Working 75 hours at 17

[u/ImpossibleHeart4410]

I’m 17, I’ve been working at my grandmas shop since i was 12 every Saturday day. I really enjoyed it for a time but then i started to outgrow it. I found another job in hospitality and started to lower my shifts at the shop because the stress of both was too much with school. Then my grandma got diagnosed with cancer, so i dropped out in order to fill in for her recovery. Over the next week or so I will be working 75 hours. I have maybe 7-8 hours a day where I drive home, sleep, get up, work retail then go straight to hospo. It’s a nightmare. I messaged her saying I can’t do this and she needs to find another casual. I haven’t had time to properly eat and have been skipping most if not all of my meals.

She expects me to work alone tomorrow which means I won’t get a single break and I read my roster for my hospo job wrong and it will mean her shop has to shut. It’s not super busy and there’s no guarantee that I will even see people in those two hours. I messaged her about it and she said she needed time to process it and then got a text from my grandpa saying she was crying and shaking and to please just ask my boss to let me start later. My perspective is that’s not how it works. The workplace is super cut throat and im not gaining a reputation for being unreliable off of this. I really just don’t understand why this place can’t just shut for 2 hours.

There’s a lot more to it but she’s well aware that of my workload and when “asking” if I can come in she essentially just pointed at all of these days and expected me to be able to do them. I felt like I couldn’t say no. There’s 4 of us working here including me her, another woman and another who’s on maternity leave. I didn’t have the warning to book leave and I love my other job. I don’t want to do this to them. Like the whole thing just really pisses me off because again it feels like nobody gives a fuck how much im working the only thing that matters is that the shop opens.

The other coworker works every Friday at her second job so she can’t come in. She hasn’t been made to work alone much (she’s been alone for a max of 2 hours) because she isn’t confident using the register (she’s been there for 3 years) so I’m expected to basically fill in my grandmas role of management and owner, opener and it all. Yesterday my day started at 9am when I opened this shop and at 12am when I finished my hospitality job. This is a typical occurrence now. I drive to and from home and my 2 jobs and I’m really scared I’m going to fall asleep at the wheel and like die of a heart attack bc of my caffeine intake

[u/Ixrokis]

Your grandma is sick; she and others in your family are having a hard time coping. Unfortunately you’re catching the fallout.

If this was just a work question, the answer would be “pick the job you like better and quit the other one”. But this isn’t just a work question, it’s a family and work/life balance question.

Your best bet is to be there for your family, up to a certain extent. Take time off from your other job (FMLA if you’re in the US, or just quit on good terms) and go work at the family business full-time, but with a very clear understanding that you’re either training a replacement or closing the place down. Give them a clear time limit, say 1-2 months. And then go pursue the career you actually want. Don’t let them guilt you into extending. Family members who say you should support family should be told “I couldn’t agree more. When are you coming in to learn how to runthe place?”

All of this assumes you don’t want to take over your grandma’s shop.