I (19F) am living in Japan on a student visa. I’m working part time at one of the branches of a popular restaurant for the past 2 months. Although I’ve heard many nightmare stories about working here everyone seemed pretty chill except for the manager. He gets angry at the smallest possible mistakes depending on his mood.
Today I was working at the cash registrar and this customer didn’t give me proper instructions on the order. Although I’ve checked a few times with her she decided to point out my mistakes after the payment was done and the receipt was ready. I had to get my manager to undo the order. And she starts complaining to the manager about how she kept telling me the instructions from the very beginning. Manager gets mad and tells me very rudely to be careful about it. I try to explain myself at first then I was like okay and get back to work.
5 min later manager very aggressively pokes a few times in my arm and starts saying that he told me to take the food to their table why didn’t I take it. Honestly I don’t remember he said it or not and I was too shocked because it really hurt.
I tried to help but he was just doing it himself so I went back to my work. At this point I was on the verge of tears taking orders because it really hurt and I couldn’t just brush it off.
The manager called me again to ask me to clean some places and I head that way without saying anything(I understand I shouldn’t have done that). So he runs to me again this time hitting me with a clipboard to get my attention. He starts asking me why I didn’t respond before leaving. And then starts saying something I don’t understand. He translates it for me and I l reply to him by translator that he hurt me and I am very shocked. Then he keeps on saying whatever he was saying without giving me any chance to talk. I try to explain but he was getting more rude every second. At this point I start crying and tell him that hitting me is absolutely not okay and I am quitting. He then takes me to the employee room and keeps saying the same things he was telling me less rudely now but over and over again. I got very overwhelmed and start having a panic attack. Didn’t have one this bad in a very long time. I don’t know if the manager said something in during this time or not I only remember grabbing my emergency medicine from my purse and calming down after probably 10-15 minutes. I told the manager that I have my seal with me and I want to cancel my contract right away. He asked why? Do you hate working here? I told him that no I hate that he hurt me. He finally said sorry and said I was just telling you what to do you know I was just communicating. He kept insisting I calm down and then talk properly about what I want to do. I really couldn’t think anything and I said okay and left.
1. Should I take any legal actions? Will it be in favor of me even though I am a foreigner?
2. If I don’t quit the job is there a chance that the manager is going to discriminate against me for whatever has happened today?
9 comments
If nothing else, don’t ever go back.
And tho they/he may huff and puff about it, it’s not worth it for them to sue/claim damages.
I think you should quit and find another job. Almost every store and factory are hiring now.
It’s a part-time, so no point in wasting your time in a toxic environment.
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>Should I take any legal actions? Will it be in favor of me even though I am a foreigner?
You can, but is it going to make any difference? Probably not. Could make things even worse for you. **You’re a foreign on a student visa.**
Chain restaurant? Go over his head and talk to HR at the regional level. If you’re going to quit, might as well hit back on your way out the door.
If someone did that to me (physical assault) I would submit a police report about it.
EDIT: however, if I was not confident in my language skills, didn’t have someone to help me, didn’t have witnesses it might not be worth doing.
I always find it is useful to think about the outcome you want.
Do you want to continue working there but avoid a repeat of this behaviour? Do you want to quit the job? Do you want to punish the manager?
You might want to think about what you want and how you might achieve that.
Find a new job and quit without notice. Before you leave report the harassment, say this is the reason you are leaving, it is harassment and needs to be reported.
Both with police and with people higher in the business chain.
Managers don’t expect their workers to do this. Otherwise the behaviour will remain.
They probably will do zero about it, but at least it justifies why you leave without notice.
That’s awful management! You deserve better.
I am not a lawyer and couldn’t guess your odds at winning a case, but I would bet the best case scenario you’re looking at 3 years of work for a 100k yen payout. If you want to actually cause a change in his behavior, you are far better off letting his boss know exactly why he is losing a staff member.
I doubt a legal case would go anywhere though IANAL. Physical abuse is a huge red line, though, so something needs to happen. I say never go back, talk to your local labor office about what happened (especially if the guy refuses to give you back pay or something), and with or without the support of the labor office, report the guy to the HR of the chain.
I’m surprised and please with the responses so far. OP I’m sorry about this experience and if it’s a large chain. You should speak to their HR and explain what happened.
If this is a chain they will take it very seriously. You should contact HR from the headquarters