This pretty much a rant, life story, and asking for advice all in one lol

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So, I work at a small mom and pop shop. They are both a doughnut shop and Italian sit-down restaurant. We serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have been working there for exactly 1 year, watched employees come and go, and mastered my shift. I feel that way at least. My job is decorating all the doughnuts, making and serving both breakfast and lunch as well as general stuff.

For the first 7 months everything was good. Not perfect but good. Stuff went smoothly even with the other person on my shift changing at least 3 times. Sure, I'd come home tired but that’s with every job. In the past 4 months it has seemingly gone to hell. In June they decided to sell the place. Cool okay. I don't feel they are cut out to be restaurant owners anyway. They've never taken business class or marketing or cooking or any of that. She's a Hair Stylist (they also own their own salon) and he is a CT tech at the hospital.

So, they list the place. Tell us our jobs are secure. And they list it for an absurd amount. That dump of a building or even the business will never be worth 700k. In a small town filled with retired people on fixed incomes. Not to mention they're not even selling the land. Just business. That’s not the problem.

The problem is in the last 4 months they seem to have become desperate. A new featured sandwich every week, a new featured doughnut every week, a waffle iron, a pizza oven, new beer glasses (we also serve beer on tap and cocktails), 48 new chairs, and new signage They're redoing the floor next (yet ignoring the literal hole in the wall under the kitchen sink). New stuff is great and all, don't get me wrong, but they are having to buy all new stuff for these new featured things instead of creating new things with what we have. Or limiting how often we create new things. Once a month or even every other week would be a lot better, I feel.

Oh and not to mention, all this new stuff only affects me, and I am given no heads up until I walk in at 4am to find out...oh brand new doughnut to make that takes an hour of time that I don’t have since they've removed the second person on my shift. It’s perfectly fine with me. I get more tips, and I work better on my own anyway. If they stopped adding to my workload.

Worst of it hit me last week and it hit me like a brick in the face as I was standing there in despair that I dread coming in. I love the job itself. I hate what they're doing.

I walked in and my display case and counter were gone. My shelf of bags and boxes was moved away from the case against the wall. And instead, I had a huge ugly glass deli case that was absolutely filthy. There was sticky stuff and crumbs all over the inside. I scrubbed that thing for a solid 40 minutes before it was even close to clean enough for doughnuts. And then our trays didn’t fit. They stick out the back. And no one fully cleaned up the week before, so I had to. And I had no chart for how they wanted the new shelves laid out (she is extremely picky about stuff like that). I couldn’t even start frosting doughnuts until 6am. We open at 6am. Even on busy days I start frosting by 5am. I had no warning.

The past 4 weeks I have had the 'I own this place' card pulled on me when I try to explain what stuff is selling vs what they want (owners are on site about 6 hours a week). Or what customers are requesting and how we could fulfill those requests with ingredients we already have. They don’t listen to customer requests very well. Several times I have also heard the comment 'well if you want to put a few thousand into the place you can decide how to do stuff' and it irks me. Customers are literally what keeps us alive. They deserve respect and to be listened to too. They are the ones spending their hard-earned money.

And now I feel we are essentially scamming customers. We no longer sell day old doughnuts as discounted day olds. They are listed as freshly baked and sold for the same price. Even the owner has lied to a couple customers’ faces when asked if they were baked that morning because they seemed dryer than normal. The owners have also decided since apple fritters have such high demand, they would increase the price by a dollar but also reduce the weight by half so they can make more. But to keep people from noticing, they are deliberately over proofing them to make them poofier and bigger. I understand needing a profit but that’s not right and I can't be the only one to feel that way.

My family life hasn’t been great. I need space to be me, not the mold I’m supposed to fit in. And the only way I feel that will happen is to move to a different state. I am in college (online, accelerated, fulltime) getting my bachelor’s in graphic design. 1 year down, 2 to go. Also, I only make $8/hr right now plus whatever I can get in tips.

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So...questions...

Do you feel I am overreacting to wanting to quit over everything in the last 4 months?

Do I need to just wait it out?

Am I trying too hard to 'fix' something thats not my problem to fix?

If I move, where are some places you think would be good?

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I am currently in ID. OR, CA and UT are hard no's. WA, OK, NM, AK, AZ and CO are okay but I'd rather not. MO is a big one I'm looking at. So is TX. I grew up there though and had a rocky childhood full of bad memories and I can't find any logical reason for going back so I'm afraid I might be trying to rewrite the bad memories and trauma. Or maybe my heart genuinely loves TX. I also really love the ocean.

So yess....advice is much needed and appreciated. Even thoughts.

When I move my main job would be an entry level graphic designer, hopefully making $18-25/hr. And I'd likely try and pick up some evening shifts serving in a restaurant for a little extra and because I do enjoy the customer aspect of it.