This is long and I’m sorry but I didn’t know where else to go. Throwaway account cause I’m paranoid.

So there’s a lot of drama going on in my store that I somehow keep getting roped into, I’m tired and it’s affecting my and some of my coworkers’ morale, and my SM isn’t handling it properly.

So I transferred to my current store from another store in my district due to a transphobic SM (I’m FTM). I’ve been at my current store for about a year. It was great at first, everyone got along well, and there was little drama. We have two shifts, I’ll call them M and C, and they’re at the root of everything going wrong in my store. When I first started I was really close to M and pretty friendly with C, but then everything started going wrong.

C is a control freak; she won’t let anyone but her stock, clean, do prep, and sometimes bar, but then she’ll complain and bitch at us that things aren’t done. If you do something she deems “wrong” she has no problem haranguing and insulting you in front of other partners or even customers.

M is very easily stressed and is very two-faced: for example, just last night we were super busy and understaffed for the traffic we were getting (our closest sister store is closed due to a COVID outbreak and so we’re getting their business on top of our usual and we’re already busiest in our district). My shift texted her to let her know the close was going to be bad since we’re not allowed to stay over very long because of labor and she said she understood and it was fine, then she turned around and verbally abused us in the store group chat this morning.

They weren’t bad in the beginning, but the issue is this: back in January C cheated on her girlfriend with M, and they’ve been together ever since. When the initial cheating happened we all found out very quickly, as a lot of us were friends with C’s girlfriend on social media and C’s girlfriend posted all about it, with some nasty things C had said to her. I was super uncomfortable with how C treated her ex, especially since C is 25 or 26 and the poor ex was only 17. As such I pulled both C and M from my social media, because I didn’t want to be associated with those kind of people. I did it very respectfully, I didn’t attack either one of them, I just quietly unfriended both of them.

When C and M found out I had done that, C got super aggressive, attacked me on the floor about it in front of other partners, and started just attacking me and mistreating me constantly. I went to my SM we had a sit-down meeting with me, C, my SM, and my ASM, and discussed the issue. I told her it was inappropriate for her to attack me about my social media on the floor, because it didn’t need to be made into a work issue. I never treated her any differently on the floor, she actually didn’t find out I had unfriended her and M (as far as I know anyway) for at least a month. She agreed, apologized, and I thought things went back to normal. Then COVID hit.

I’m high-risk, so I took the full amount of paid time offered. When I came back, I was only back for about a week or two before I got sent back into quarantine because of a possible exposure in the store (turned out to be negative but I was still required to stay gone for another 2 weeks). All in all I was gone for about 2 months, and when I came back C was back to her bullying ways. It got to the point where she admitted to one of my friends that she was purposely putting me in a position I hate every day because she “wanted me to suffer.” He told me about it and I went to my SM again. She talked to C who denied it and my SM believes her. And now M, who I used to be really close to, is also really rude to me on the floor.

Aside from all this, C and M are bullying other partners besides me. I’ve talked to several people who are too afraid to reach out to my SM because they know C and M will find out and get worse. And not only that, but even though they’re dating they’re still scheduled together and I’ve witnessed them kissing, giving each other massages, and rubbing up against each other on the floor, clocked in, in front of customers. They’ll also disappear into the back together and we can’t find them, or one will be off and come in for the other’s thirty minute break and whoever’s working will take extra time on their breaks to spend time together. I’ve brought this up to my SM as well cause it’s unprofessional and badly affecting our work environment, but she doesn’t seem to care.

I don’t feel comfortable talking to my DM because he’s really close to my SM. I want to reach out to PCC, but apparently when C and M first got together someone else called PCC on them and I was told by a close friend of mine that no longer works with me that my SM thinks it was me who called. If I call this time, I’m scared my SM will retaliate since she was apparently mad at me the first time even though I’m not the one who called. My district has a freeze on transferring and I need the health insurance so I can’t just leave. Me and most of my coworkers are at our wits end and I don’t know what to do anymore. My SM is great and understanding but these two shifts are both teacher’s pets who act totally different when she’s in the store so she doesn’t believe it’s as bad as it is. I need advice.