wanting to have a little chat with her boss/friend's boss.
A little background before I go into details: late last autumn, Chipotle in Minnesota had to fire all of their undocumented workers. My wife's best friend is a general manager, and lost half her workforce - including her entire management team. In a scramble, she hired her fiancee, my wife, and pretty much anyone else who applied for a job in November or December. At the time, it was understood that my wife would be the #2 manager in the store and receive a rather nice salary.
1. After five months, she has the responsibilities and hours of the assistant manager - but still gets paid like a line-worker. Responsibilities include being on-call when the brown stuff hits the rotating oscillator. And no official promotion or raise in sight.
2. While my wife and I have no shared days off work, her boss/friend only schedules her fiancee for when she works. I don't really care about this, but I do have a problem when it prevents my wife from trying to exchange shifts with her boss because if the fiancee is scheduled to work but the boss doesn't go in, the fiancee doesn't go in. I know that's not explained very well, so it may be better to think of it as her boss/friend not willing to accomodate the rare request of my wife despite frequently making demands of her to be further detailed in #3.
3. Her boss/friend has been scheduling herself off for three or four days a week for the last month and not answering her phone despite being "on call" - resulting in my wife having to go into work on her days off.
My wife is not only aware of all this, but is as annoyed as I am. Obviously, I'm super enthusiastic that my pregnant wife is working 10 days in a row despite frequently severe bouts of morning sickness for effectively peanuts while her "best friend" is taking as much advantage of it as possible. But, because it's her friend, she's unwilling to assert herself to specifically ask for a shared day off with me, and the raise/promotion she was promised when the initial offer was made.
Now, my wife is an adult and perfectly capable of solving her problems so I'd never do anything about any of this myself except tell her to - but that doesn't stop me from wanting to have a little chat with her boss/friend's boss.
Re: Frustration.
Oh man, that does sound frustrating. Especially for you since you really can't fix it and you can't make your wife fix it either (though it seems obvious enough from the "outside" what it would take).
Congrats on the bun in the oven though, I don't think I knew about that (and if I did I forgot
) 
Congrats on the bun in the oven though, I don't think I knew about that (and if I did I forgot
)
Re: Frustration.
We all know what it takes to overcome this particular hurdle, but there's always some crisis or another that my wife feels precludes her asking for what she wants (and was promised).
Just another example of why one shouldn't go into business with personal relations.
Just another example of why one shouldn't go into business with personal relations.
That sounds like a terrible situation for your wife.
I would be furious if I were her. Actually, I would probably quit, but that's not necessarily a behavior to emulate.
If crises and such are getting in the way of communication, maybe she could write a letter and slip it into the manager's mailbox or give it to her at the end of a shift?
If crises and such are getting in the way of communication, maybe she could write a letter and slip it into the manager's mailbox or give it to her at the end of a shift?
Do not talk to the friend.
When work intersects with friendship, it's dangerous territory. Clearly your wife values the friendship - so much that she doesn't even want to discuss work problems with the manager. She should. You cannot do this for her. It is her friendship, her job, her manager, she is the one who must speak and negotiate. Nothing good can come of you interfering. You absolutely cannot fight her battles for her. If you try, this might cost your wife this friendship.
I have been in a similar situation - the husband of my former best friend "confronted" me about some slights his wife suffered due to me. You notice how I said former best friend? This is why. My friend didn't consider the slights significant enough to discuss them with me, as not to strain our relationship, but she vented to her husband (as she should be able to, that is what family is for), and he felt compelled to stand up for her "mistreatment." So yeah, that strained our friendship. I felt hurt and betrayed. I am no longer friends with them, and precisely because of this incident.
I have been in a similar situation - the husband of my former best friend "confronted" me about some slights his wife suffered due to me. You notice how I said former best friend? This is why. My friend didn't consider the slights significant enough to discuss them with me, as not to strain our relationship, but she vented to her husband (as she should be able to, that is what family is for), and he felt compelled to stand up for her "mistreatment." So yeah, that strained our friendship. I felt hurt and betrayed. I am no longer friends with them, and precisely because of this incident.
This is exactly what...
A flaming bag of poop on the doorstep in the middle of the night is for!