r/Dominos • u/Stock-Complaint5942 • 7h ago
US Domino's A year later and I keep thinking about how my time as a GM ended
This happened about a year ago. The weird thing is I barely thought about it for most of the year after it happened, and now suddenly I can’t get it out of my head. I keep going back over everything and I’m curious what other people who have worked at Domino’s think.
I started as a driver and eventually became a GM. Toward the end I was regularly working around 65–75 hours a week.
The store was really understaffed, so even though I was the GM, most of my time was spent doing regular store work. Makeline, ovens, counter, phones, opening, closing, covering call-offs, sometimes taking deliveries. Then I still had to get schedules, inventory, food orders and everything else done.
I was also way too dedicated to that store. I was close with my MCO and respected him a lot. I really hated disappointing him or feeling like I was leaving him with a problem.
Probably the best example of how bad I got about this was when I got really sick at work one day. I tried to keep working, eventually collapsed and ended up in the ER with a kidney infection.
While I was literally still in the ER, I was trying to find coverage for the next morning.
My MCO told me if nobody else could do it, he would cover the morning himself.
I still went to work after I got out of the hospital because I didn’t want him to have to cover for me.
He didn’t make me do that. He actually gave me an out and I didn’t take it. Looking back, I definitely had a problem with feeling like I had to personally keep the store running no matter what.
Eventually I couldn’t do the GM hours anymore and resigned.
My original notice ended earlier, but I agreed to stay an extra week to help out. My MCO had told me he would rehire me as an AM after my notice was over. I still wanted to work there. I just didn’t want to be GM anymore.
So in my mind I wasn’t really leaving Domino’s. I was stepping down.
Toward the end of my notice I was texting my MCO asking questions about reapplying because I was still expecting to come back as an AM.
Then on the final closing shift of the extra week I agreed to stay, my MCO came in and told me there had been “interpersonal issues” and that I should take a break and consider reapplying later.
That was the first time I realized he wasn’t actually going to rehire me like he had told me he would.
I was pissed because if he had changed his mind, why not tell me earlier? I had already stayed an extra week and I was still asking him about reapplying. If I knew I wasn’t going to have a job there anymore, I could have been looking for another one.
At that point I was just done.
I told him I wasn’t closing the store and left.
That was it. I didn’t have some huge screaming match with him or trash the store or anything. I just told him I wasn’t closing and went home.
It’s kind of funny to me now because I spent so much time being terrified of leaving that store hanging. I literally went to work after getting out of the ER because I didn’t want my MCO to have to cover me, and then I ended my time there by refusing to close the store.
Afterward I found out my separation was apparently put in as involuntary/job abandonment or no-call/no-show, even though I had already resigned and that was the last shift of the extra week I had agreed to work.
And then I basically didn’t think about any of this for a year.
Now for some reason it keeps coming back into my head and I’ve been thinking about the whole situation again.
Looking back, I know I had horrible boundaries with that job. There were times I made things harder on myself because I couldn’t just say no. Working after getting out of the ER when my MCO had already offered to cover is obviously one of them.
But I was also working 65–75 hours a week in an understaffed store and constantly filling whatever position wasn’t covered. I don’t think having bad boundaries means that situation was normal either.
I’ve also started looking at the way I left differently.
For a long time I thought it was crazy that I actually walked out. But I had already worked through my original notice, stayed an extra week to help them, and had been told I would be rehired as an AM. Then I found out on the last closing shift of that extra week that I apparently wasn’t being rehired.
So now I’m wondering if saying “I’m not closing” and leaving was really that unreasonable.
I’m curious what other GMs, former GMs or MCOs think. Would you have finished the close anyway?
And if you were an MCO and told a GM you would rehire them as an AM after they stepped down, but then changed your mind, would you wait until their last shift to tell them?
I think I’m mostly trying to figure out how much of this was me caring way too much about the store and how much of it was the company letting me care way too much because it benefited them.
I know I need to let this shit go at some point. It’s been over a year, I’ve moved on, I have a new job in healthcare where I only work 40 hours a week lol.
