There's a bunch of shit that's been going wrong
that's making the place go down the shitter, so getting time off now
(basically a year after I started) will benefit me greatly, as I can
go sleep in and finally get some books read, and some shopping done.
:) Maybe I'll regain some of the respect I had for the fucking place
while I'm gone.

There is so much shit that's been going on in that place that I've
noticed and kind of shrugged off before. But as I'm coming up to my
one year of being there (only worked weekends for 4 months while I was
at school, but still, I worked there, damnit), I'm realizing that the
café I'm working at is going down the figurative toilet into a state
of utter despair.

It's not a chain of stores--it is a one of a kind coffee shop. One of
those neighbourhood ones where almost everyone who walks in the door
knows all the staff and basically all the customers, who are basically
people who work around the few blocks of stores that surround my shop.
We got like, a bazillion regulars, whose names I don't know some of,
but once they walk in the door, I can tell you what they usually buy.

My boss started a year and a half ago as the owner of it, and it seems
like it was alright for a while, no big problems, he got a lot of the
customers adjusted and happy.

Lately, business has been slow. Maybe the weather, maybe the fact that
there's a Tim Horton's a few blocks down, maybe the fact that there
are Starbucks on either side, just down a few blocks as well. Who
really knows. Maybe the fact that a lot of the "old school"-ish
baristas, the ones all the regulars knew and loved and preferred, got
up and quit all around the same time (well, in a span of several
months, but you know), so maybe that kind of got some of the customers
turned off the place.

But anyways, paying me and the other baristas, and trying to repair
shit that should just be replaced (like our cooler(s), our dishwasher
(which was finally replaced), our HARDWOOD floor (which looks like
shit now), our espresso machine, our coffee brewer, etc), and a lack
of customers has driven my boss to hike up the prices.

You're probably thinking it's something like a 5 cent increase for
coffee or whatever.

Try being MORE expensive than Starbucks, which, being a lower price
than Starbucks was a draw for a lot of people. Our coffee is at least
15-20 cents more expensive than Starbucks, up to 50 cents more.

Our sandwiches and wraps are more expensive.

Our soup is more expensive.

We're charging for shit we don't need to.

We're shortchanging people in regards to food quantity (like not
having a full bowl of soup, so it looks really shoddy, or my boss
leaving like, 2 inches of room at the top for coffee), and then we get
blamed for our boss trying to cut corners by pissing our customers off
for this kind of stupid shit.

We get complaints for shit he does, and if we have problems, he slides
it our way. Like, for instance, the health inspector comes in every so
often (I've met him at my old job at IGA with the mice problem, oh joy
trying to make up bs so I don't lose my job...), and if there's a
problem, my boss looks at me and subtly scolds me for problems with
shit.

He watches over our shoulders when we're at the till. Even if we've
been there for ages, he will do so. It bothers us, and it's driven so
many of our GOOD baristas to quit.

Ughhhh, pisses. me. off.

tl;dr: I may not have a job in a few months because my boss is a stupid piece of horseshit.