So, I was a cashier at a restaurant for a while and i recently quit right before Christmas. I worked there for a total of 5 months and during my time there we underwent significant changes in leadership and staff, so most of the people I worked with had quit or been fired by my third month there including several managers and the general manager that hired me. As a result I was switched to a completely different shift and had to work with a bunch of trainees and new employees. 
One of the major changes made at the restaurant was the opening of a new position called the cleaning captain. His job was basically just to keep the restaurant clean. He had worked under the new GM for around 2 years at a different restaurant franchise (very important detail), so she recruited him to work at our store. 
Initially I had no problems working with the guy, his position alleviated a lot of my responsibilities, so I was given other tasks. Because I had already been trained on the proper ways to do some of these tasks by the District manager (who supervised the store during the management change for about a month, and changed up the protocols for a lot of things) I offered to help him learn the right ways to do things like cleaning windows and bathrooms (which the DM was very strict about). 

*I chose to help him because i saw that he wasn't receiving proper training, and was basically being thrown in the pool and told to swim by the new GM, who was a rookie herself.*

So, after i showed him how to do them properly a few weeks later i noticed that he would slack on doing them (they were supposed to be done every morning) and I would remind him to do them, so he doesn't get chewed out by the GM. I personally would want someone to do that for me, but he started to take it as me bullying him (this is important). So, i stopped reminding him unless I needed to. 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and we're short staffed because the morning shift manager quit, the morning cashier was fired along with the morning fryer. So, i was put into the position as the opening shift cashier and prep. He was also forced to take on two postions as the cleaning captain and prep helper. 

So, up until then we remained cordial and we would joke around along with the new morning manager and the fry cook. The three of them were way older than me. I'm 18, the morning manager was 37, the fry cook was 27, and the cleaning captain was 38. We would toss around insults and jokes, and they would complain about their struggles in life. 
I would avoid talking about the heavy stuff and  would join in on the jokes, but every time I would join in he'd act like it was a big problem and make it seem like I was picking on him. The only time that i actually picked on him was when I joked about how dumb it looked when he kept the cardboard in his hat.  Other than that I only ever added on to group banter and it was never one sided. 

When we worked he still insisted that i was picking on him if showed him the proper way to do things , or if I asked him to help me with something. A lot of the stuff being asked of him was outside of his position, but it wasnt me asking him to do it. I  only tried to show him how to get things done more effectively, but he would still whine and complain about me picking on him. I have a low tolerance for whiners and I refuse to be antagonized, so I would defend myself. It got to the point where every time i said anything to him he would make it an arguement.  

I'll admit that I'm not the most sensitive or patient person, so I  tried to explain to him that I'm not trying to pick on him. I was only trying to do my job and help him with his because when he messed up or took too long doing something it would throw off my work and would add to my work load.
He didn't take that well and would call me a disrespectful little girl. I don't understand how I  was being disrespectful, or why he felt like he deserved to be treared better because of his age. 

About a week or so later the confrontation got worse. He would purposely be in my way to irritate me, he constantly accused me of purposely making messes that he had to clean, and he would snap on me if I tried to get him to do his job more effectively and stop making me work harder than neccessary. 
At some point he started talking trash about me to other coworkers and trying to ruin my image, refusing to help me with things like lifting boxes that were too heavy for me and getting supplies during the lunch rush, and he once told me that he wished his daughter (who died about 6 years ago and was 5 or so years older than me) was still alive so she could beat me up. 

The final straw came when he out right yelled at me because I tried to show him how to fry something faster after waiting on him to get done for almost 20 minutes, so I could do what i had to do before the lunch rush started (I was the only cashier and I also fried chips and stuff, but I couldn't do both during the rush). Later that same day he yelled at me for telling him that he needed to hurry and leave the kitchen instead of lollygagging trying to steal food out of uniform after his shift, because the DM was on her way and would fire him and yell at all of us if she saw him like that. 

After this incident, I talked to my parents about it and they told me that tbe best thing to do was to go to the GM about it or her boss. I would have gone to the manager that was over our shift first, but she saw everything as it happened and even after I showed clear signs of distress and I told her it bothered me, she never did anything to resolve the issue. She always laughed it of and I found out later that she assumed that we had known each other for a long time and were playing (even though I clearly told her that the way he treated me bothered me). 

So, I told the GM and she got defensive and accused me of being bossy and took his side because she knew him longer and "he wasn't know for acting like this". She completely dismissed everything I said, and her solution to the problem was to just have us ignore each other. EVEN THOUGH HIS JOB DIRECTLY AFFECTED MINE. 

The next week my hours were immediately cut in half and i was given fewer days to work, while his never changed. Her excuse when I quit, because it's a waste of time to work 3 hours and day for 2 days a week, as that we weren't bring in enough money and they had to decrease hours. That were BS, because there were part timers with more hours than me. 

TL;DR: I was accused of bullying because I wanted to help a newer employee be more efficient. 


