My boss is setting weird expectations and I feel bullied by her. I want to leave, but it pays decent and I need the tuition reimbursement. Any advice?

I’m sorry if this is a lot of information, but I’ve got a lot going on with work that I don’t think is right but I feel trapped for a number of reasons.

So, I started a job as a bank teller about 8/9 months ago. I was told I’d be working 30 hours a week with a pretty set schedule. I was expecting ~6 hour work days, so I’d have plenty of time to do school work each day (I’m doing college online, full time, 15 credits). I was reassured it would be this way after I got fully trained in, training was just a 40 hour per week commitment for four weeks. This was totally fine because I started during the summer, so school wasn’t started yet.

Training went just fine. Then, it ended up being more than four weeks of working 40 hours because we were short staffed. I got frustrated but sucked it up for a bit. This is my first “real” job besides working fast food or retail, though I guess this is technically retail banking. I was at my wits end once school started because I couldn’t keep up, working 40+ hours and doing school and dealing with mental health issues. It was really overwhelming, so I talked to my boss’s boss (our branch manager) and told him that I need to just be at 30 hours like promised when I started or I’m going to have to find a new job. He told my boss to cap me at 30 or there will be issues, and things were fine from there.

Turns out, a couple of the other girls were having the same issues and I’m glad they got resolved. I thought they were resolved, but my boss has been getting very weird and, in my opinion, kind of controlling lately? Almost like, micro-managing. I’m only 19, but really, we’re all adults, and she’s treating us like kids.

It started with the occurrence system that they’ve started enforcing. When I first started working there, nobody had told me anything about this, but about a month ago, they decided that nobody is allowed to be absent more than four times in a rolling six month period. A fifth time will get you a review for termination. I thought, fine, it’s company policy and although the other girls who had been there anywhere from 2-23 years tell me that it’s never been enforced by anyone because our branch manager has always been extremely understanding and flexible with us, as long as we have accrued PTO to use or we go without PTO for our absences. Of course, there will be issues if it’s excessive, but it’s by best judgement. Shortly after this “new rule,” I got an extremely had sinus infection paired with bronchitis, causing me to be absent for three days. Then, due to the Midwest blizzards we have been having, my car went in the ditch on my way to work so I missed a fourth day. My boss said I will be getting occurrences for each day, but my branch manager said I’m not because I, 1) have a doctors note from when I went to the ER, and 2) he saw the state of my car after going into the ditch and I had to get a different car. I’m not lying to get out of work, I’m dealing with life circumstances. This started some drama with my boss again that I didn’t want.

Then, she’s also put this rule in that “the times on our schedule are the times we are to be helping customers.” This may sound reasonable (and maybe it is, I don’t know!) but what she’s saying she expects us to do is to come in early and leave late, essentially. So, if I’m scheduled for 8am and it takes me ten minutes to set up my work station and cash drawer, I’m actually expected to show up at 7:50. Also, despite my schedule saying I leave at 6pm, she expects me to close my window at 6pm and then organize my drawer and balance. Typically, every teller would close their drawer at 5:50, since organizing and balancing takes ~10 minutes and our schedules say we leave at 6, not at 6:15. Adding 10 minutes each way adds up to 20 mins a day and over an hour and a half extra per week that I shouldn’t have to be there. Not to be a whiner, but I’m usually cutting things close as is. I’ve got a busy life and can’t always stay past what my schedule says, but apparently we can also get occurrences due to not following these new rules, also. I tried to address my concerns with my boss but she said it doesn’t matter and I need to follow the new rules. I’m frustrated.

On top of everything, my schedule seems to get more and more irregular with these conflicts and I feel like she’s punishing me. Back to my expectations of working approx. 6 hour work days, she keeps scheduling me open to close, which ends up being a 10 hour shift. I’m getting days off, so I’m not working over 30 hours, but it’s really stressful and bad for my mental health and school work for me to be working three 10 hour days instead of five 6 hour days. Even four longer shifts would be fine. But every time I try to discuss scheduling with her, she gives me the same line: “I schedule for the bank, not for your life. Sorry!” I guess maybe that’s reasonable, because businesses need to look out for themselves and I’m being paid to work there, but it’s not what we agreed to when I was interviewing and I would’ve chosen a different position if I knew it might be this way.

Lastly, the cherry on top, is I’m suddenly going from “you’re doing so great! We’d love to promote you to lead teller when the position opens up!” to “every small thing you do is wrong and I’m going to send passive aggressive emails to the team and gossip to other tellers about it.” I have not changed any of my behaviors, despite the frustration. I’ve been consistently getting the same numbers for the “conversation starters” we have. I have at least four walk-overs to the bankers a week, where our expectation is one. Everyone is constantly telling me how great I’m doing, and my boss used to, too. But now she’s saying that she will never promote me to lead teller because I’m apparently “not outgoing enough” and I keep fucking small things up like, last week I forgot a pen by my workstation and she made a huge fuss about it and sent out a mass email to my coworkers about “remembering to clean up after ourselves!!” and used me as an example on a list of “what not to do.” That’s the least bad email she’s sent out, but frustrating nonetheless.

What do I do? Do I stay? Do I try to transfer to another branch of this company? I would like to stay for the tuition reimbursement and that’s about it, honestly. I’m counting on it because I had to take out a private student loan (for circumstances I won’t detail) with my mom and she absolutely wants it paid back by the end of this school year or she’s probably going to disown me. I’m just doubtful things will get better here. Two of the bankers that were previously tellers have told me stories of her past bullying, and it sounds like she’s made many, many people quit before with this same behavior, but my branch manager always sides with her in the end, especially now because she’s about three years from retirement. I don’t think I’m going to be able to find a job with pay like this ($15 an hour) plus the $5,000 they’ll reimburse me a year for school until I’ve gotten a degree. Plus, after they reimburse my tuition, I have to stay for a year or pay it back. I feel trapped.

Tl;dr- boss is setting expectations that I find questionable. I want to stay because I like my coworkers and my day-to-day job but I feel like she’s constantly making my life miserable. Don’t know whether to stay or leave due to decent wage I’m making as a student and tuition reimbursement. I need advice!

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