I could have sworn I already wrote this. Oh well, I guess now is as good of a time as any.
I'm not one of those people that was successful at getting a job at 16. Due to a few life circumstances like depression, other mental health stuff, social awkwardness, my bad eyesight, and probably laziness; I didn't have a job until I was 26. I am 30 now, so it hasn't been that long.
When I was 24 I started going out a lot. I would go to the mall and around town. I still to this day go window shopping a few days a week. I find it to be a good use of my time. Throughout my journeys I became familiar with all the different stores. With time and a little encouragement from Vocational Rehab I found myself seriously looking for a job by the time I was 25. I had been in an out of college at that time, and I guess besides the other reasons, finding a job just wasn't something I was that important to me up until then.
Two of the places I frequently visited at the mall were Cinnabon and Coldstone Creamery. The manager, who I refer to as Manager J on here became familiar with me with time because I visited so often. That is how I landed a job at Cinnabon a little over 4 years ago. It pays off when you get familiar with employees in your favorite stores. I was so excited to work at Cinnabon and I started the day before Halloween in 2015.
I am legally blind, so I had to convince Manager J I was good at cleaning in order to get the job. When you have a physical handicap it can make it super challenging to land jobs. I knew I was going to have to be convincing, and that worked out for me. My first two days I helped hand out samples to trick or treaters around the mall. We gave cinnamon roll samples and Coldstone did ice cream samples. I was allowed to wear my Halloween costume to work for this occasion. I kind of question if being a rainbow sock monkey left the best impression though. I think the combination of me being visually impaired, kind of socially awkward, and wearing a kind of childish costume gave my coworkers a bad impression of me. It wouldn't be the first time someone has mistaken me for someone who is mentally challenged.
After the first two days at work I started training. I helped Manager J clean, but I was also trained in all the Cinnabon operations. I had to wait a bit longer to do the registers though. I think the franchise owner didn't know what to think of me yet, so he held off on that for a few weeks. I kind of expected that though, some people don't know what to think of visually impaired people at work. I eventually learned how to help customers though. Customer service is actually my favorite part about any job.
I did a lot of dishes at work. I also helped Manager J clean the racks, and under the sinks. I did a lot of cleaning up and organizing. What we did on days we cleaned was pretty random. Back then cleaning was something I found very therapeutic, so I loved it. The normal par of my job was really fun. We always had a race with each other to have the fastest rolling times when we made the cinnamon rolls. I loved rolling and it kind of sucks that I don't do it anymore. What we do is we thaw out already made sheets of dough, roll them out to a certain length, put margarine on top, then cinnamon, then we roll them up. I'll insert a picture below. After this they proof for a while and then we bake them.
Other items I've made are cinna sweeties, which are basically donut holes with sugar and cinnamon on them. We also make cinna stix, which are sticks of dough that we dip in margarine and cover in cinnamon and sugar. We twist them so they have a spiral shape. Usually when we make them we store them in the freezer for later. We only take them out for baking when we are getting low on the display. Other things we make are Chillatas which are smoothies basically. We have different flavors depending on the time of the year. we also have frozen lemonade and regular lemonade. In the winter we have hot chocolate. That's just a few things we have there.
I would highly recommend Cinnabon as a starter job. It really is great for people who haven't worked yet.
My relationship with my coworkers had always been a bit strained. I have never been all that great at talking to people in general. I didn't take to most of my coworkers that much. I got along with a few however. Most of the time I felt very isolated and awkward. I've always had the feeling that my coworkers feel at least a little awkward around me and don't know what to do. Things went well for me the first 8 or 9 months I worked there. It was pretty normal and I loved my job. I love the job itself, not really my coworkers so much. I really wish we could have had a better relationship back then. That would have made the job perfect.
Things took a turn for the worst when we switched managers. The manager of Coldstone Manager T took over Cinnabon and Manager J left. I thought Manager T was an okay manager at first, but things went terribly wrong. First he implemented the sample shift. this shift we would basically spend the whole shift just making and serving samples. I had nothing against the shift itself, it's just that Manager T used it to shove me off to the side. He had me sampling more than I was doing regular shifts. It wasn't like that for anyone else. I began to hate my job at this point and started to feel even more isolated and different.
I got depressed and one day I had enough. I complained and expressed my feelings to him. I told him how stressed out by always being stuck on the sample shift. Most of my regular shift had been taken away from me at this point. He wasn't even letting me help customers. The way he explained it was that I wasn't going fast enough and a couple people complained about me. I wasn't told this until it was too late. I completely broke down the day I told him how I felt. I didn't know what to do, so I turned to cleaning for comfort. I told him I would clean more as long as he didn't make me do the sample shift anymore. I really didn't know what else to do at this point.
From that day I cleaned 3 days a week for 2 or 3 hours per shift. Manager T had made me a list to follow every time I came in. It wasn't a hard list, but it got repetitive. Sometimes I'd do extra stuff on my own. I was okay with cleaning at that time, even though it didn't help me develop a better relationship with my coworkers. We were more separate than ever. Sometimes Manager T would have me roll, which at the time I was grateful for. I've always loved making the cinnamon rolls, so I'm glad he at least let me do that. Also, I'll admit that sometimes when I was working with someone I liked I would help customers behind his back. That was probably dumb, but I regret nothing.
I was basically stuck cleaning for around 15 months I guess. During that time I was switched from the Cinnabon payroll, to the Coldstone Creamery payroll. This basically cut off any way for me to help customers at Cinnabon. Manager T said that the franchise owner couldn't afford to pay someone that was only cleaning, so that is why I was moved to the Coldstone payroll. This ended any chance if me getting my old job back. I didn't know what to think at the time, but I think I'm unable to like working at Coldstone because I go the job this way. I think Manager T used this to control me too.
Cleaning went from something I enjoyed, to something I hated. I wasn't even rolling by the time Manager T quit. I was depressed to the point I had trouble physically moving some days. I reached my limit around October 2017. I made up my mind that I had had enough of the misery I was feeling so I decided it was time to quit. I complained to Manager T one last time. I told him about how unhappy I was and that i felt under appreciated.
It was at this time that I learned Manager T was going to quit. He told me to talk to whoever became the new manager about it. I held off quitting until I could meet my new manager. this is where things started to get a lot better. My year of hell was finally coming to an end.
Sorry to leave you on a cliffhanger. I just don't want to make this too long. I'll have the next part up soon
