I would say I’m semi-new, only gotten two or three of my paychecks thus far (every 2 weeks). I’m a minor and I mostly work closing shifts. And I can’t stand it.
We work with 3 people per close, but today and yesterday were particularly awful.
Today: We close at 8:30. I clock out at 9:00. The other closer with me, being a minor, leaves. I have to stay with my SL for the night until 9:40, still missing tons of stuff, and having to apologize to morning crew in the book about the whips, caramels, and milks that need to be done still.
I don’t blame anyone but my manager who did the schedule, but I don’t know what to do. I know me staying late is an issue. And can get my SL fired. But 30 mins with only 2 people up front closing up, my SL doing money, and the pressure we get for forgetting to do stuff is just. Idk. So overwhelming. I want to talk to my manager about it, but apparently she has said based on the income we make on closing, we should only have two people scheduled (my SL told me about this). WHICH IS INSANE. She has also said we should never clock out past 9:05 (if we are not minors) because overtime isn’t needed and we should be able to do it all in 30 mins. Idk what to do.
Here is a rundown bc I need to get off my chest what happened.

Okay; first bad night of this week I left at 9:10. Here is the catch though; I was closing with a different SL, we will call her M because she makes a big mess on every counter she touches.
M is doing her money. My other coworker is doing dishes. Which we have a ton of because M didn’t help me keep counters clean, nor did she help me get ready to shut stuff down for close. So I had one bar closed that I did. And two more to go, which were messy, had so many dishes, that it took my other coworker all 30 mins to wash the dishes and bring them up.
I HAD TO CLEAN THE WHOLE FRONT. I’ve never done this myself. And even two bars was too much to do by myself. M takes so long to do the money, then comes up to the front and starts half-assed doing basically nothing. I think she is like.. setting up the pitchers for morning crew? Anyways. All she did for the close was close down espresso machines like 5 mins before close bc we got like two big rushes 10 mins before we closed. All the counters are messy. I’m rushing to do as much as I can. I felt so incompetent but I don’t ever do all the bars like this. I usually have a more experienced coworker to help me. But I had a lazy SL, who didn’t help at all, and another coworker who was doing the most she could. I left early bc they were worried M (our shift for the night) wouldn’t like me staying late and would say something. So I left, with cups, straws, lids, milks, whips, and a whole bar and a bunch of syrups to wipe down. I felt so bad. I had to leave them to finish it all.

Okay. Now what happened tonight. I talked about this at the start of this post. Closing was with me, a diff SL, and an less experienced coworker who is good at her job but not familiar with closings. She is a minor, like me. We prepped SO MUCH. But still cannot finish the close on time. My SL did her money, I was on dishes for like 30 mins bc we had so damn many, and my other coworker is working her ass off before she leaves, and she stays 10 mins after close, only because her parents let her. I feel bad again. Bc maybe I could have done more? My SL mostly does dishes during the shift, I do drive through and drinks and my other coworker was prepping for close and doing drinks. I feel like I need an hour to close sometimes. We even pre swept. Pre mopped. Closed down a whole bar. Half cleaned another. And it wasn’t enough. Left at 9:40. But I clocked out at 9:00.

Now, I do have some coworkers who do amazing closes bc they are much more experienced than me. Sometimes we leave super early, like once we did 8:38. Sometimes we leave right at 9:00. And that’s great. But there are only two like that, and they were both out this week. One on sick leave and one on vacation.

Overall, I keep blaming myself. Because I feel like I could do better. I could go faster. But I have worked here two months at most. I’m still new. And it’s still hard when my training was really half-assed (not my trainers fault). We are so understaffed, and today’s close (the second one I talked about) was an inventory day, so we should have had 4 people scheduled. But ofc we didn’t.

TLDR: i consistently have had issues with either incompetent SLs or understaffed closings. Unless we cut corners I can’t do what I need to do and I can’t get paid for overtime bc I’m a minor but also don’t want to leave a mess for morning crew. I’m a green bean (2 months). I want to tell my manager to either schedule more people when there are new people like myself on the floor or move me to mornings. Or if she can’t do either I may leave.
But on the other hand my anxiety makes me feel like it’s all my fault for being incompetent when I know I’m a very fast learner, and I get told that so much I feel like a POS when I don’t instantly do something right the first time.
Any advice for smooth closings, or even advice on what to do/say would be much appreciated. Ty all