I think my boss triggered me unintentionally

hi everyone

I’ll keep this short and simple… well, as simple as I can, because I don’t think I’ll be able to make it really simple.

so I’ve been at my job for a year, this month made it a 1 year anniversary. It’s a really good job, probably the best that I’ve had since I was 18. (Now, are there advantages/disadvantages? Ofc every job does) but this job has been great as far as pay, benefits, hours, and even pto… so it’s kind of a no brainer that I actually care about my job because it works for me.

OK, now that’s out of the way… (oh and my position is an assistant manager in retail)

So, the company I work for, recently did/has gone through a rebrand and we have a lot of new people in corporate etc etc well, since August, payroll has been terrible. To the point that the company figured to contract out third party employees that were only meant to process our shipments. (But we only used these 3rd party employees for like, a couple of weeks)

you can imagine that the employees who have been there for a long time, weren’t too happy about it and they still aren’t because we literally have no hours in our payroll. The days where it used to be at least one manager and maybe at least one associate in the morning, maybe a team member for a mid shift, and then a manager and a team member closing—are gone.

I think in the beginning of September, my boss had asked myself and the other team leads if they felt comfortable opening/closing by themselves. We all said we were fine with it and that’s what we’ve been doing for a while. But a lot has changed since August/September.

and you guessed it, the work load is more but there are no hours to schedule team members to help get the work done. It’s basically up to the managers at this point and if we do have scheduled employees with us, it’s like a relief. And it’s a little concerning considering it’s basically the holiday season and we’re getting a lot of shipment.

but anyways.

when we receive a lot of shipment, ofc it creates a lot of waste/trash (cardboard boxes mostly, but we do have big bags of garbage to throw out too.)

and so because trash piles up really fast, I’ve been trying to get it out on Sundays (since all the trash seems to pile up during the week and we don’t have the hours to take it out during the week and we receive our shipment in Mondays) so I try to take it out on Sunday so that Monday it’s a smooth delivery.

well, the last three times, I took the trash out by myself because I kept thinking about how we’re going to receive so many palettes because of the holidays, that I wasn’t thinking about the store policy being that a manager has to stay in the store and a team member (that’s over 18) can take the trash out (since it’s a bailer outside)

so because I felt intense guilt, I told my boss. She wasn’t mad or anything but she did warn me to not do it ever again because another manager from another store had lost their job over that. I told her I understood but since Monday I’ve just felt a lot of guilt and I’ve kept thinking and rethinking everything I’ve done, whether or not it was OK or within policy or not. (Like I had left the back door propped open for shipment, ran down the hall at the end to check if he was coming and then ran back to the store)

I’ve been trying to let it go and put it behind me, along with thinking of other random stuff that I think would have gotten me in trouble. But it’s been hard because like I said, I care about this job a lot, and I really don’t want to do anything that would jeopardize it.

I’ve talked to some friends who had told me that I don’t owe my boss more of an explanation, and that it was good that I was honest with her. I mean my boss doesn’t seem bothered by that I told her, she seems to have made it like “water under the bridge” but yeah.

I feel bad for asking for clarification on certain situations because I just don’t want to seem annoying about it. and I don’t want to keep outting myself? or I guess, ‘confessing’ so much where I could lose my job.

my one friend said if there were situations that I did something and nothing came out of it, then there’s no reason to say anything. Which is true, but I keep feeling like there’s a need for my boss to know, and I don’t know why. It feels like I’m not being honest or that I’m being deceitful.

but yeah I don’t know. I’m just talking out into the void lol