I work in a retail company. The work is simple, but hella boring and exhausting.
There is a lot of different work post and we usually change every week, depending on the need of the company, me now, I’m on the “refilling fresh products inside the refrigerator” one.
We start at 4.30 am to finish around 11.30 am, and we can take our 30mim break whenever we want, we just need to warn our boss before. Anyway, one of my colleagues (let’s call him Bob) wanted to smoke a cigarette around 9.30. So he asked our boss for a 5min break.
Our boss said “no, it’s a hard day, you can take a break once you finished this area.” Bob was frustrated, even though he understood the reason, but Bob wanted at least to take time to pee. So Bob followed our boss out of the area, without him realising that he was being followed. While going to the toilet, Bob saw our boss checking for a break after telling us that we need to finish our job before taking a break.
Bob came back in the area furious, claiming how unrespectful it is, he even planned on complaining to our boss about how it is unfair that he can take a break but not us. Me and another co-worker agreed and we accepted to support him afterwork, 30min later, our boss came back from his break and come straight at us to give us even more chores which will make our break time staggered again.
This anger Bob even more, he was raging, Bob exploded to our boss saying “I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to listen to you, you can do your chores yourself” a fight started between the two, they are “friends” outside of the work environment, which mean that Bob took the liberty to talk to our boss like that, knowing he doesn’t risk much.
At some point in the fight, Bob screamed “even the guys are supporting me !” Me and the other guy looked at each other, thinking we are done, the other guy ran away from the scene saying he has the next area to do, leaving me alone against the boss. He came in front of me, really close to my face, saying “You too have something to say to me ?” And I answered “We all woke up at 4 a.m to work here, and you arrived at 7a.m, you should let us take 5min break when we want at least”, he replied that he is the boss and do whatever he want, and we should just listen to him without complaining, and then, he finished by saying that we will all see him in his office after work to talk about this issue and stormed off.
Bob was mad that I didn’t try to defend him, I told him that getting angry was useless, and we should have waited for the end of our shifts to talk calmly to him. Now we need to manage our boss so we can have the smallest sanction we can have. We arrived in the big office at 1130am and our boss scolded us like we are just little kids, and make the 3 of us work at 4h30a.m for the rest of the month.
How could I defended myself?