A note before you read: this post includes accounts of a workplace injury and the exploitation of a child. I've kept it honest because the lessons matter, but please take care of yourself.
Story 1: The Setup and the Warning
I was in my last three semesters of college when I got the call about the cupcake shop.
A CEO of a medical company had financially backed a small-town bakery for someone he knew who loved baking. The business was up and running, but there were problems — problems the financial backer’s mother-in-law was about to warn me about.
I didn’t know any of this yet. All I knew was that I was being interviewed for a position running the baking operation at a shop that was already established. I was at the height of my career. The timing was perfect — I could work while finishing my degree, and eventually take over full operations.
The interview happened at the shop itself. The moment I walked in, I felt it: the two women already working there watched me like hawks stalking prey. They didn’t say much. They just watched. But I wasn’t intimidated. I go to work to work, not to feed into other people’s instability.
I was so excited about this job I could barely contain it. This was exactly what I needed.
Then came the meeting at the CEO’s daughter’s house.
The mother-in-law sat me down and told me everything. The business had started as a dream, but things had gone wrong fast. There had been embezzlement — someone close to the operation had stolen around $10,000 from the business. There was chaos, turnover, people being let go. And now the two women who remained were, by her own account, mean. Difficult. She wanted them to leave on their own accord because she didn’t want confrontation.
She looked at me directly and said: “Stand your ground. Don’t let them trap you.”
Then she told me about the plan. I would come in, do my job, and eventually — once things stabilized — I would take over running the whole operation.
I was being warned. The mother-in-law was essentially saying: these people are going to test you, and they’re not going to want you here.
And I said yes anyway.
I had three semesters left in college. I was in the best place in my career I’d ever been. The money was good. The opportunity was perfect. And I was 23 years old and thought I could handle anything.
So I ignored the warning. I took the job.
What I didn’t know yet was that “don’t let them trap you” would become the least of the advice I should have taken.
Story 2: The Burn
I started my first week shortly after the Embezzler got fired.
The Instructor was still there. She was bitter. She was watching.
On my first week, the mother-in-law asked me to come in early to prep cupcakes for a customer order. The order was gluten-free — a dietary choice, not an allergy. I came in and got to work.
The Instructor came in during her shift. She watched me. And then she and I both reached for the pyrex measuring cups. The microwave was positioned high — above head height. You had to reach up to grab anything from it.
I melted butter in the pyrex. I wasn’t thinking about whether it would get hot. I was focused on the work, trying to move fast, trying to get through the day without drama. The Instructor was there, grilling me the whole time. Watching. Commenting on every move.
I reached up, opened the microwave, grabbed the hot pyrex with my bare hand.
My entire palm made contact with the heat. I couldn’t put it down because it was suspended in the air, and my hand was burning.
I got to the sink. Cold water. No sound. Ice. Wrapped it. Kept working.
When I was done, I showed them my hand and said, “I’m going to the ER. You are a bunch of bitches doing me like that.”
Then I left.
A few days later, I was at work and cut my finger. It was a small thing — I went to the bathroom to take care of it. I cleaned the wound, wrapped it, and came back out.
I must have missed a drop of blood on the floor.
The Instructor went into the bathroom after me. She came back out and announced to the back of the shop, loud enough for everyone to hear: “Someone’s bleeding like a bitch.”
The implication was clear — she was implying I’d started my period and was bleeding heavily. It was crude. It was designed to humiliate.
I walked up to her, shoved my finger in her face, and said: “I cut my finger. What a weird thing to point out. And if you keep it up, the only bitch back here that will be bleeding is you when I bust you in the mouth.”
She didn’t say another word.
A few days later, the mother-in-law came in early to do the cupcakes for a gluten-free order. A dietary choice, not an allergy — the same kind of order. The Instructor came in and started berating me. Why was the mother-in-law making that cake? Who did she think she was? It didn’t matter that they’d made the exact same thing before. The hypocrisy was irrelevant. They were angry because we were there, doing the work, and they weren’t controlling it.
I ignored them. Kept working.
That made them angrier.
Story 3: The Setup for Failure
The Instructor got fired. We all thought it was over.
It wasn’t.
She came back. The mother-in-law had told me this might happen — that management was Christian and believed in second chances, in forgiveness. You never rehire the garbage you take out. But they did.
Right after she came back, while we were working together, she told me she’d slept with her students at the community college — called it a “perk” of the job. She thought confessing this would make us friends. It didn’t.
Around the same time, the mother-in-law hired a new clerk. A timid, meek young woman with a baby who needed part-time work. She lived close by, which made scheduling easy. She’d come in around 10am to wait on customers and close after I left, with the mother-in-law’s help. The mother-in-law didn’t really want to be managing the shop — she wanted to be pampered and spend time with her grandkids, which was fair.
The clerk and I got along fine. Better than fine. I protected her from difficult customers because she couldn’t handle confrontation. I made sure she was okay.
One day, I asked her gently about my rolling pin. She’d submerged it in water — something you’re not supposed to do. It was a simple conversation. I wasn’t harsh. I just explained: don’t submerge it, and going forward, I’ll make sure it doesn’t get left for you to clean. We can solve this together.
We ended the conversation laughing. She seemed fine.
But she went straight to the mother-in-law and twisted what I’d said.
The mother-in-law confronted me about it, treating me like I’d overstepped, like I was doing to the clerk what the Instructor had done to me. I was caught off guard because the conversation had been so normal, so easy. I told the mother-in-law the girl was twisting the story, that she seemed off that day — like something was bothering her beyond the rolling pin.
I told the mother-in-law I wouldn’t talk to the clerk about anything anymore without a witness present. This was being blown out of proportion over a rolling pin.
But the damage was done. The environment had shifted again. I was the problem. And my rolling pin — the one I’d brought from home because I liked my tools — was ruined anyway.
The lesson I learned: shame on me for bringing my own equipment into a place like that. But that wasn’t really the lesson. The real lesson was that I was being set up to fail, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Story 4: The Last Saturday
After the Instructor came back, we started to discover what she’d really done. The Facebook messaging redirects. The phone calls routed to her number. She’d systematically stolen customers, tips, and business. It hurt. But we started to recover.
Then the mother-in-law started acting strange.
Not ha-ha funny. Cold funny. Like I’d become the villain. She’d lifted me up, told me I’d run this place, but now she questioned everything I did. I don’t know what I did wrong. But it got worse.
One day I was running behind schedule. I had an exam coming up, and I was in a rush to leave. I went to tell the clerk I was heading out, and something was wrong. She seemed off. She started rambling — her baby, a webcam, some guy from the internet. I didn’t fully grasp what she was saying because my head was already at the exam. I wish I hadn’t been so wrapped up in college that day. If I’d listened, really listened, I would have told her: forget the exam. Your baby’s safety is more important.
After the exam, over the weekend, I pieced together what she’d been trying to tell me.
A man had manipulated her into allowing him to watch her breastfeed her baby over a webcam for his pleasure. She probably didn’t understand what was really happening on his end. She probably didn’t realize the exploitation. But it was happening.
I called the mother-in-law Monday. She talked to the CEO. They wanted to help — that was something, at least. I was told to let the owners handle it, to stay out of it, so I wouldn’t be caught up in the chaos if CPS and police got involved.
They gave the clerk a few days to figure out what she was going to do.
She came back that week like nothing had happened.
Saturday, there was a party booked. It went well. The mother-in-law and the clerk closed the shop together. The mother-in-law intended to have a conversation with her about everything.
Then the unthinkable happened.
The clerk lost her mind. She ran outside to her car, too upset to drive safely. The mother-in-law went after her to stop her. The clerk almost ran her over. The police were called.
I don’t know what happened after that. I wasn’t there.
Monday, I came in. The mother-in-law looked at me and said: “This is our last week.”
I almost walked out right then. I should have. But I didn’t. I don’t know why I stayed.
By Friday, we’d run out of inventory. We planned the final day as a big event. Saturday morning, I came in early — as early as I could. I cranked out 30 to 40 dozen cupcakes. All of them sold. Every single one.
Then we closed the doors.
The owners told me to take home some equipment — my own tools that I’d brought in. They told me to file for unemployment. They said they’d take care of me that way.
What they didn’t tell me was that because I was a student, enrolled in college, working under a certain number of hours, I didn’t qualify for unemployment. The system said I could go to college instead.
I was already in college. I was juggling both. And now I was jobless for November, December, and January with no severance, no warning, and no way to recoup what I’d lost.
I should have demanded a severance package before I showed up on that last Saturday. But I didn’t know it was coming. I didn’t know anything.
Here’s what I want you to take from this
Every job has red flags. Some are visible in the interview. Some come from people who warn you before you start. Some reveal themselves slowly, through the way people treat you and each other.
I ignored all of them because the money was good, the opportunity looked perfect, and I was young enough to think I could handle anything.
I couldn’t.
The lesson isn’t “trust your gut” — everyone says that. The lesson is: when someone warns you about dysfunction before you even start, believe them. When an environment is set up in a way that makes you fail — whether it’s deliberate sabotage or systemic betrayal — recognize it early and get out. Don’t stay because you’re invested. Don’t stay because you think you can fix it. Don’t stay because the money is good.
I spent months being burned, humiliated, set up for failure, and ultimately screwed out of what I’d earned.
I built a whole system so that bakers walking into their own kitchens don’t have to learn everything the way I did — the hard way, the dangerous way, the exploitative way.
That’s what Violet Wexley is. It’s everything I wish someone had handed me before I said yes to the wrong job.