I work at a kickass arcade called Round 1 Bowling and Amusement. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's a Japanese arcade company that came over to the U.S and started opening Arcades (And I guess they decided to attack bowling alleys to make it more American???) I started there after working at a TOXIC workplace where I worked 60 hours managing a mom and pop restaurant where every weekend I would get in a fight with the owners because something typically out of my control went belly up. I was regularly drinking my frustrations away, started smoking, it was hell on earth for me.

So I move on and get this kickass job at an Arcade and I mcfucking love it, it's like getting out of a really bad relationship and then shacking up with your soulmate. Now, fast forward a year and a half and covid hits. We're forced to shut down for a bit, it sucks, I make some unemployment and pick up side work, life moves on. Ever since we've reoopened from the shutdown, things have been awful. They slashed our hours at first, then people started abandoning ship and now we don't have enough people to staff the store. I'm working ten times as hard to make sure the store runs semi smoothly. Our August review, one of two times a year you can get a raise/promotion, comes up and they go "Sorry, Covid, can't do any raises or promotions." Everyone is understanding, what the fuck ever.

February, the only other time of the year any of this shit can happen rolls on in and they're like "Yeah, the CEO put out an email in December saying it wasn't gonna happen again, sorry homie." My manager, who's my best friend, tells me he was told to nitpick the shit out of our reviews so he could justify it. They then turn around and promote my brother, who's been with the company six months less than me to be a Lead in his department, solely on the merit that he's one of two people left and they didn't want him to leave. Meanwhile everything is still on fucking fire and I've been grinding for a fucking promotion for a year, working at a manager level for the lowest wage I've ever accepted in my adult life.