Considering stopping working at a restaurant because of the owner?

[Anonymous]

Every Saturday I work at a restaurant as a belly dancer. I’ve worked there a few weeks now and don’t really have the vibe that the owner likes my dancing that much. Last week a few family members came to watch me as it was my birthday and he told one of them ‘we’ll make her better’. Fast forward this week. Every week I change songs I dance to, and they must all be from a specific country. So this week was a really good week, I got a lot of compliments and audience seemed to really enjoy it. At the end the owner seemed pretty annoyed at me , asked me why I chose those songs, I said I chose them because I like them and can thus dance better and put on a better show and that I thought they were lively ( I asked family members advice about this too). He said they weren’t lively and weren’t good for belly dancing ( even though I’ve had worse reception to other songs that he’s chosen) and that he had friends to come to see me and he was annoyed basically that I didn’t play other songs for them. He was speaking to me about it for ages and by the end I felt like crying. He didn’t say a single good thing and rarely does. It’s just made me uncomfortable and embarrassed and I don’t feel like I want to go back. I’m really busy anyway and it’s a lot for me to even fit in the dancing. Am I being too sensitive?

[Anonymous]

Yeah, many of those basic dudes that own restaurants are. I could never work in a restaurant again. My first time working at a restaurant was the first time a stranger ever yelled at me like my parents. I mean, my mom and dad would guilt trip me, yell and gaslight me, but I never had a grown-adult stranger talk to me like that until I worked in a restaurant.

I work in cybersecurity, and it is stressful, but I would never in my life go back to working in a restaurant. The most shittest bosses I ever had. They did properly train me, and they would gaslight me about everything.

I feel your pain. I am so sorry.

[Opinion Owner]

When I worked at a restaurant, I was so suicidal. But then I met other people who went through the same things. I think a lot of people run into assholes like your boss.