Dear Manager,

You cannot and should not toe the line between manager and friend/coworker. We labor together, yes, but you actually get paid fairly for it and have authority over me and thus we do not have a fair or horizontal relationship; if you’re my friend then you are an abusive dick and if you’re my manager you are being highly inappropriate.

You want to fix our store and make things better? Then meet us where we’re at. Fight for us. Give the DM as much hell as you can get away with. Your constant enthusiasm and manic cheeriness doesn’t raise morale, it makes us all think you’re fake as shit and pisses us off. Just try being a little bit negative at work every once in a while. Complain openly about corporate, bitch about customers with us and actually have our backs, and for the love of god keep your stress levels to yourself cause you can’t begin to relate to how little most of us have to look forward to in the long term anymore.

I really do like you a lot but please have literally any tact or emotion or understanding for how your employees are living. I get that you work like 60 hours a week. That sucks but most of it is administrative and you do a lot of it from home. Not to mention you do it with the help of your shift leaders who do basically all the shit you do but for less pay- Whatever you’re going through in your life at least you have a house with a pool, a pension, and the ability to buy your kid brand name shoes. I whereas it live at home with my equally poor parents because despite working nearly as hard as you I wouldn't be able to afford rent basically anywhere nearby if I moved out. Most of my coworkers struggle to make rent and are deeply depressed, and so we cling to each other like wreckage in a storm. We are allowed to complain to each other about the labor we put in. You fucking don’t. Not to us. Your job is your choice. You choose to be in a leadership position. You loudly and openly love your life. Sure you’re not living your dream, but you made it. You’re successful and happy. Most of us aren’t even truly living.. we barely survive let alone thrive. The world is on the brink of destruction and you presume that the job itself is why we’re all so stressed out, not that we’re all overworked and starving. Take your head out of your ass and stop chugging that company kool-aid by the gallon.

Signed, your dutiful wage-slave