Personal Lives and Work Don’t Mix

Everybody makes mistakes, but that’s because it’s human nature. This one instance though was traumatic for me, and I regret it to this day. I have made many mistakes in my life already. Even though I am only 17, doesn’t mean anything. We all make mistakes, and I can say that I regret them all, but especially one of them. One time, I jeopardized my relationship with my best friend over something so minuscule. It was just bad timing in this point in time and I took it way too far. This may seem minute, but to me it’s one of the worst things I have done in my life. I definitely could say that I haven’t done terrible things like hard drugs, partying, or sneaking out. I am pretty much a stay at home and watch YouTube child. I go to work every day and get my schoolwork done. So it’s not like I have ever really gotten in trouble with my parents.

Anyways, there’s obviously more to this story. It all starts back about 7-8 months ago. I don’t exactly remember when this was, but it was quite some time ago. I was working at my current employer; Greco’s Pizzeria. I was working there at the time for only like a couple months maybe. I decided that my best friend of 5 years should work with me. She needed a new job and we go to different schools so I thought it would be a great way to see her more often. This was a bad idea because you shouldn’t mix work with your personal lives. Having said that; it was going great for awhile. We weren’t really fighting at all, and we’re really happy to see each other. She was able to learn how to do things very quickly. Such as learning how to do the front which included ringing out customers, vacuuming, filling up the Pepsi-cooler, cleaning bathrooms, and even making pizzas. About a month later, everything started to go downhill. I had gotten the manager position before she started working there and so I had the authority to tell her what she has to do for the night for closing. This went to my head really fast and made me start to panic. She wouldn’t do certain things I had simply asked her to do. It wasn’t like I was really a strict manager. I just needed to make sure everything that needed to be done was done. Well, it started getting busier at Greco’s and this made everything ten times worse.

Due to the increase in business, we had to all start stepping up the plate. She didn’t like this very much, and refused to do certain things that I personally thought were simple tasks. It frustrated me so much that I would lash out at her. Everyone else at work would also take it out on her because she wasn’t “fast enough” for them or she didn’t comply to do specific tasks for her position. It made me freak out on her a lot. This got to the point where every night I was yelling at her because she just didn’t want to do what was asked of her. She would just have a bad attitude about a lot of things. This just made things worse because my other coworkers would just have a meltdown if she didn’t do these things. It just caused so much unnecessary drama that wasn’t needed.

Moral of the story, I definitely think I went about it all wrong. I didn’t want to mix feelings with work and it’s what could have ruined our friendship. I don’t 100% believe that I should have handled it any different in the aspect of mixing feelings with work. I had to be the manager and make sure that everything was done and she didn’t understand that completely. She thought it was personal, but it really was just lack of communication. She’s not all to blame though because I take a great part in that. She was doing great at the start, but just all of the pressure got to her. I was too harsh on her and should have just talked to her personally instead of letting everyone attack her. I messed up badly and it resulted in her not talking to me for awhile. Not only did I let everyone attack her and make her feel down, but I also just put the same energy as everyone else right onto her. I regret this so much because although things weren’t going well. I should have never let a job position get between us. We’ve been friends for a long time and that bond is irreplaceable. There’s always another job, but there will never be another her.

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