By Antony David Davies, FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI MIoL
When I finally received the documents from my Subject Access Request, this is how The Range described my departure:
“Anthony(sp) left our store with immediate effect, with no communication to anybody in store, only texting the store manager, just left his store keys on the manager’s desk and left the building, leaving our other manager on shift having to do a whole shift that day on her own with no help.”
The official reason given for my resignation was simple: “no job satisfaction.”
That was the official version — short, convenient, and entirely detached from reality.
What the statement didn’t mention was that, earlier that same day, I had been left completely alone to handle a surprise Health & Safety inspection — an audit that exposed serious failings across the store.
The Beginning
I joined The Range as an Assistant Manager after two decades in the third sector — twenty years leading teams, managing projects, and building organisations that served communities. I had held executive and managerial roles.
This job was meant to be a step down — a calmer pace, fewer politics, and the satisfaction of day-to-day work without strategic pressure.
I was wrong.
What I found was a culture so defensive, insular, and morally hollow that it made every day feel like an endurance test.
The Store Manager
The Store Manager was a man who mistook control for leadership.
He had drifted from one short-lived managerial post to another, collecting titles but never trust.
In my interview, his main concern wasn’t my experience or values, but whether I would “follow orders.”
He spent most of his time hidden in the office or warehouse, detached from the shop floor and the people keeping it running. Leadership, to him, was something performed from behind a closed door.
Every workplace has its pressures, and retail management is a demanding environment. But what I witnessed went far beyond the normal strains of a busy store.
The Inner Circle
Real control in that store lay with a trio of managers I’ll call A, B, and C.
A had been there since leaving school and had effectively become the de facto store manager. She bragged that she “made the manager look good.” Her attitude towards staff was openly contemptuous. Once, she said to me — only half-jokingly — “I hate staff and customers.”
Her management style was intimidation disguised as efficiency. She pushed her team to exhaustion, left handwritten orders instead of offering guidance, and spent most of her time gossiping with the Store Manager.
B had also risen internally, not through merit but through longevity and loyalty. She was out of her depth and dependent on A for almost everything. Her departments were chaotic: overstocked, unsafe, and months out of date. When I tried to collaborate, she ignored me — once standing up mid-conversation and walking out. She constantly borrowed my staff without telling me, leaving my own sections short-handed.
C was new and painfully eager to please. On our first shared shift, a simple refund sent her into panic at the customer-service desk. A sales assistant had to phone the Store Manager to fix it. Later she muttered, “I don’t want to get told off.” That line summed up the entire culture — one ruled by fear, not leadership.
The Meetings That Weren’t Meetings
The management meetings were a theatre of dysfunction.
Food fights.
Mocking staff on CCTV.
Jokes about the Area Manager.
I waited for a conversation about standards, improvement, or staff wellbeing. It never came.
At one meeting, when we were told the Regional Manager was visiting nearby stores, A half-jokingly suggested “finding someone to go into the Telford store and cause a scene” so that Shrewsbury would look better by comparison. Nobody laughed harder than the Store Manager.
That was the moment I realised this wasn’t just immaturity — it was moral rot.
He liked to say, “Life’s tough enough — we need to have a laugh.”
But what I saw wasn’t laughter. It was cruelty dressed as humour.
The Breaking Point
The breaking point came when I was told to “be a bad ass.”
A wanted me to discipline and “manage out” staff they didn’t like. One team member had been accused — without evidence — of writing a poor Indeed review of the store. Their hours were quietly reduced, and I was encouraged to put them through formal warnings.
I refused.
I came from a background where you developed people, not destroyed them. But in that store, kindness was treated as weakness and conscience as defiance.
A Team Worth Leading
The team I inherited had potential — untapped, overlooked, and demoralised, but full of quiet capability. With the right encouragement and direction, I believed they could achieve great results.
Together, we transformed our departments. Standards rose dramatically. We reorganised stock, improved displays, and created a sense of pride where there had been fatigue.
When the Area Manager visited, he was visibly impressed. On the walk-round, he said, “Whatever you’re doing — keep doing it.”
The Store Manager, standing beside me, didn’t share his enthusiasm. His face was a picture. In that moment, I realised that success wasn’t what threatened him — competence was.
The Report They Didn’t Want
Eventually, I wrote a detailed report to the Store Manager outlining my concerns about A, B, and C — their unprofessional conduct, their behaviour toward staff, and the dangerous lack of accountability.
His reaction was instant hostility.
He told me to “grow a pair,” called me a “keyboard warrior,” and ordered me never to put anything in writing again.
Then, unbelievably, he summoned B into the office and made me apologise to her for upsetting her.
Every trace of that meeting — the report, the discussion, and my apology — was missing from my Subject Access Request.
The Performance Review
A short time later, the Store Manager carried out my six-week performance review. It was a confusing mix of praise and veiled warning.
He said I had made “a poor start but huge improvements,” that I was “a valuable member of the team,” and that he saw me “playing a leading role over Christmas.” He described B and me as “the dream team” — she had “Range knowledge,” I had “managerial experience.”
But in the same breath, he reminded me I was still on probation, warned that he had “a record of failing people,” and criticised me for a single pricing error across all my departments.
It was a performance review that sounded more like a balancing act — one that kept me on edge, never quite knowing where I stood.
This too was missing from my Subject Access Request.
By then, my mind was made up. I would leave the moment my conscience told me to.
The Health & Safety Audit
On 12 June, I started my shift at 6 a.m.
At around 8:30, a man arrived and introduced himself as an internal Health & Safety inspector. The Store Manager, I later learned, had told him this would be “a good time” to visit.
It wasn’t.
The findings were grim:
- A fire door that didn’t work.
- Electrical panels blocked by stock.
- The electrical room overflowing with overs.
- Furniture stacked against the mezzanine rails.
- Trailing cables and blocked fire exits.
I handled the inspection calmly and professionally — alone, with no other manager present to assist. Yet later, the same store that accused me of “leaving a manager on her own” failed to acknowledge that they had already left me completely alone to deal with a live safety audit.
Almost immediately, the Store Manager began bombarding me with text messages. He wanted me to lie — to “defend the store,” to “blame head office,” and, in his own words, to twist the findings so the report would look better.
It was at this point that I decided this would be my last shift.
I could no longer work with this management team.
I refused. I would not falsify a health and safety inspection.
Later that morning, a trusted colleague quietly warned me that I was being set up — that the poor safety audit would be used as grounds to fail my probation.
That simply confirmed what I already knew.
The Final Straw
B came on duty around midday. She ignored me completely — no handover, no discussion, nothing. When a Click & Collect refund came through that I still didn’t have system permission to process, she swore at me as she passed and made a personal insult about my background.
That was the line.
I placed my keys on the manager’s desk, went to the shop floor, thanked every member of my team personally, and walked out.
I sent a text to the Store Manager confirming my decision to resign.
There was no call, no exit interview, no follow-up. Just silence.
Aftermath
The Range’s record of my departure reduced all of that — the bullying, the moral corruption, the pressure to lie in a safety inspection, the gaslighting, and the contradictions of my own review — into three words: “No job satisfaction.”
No mention of the audit.
No mention of the intimidation.
No mention of the complaint I was punished for making.
Just three words.
But the truth is simple:
I didn’t walk out because I lacked job satisfaction.
I walked out because I refused to lie — and because I still had integrity.
Reflection
Leaving The Range wasn’t about pride or frustration. It was about principle.
I went in with good intentions — to work hard, to help improve standards, to be part of something constructive. I left because silence had become complicity, and I refused to be complicit.
The culture I witnessed was one where fear replaced respect, and obedience replaced leadership. It’s a pattern I’ve seen too often — organisations where those who speak up are punished, and those who stay quiet survive.
Sometimes walking away isn’t weakness.
Sometimes it’s the only act of leadership left open to you.
And so I did.
I still believe most people go to work wanting to do a good job. The tragedy is what happens when systems make that impossible.
As always, I leave the reader to draw their own conclusions.
Antony David Davies FRSA FRAS AFRHistS MCMI MIoL 