I was fired from Rebel Rebel. I’m telling my story.

I was fired from Rebel Rebel on May 24, 2020. My experience working at and subsequently being fired from Rebel Rebel left me fully torn apart, betrayed, manipulated, gaslit, and emotionally abused. At first I wanted to simply move on from it. I wanted to leave the hurt behind me and just move forward and heal. As time has gone on, however, I have learned that what I experienced was part of a larger pattern of behavior from owner Lauren Friel. I’ve now seen harm done to others and I can’t in good conscience sit back and keep my experiences to myself knowing that it can and will happen to someone else. On the Rebel Rebel website Lauren talks about wanting to give opportunities for new people to enter into the industry, emphasized by her new mission to bring on more BIPOC to her brand. It’s my true nightmare to imagine other women and queers being drawn in by the brand Lauren has created and the opportunities she promises, and then to experience the manipulation and hurt that I experienced. I’ve decided to share my story and my experience in the hopes of shedding light on the disparities between the practices Lauren preaches as part of her public image versus what she actually creates and how she behaves behind the scenes at Rebel Rebel. I hope that my story can add to the voices of others in the industry calling for accountability from those that profit off of the labor and silence of the mistreated. I’d like to tell my truth.

To tell the whole story, I’ll go back to the beginning. In 2018 I was leaving my job at a beloved Somerville coffee shop because I wanted to keep growing and pursue my new dream — working in wine! As a hobbyist I had taught myself so much about wine but I knew finding a good opportunity in wine isn’t always easy. My old boss had heard about Lauren and the forthcoming Rebel Rebel so after I looked through the Instagram account for the future business, I sent a message to Lauren. It seemed like the perfect fit: a neighborhood spot, run by a woman! Mentions of pro-queerness, serving only natural wine (read: cool, exciting, hip). Lauren said that Rebel Rebel would be a feminist business, it would shrug off the patriarchy and give no fucks about status quo. She promised it to be a new kind of business, a business about honesty and integrity. As a feminist and budding queer I felt wildly lucky to have landed the job.

Lauren and I quickly bonded, she easily and naturally created a dynamic where she became not only my employer but a mentor and also a friend. The beginning of Rebel Rebel was just Lauren and me. I felt extremely special, knowing that Lauren, who I quickly learned was known and adored in the wine community, had selected me to be her right hand woman. Lauren and I spent time together attending tastings, painting the walls of the bar while talking about our lives, meeting for drinks to discuss my future and the future of the business. She even came to my apartment to chat and drink wine with me and my friends. From the beginning Lauren established a dynamic between us that dissolved the boundaries of employer/employee. I came to feel indebted to Lauren for all the opportunities she gave me, for believing in me and “seeing my potential, and for the world she showed me. The debt that I felt became the foundation for a loyalty to her that made me afraid to question her and in turn, risk having my amazing opportunity snatched away. She held all the power.

In many ways, I felt like Lauren reminded me of an older sister. She taught me about the world of wine and also gave me advice and guided me through new situations. She seemed to depend on me as well, she entrusted me early with the basic functioning of her business. (One time I found out she was in Iceland only from a friend seeing it on Instagram. Lauren hadn’t even thought to tell me beforehand; she could trust me to keep everything running.) Lauren made me feel like she really understood me, like she really felt a bond with me — she made me feel special way beyond the relationship of an employer. We enjoyed dinners out together with our partners (She’d always treat us with the Rebel Rebel card.). I became friends with her friends and we would spend time together at their parties. On several occasions I was referred to as “mini-Lauren.” We spent Christmas Eve together, we drank 90’s Cab Franc, ate steak and discussed our childhood experiences and trauma. She was generous with me beyond work — she gave me a $300 birthday present. On our first staff trip to Portland, we all went to the tattoo shop; Lauren and I got matching lighting bolts on our middle fingers.

Communication from Lauren wasn’t usually clear or direct. When I was hired on, Lauren verbally told me I was a manager and when we opened I performed the role as such. Several months into being open, and after adding several more part-time employees, Lauren sent an email to the staff in advance of going out of town. The email mentioned me as the point person while she was away, naming me as the General Manager. When I came into work after the email was sent, several coworkers congratulated me on my “new position.” Although grateful for this, I was confused since this had been my role since the beginning. I wondered why this had not been communicated to all the staff from the start. Good days with Lauren left me glowing. Commonly however, a day with Lauren would leave me on edge, anxious, insecure, and unsure of how she felt about me and my work. Sometimes Lauren didn’t seem quite satisfied with the work I was doing, but when I asked for feedback about my performance, she’d say it was good. Sometimes I’d put together a new wine list but she would give no reaction to it at all. Often she’d be distracted and would be snappy and cold when answering questions. Once, I’d told her in advance that I’d need to leave early on a certain day and she agreed, but when the day came she didn’t remember and her passive-aggressive commentary left me feeling guilty for leaving. Sometimes I’d have finished all the things on my list before I left for the day and when I was headed out the door she’d mention a separate task she had wanted done but hadn’t yet communicated. This constant hot and cold relationship always reminded me Lauren pulled the strings on a job I loved and a friendship I valued. I felt I was always walking on eggshells to stay in her good graces and enjoy the friendship she’d built with me. I hoped the lavish generosity she showered on me was a reflection of how much she valued me, but I never felt that I was secure in my relationship with her or in my role at the bar. I felt continually beholden to her for the opportunity she had given me, and every day that she’d come in and suddenly treat me coldly it became clearer she was reminding me who had control of a career I loved.

I’d never had a panic attack until working at Rebel Rebel. The back and forth with Lauren eventually led me into a cycle of constant stress and at times debilitating anxiety about my job. I was constantly worried I was forgetting something and would make Lauren angry or disappointed, that I had done something or not done something and she’d be upset with me about that. I thought my difficulty with my anxiety was my fault. I had convinced myself that the anxiety I felt over my interactions with Lauren and my place on the team was something I had created. I found some relief from my crushing anxiety by beginning therapy and antidepressants but there was still an immense amount of unease surrounding my relationship with her and Rebel Rebel. I would tell her that I was more used to direct and clear feedback about my performance and that I wanted to feel like a more visible part of the business, she’d repeat the ideas I was sharing back to me but in a way that changed their meaning, saying I needed more attention and validation which made me feel silly and self conscious instead of understood.

I took on more responsibility for the functioning of the bar as we navigated the growth of the business and what we would need to make it run. Six months in, Lauren and I had a conversation where she shared how pleased she was with the work I was doing and that she’d like to figure out how to give me equity in the business. A few weeks later, we had another conversation about how Lauren wanted my role to develop. She told me she’d like us to move toward having me take on the day-to-day of running the business, but still work together to make big branding decisions. She said she wanted the bar to feel like it was mine and care for it as if I had ownership over it, reiterating that she’d talk to her financial advisor about how to set up equity for me in the coming fiscal year. I felt so excited and boosted by this direction and future but I never felt comfortable asking about the progress of equity since money always seemed like a touchy subject for Lauren and I didn’t want to rock the blessings boat.

As time went on the subject of equity was never revisited, but Rebel continued to grow. We began to add more roles to the team. Someone was put in charge of writing the newsletter and we added a point person for our partnerships, outreach, and education. I kept the day-to-day running — managing calendars, ordering wine, helping to plan events, reaching out to distributors, managing the blog, and making sure supplies were available. We all could share our voice, but the ultimate deciding voice was Lauren’s. Slowly, I began to feel pushed to the side in the business, put more behind the scenes. The events that I coordinated and planned for the bar never received much notice or support from Lauren and their public promotion was minimal despite the success of my previous projects. I expressed to Lauren that I didn’t really feel like a part of the team, that I was feeling overlooked and under-appreciated. I knew that the job of a general manager wasn’t always glamorous — no one notices that you make sure there are always paper towels until the time that paper towels run out and then you’re noticed for fucking up — but there was always more of an emphasis on the things that weren’t quite right (whether they were in my control or not) than on the strides I was helping the business make and the things I was doing well.

After Lauren attended Radical Exchange in New Orleans in the Fall of 2019, she came back determined to create certain changes within the business. At our regular Thursday meeting she spoke with the current full-time employees. She told us she wanted us all to have equal buy-in and responsibility to the company. That we’d become four board members. She told us we should have equal stake and equal decision making. We all thought this sounded very exciting, and we were on board. She told us she wanted to get all of us part ownership of the business. I was wary to hear this promise since it had already been promised to me the year before without anything materializing, but I was still excited about how the new concept and structure aligned with my ideals. At the end of the group meeting she started meeting with us separately. She met with me last. From my coworkers returning from their own meetings, I learned that Lauren had told them that she wanted them to have more of a part in the wine ordering, a responsibility that had been mine originally. She wanted another coworker to take over the blog, another responsibility that had been part of my role. Eventually it was my turn to talk to her and she told me that she’d be changing my title from ‘General Manager’ to ‘Director of Operations’. She explained that since I was “better behind the scenes” that it made more sense for what my work was. She said that since I didn’t seem comfortable making “executive decisions” that it didn’t really make sense to call me the General Manager. This meeting stung. I held tears back feeling like much of my role and the dream I’d been promised to have at the bar were being stripped away without receiving any prior feedback about my performance. I felt like it was unfair to be told I wasn’t comfortable making executive decisions when I’d had to do so often when Lauren would leave town without notice but never been given the freedom to do so upon her return. I felt surprised to hear her negative feedback since anytime I’d requested feedback in the past she’d only given me affirmation of my work. Even though the sudden reallocation of responsibilities made me feel even more pushed to the side and invisible, I still wanted to see how I could make the most of the new role and find ways to be visible and community facing. As more time passed Lauren updated us in our weekly meetings that she’d talked to her financial advisor and that it would be too complicated to work out partial ownership but that she’d figure out how to do profit sharing among us. Those conversations stopped quickly and we never received profit sharing.

Like all restaurants, the pandemic hit us unexpectedly. Open one day, mandated to be closed the next. Like many restaurants, Rebel Rebel laid all of us off so that we could be assisted through unemployment. Lauren said she would still pay each of us the same flat amount under the table to go with our unemployment no matter if we continued to help out at the bar or not. We received hundreds of merch and gift card orders in those first few weeks so I came into the empty bar for weeks to prep and address all the envelopes and packages to be mailed. As part of pandemic legislation, Rebel Rebel was soon able to function as a retail shop and we began offering free wine delivery. Former employees were tapped on the shoulder to help with deliveries. Eventually, Lauren decided to compensate us for delivery work over Venmo. Everything was supposed to be on a totally as-able and as-comfortable basis. There was no set schedule of deliveries or any formal commitment required. I offered to help with deliveries every week. The four of us who were part of “the board” had weekly zoom meetings and continued to brainstorm and help create and post content. I began live streaming wine tastings for several weeks as an easy and fun way to keep people engaged and give them a reason to buy our wine.

Like many during early pandemic I used my mandated “stay at home” time to make sourdough. I started baking and delivering bread to people in the community to raise money for various causes I cared about. Every week Lauren would send out a Slack message to the team to see who was able and willing to do deliveries that week. Early on in my bread project I found myself overwhelmed with bread to bake and deliver so I asked Lauren how that week’s orders were shaping up. I wanted to get organized so I could help but had a packed schedule with fundraising as well. She told me that we were “completely slammed, but if you can’t you can’t.” Notoriously a people-pleaser, I assured her I’d figure it out. I’d help with wine deliveries that day and also figure out how to fulfill all the bread orders I had to do.

When I went to pick up the deliveries that Thursday, I noticed they were spread out all over the map. I’d be going from East Boston, to Jamaica Plain, and all the way to Brighton. The GPS said just the driving time would take over three hours. A part of me felt suspicious that the aggressively long delivery route I’d been given was deliberate, but I dismissed that feeling, thinking it must just be coincidence that I’d told Lauren how busy I was and been assigned an extremely large delivery route that week (Previous deliveries took just over an hour or so.). Seeing the hours tick by as I drove these deliveries and knowing how late that would mean I’d have to be up to make the loaves for the next day, I became stressed and frustrated. I wrote to a coworker and asked her about her deliveries that week. Her deliveries were all in Somerville and took just about an hour.

I finished the deliveries in four hours and stayed up late into the night to make the loaves for my orders the next day. I felt slighted that I had been given a group of deliveries that was four times longer than my coworker — especially when I’d expressed to Lauren how many time-sensitive things I needed to do that day. Wanting to avoid reliving that situation the next week, I adjusted my baking schedule and also contacted Lauren. I let her know that I really wanted to still be available to help with deliveries on Thursdays. I told her that the deliveries that week had taken me over three hours and since baking bread holds to a pretty tight schedule, I asked if there was any way I could focus on more local deliveries next time. As was not uncommon she replied in a very curt manner. She said, “Will that need to be every week? It might not surprise you to know that no one wants to do the Boston deliveries.”

I felt taken aback by the response, and asked a couple of friends for their opinions to make sure I wasn’t being overly sensitive or taking it the wrong way. They agreed that it was a manipulative response. I wanted to practice being mature and communicative in this relationship, particularly because Lauren had emphasized the concept and principles of a “feminist business” in the Rebel Rebel handbook. One of the principles of a feminist business according to sister.is (referenced in the handbook) is “tell the truth.” So, instead of shying away from sharing how her response had made me feel which I would have done at any other job, I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and practice the honest communication that Lauren seemed to promote. I consulted friends for feedback on my response. I wrote her back to reiterate what my original request had been: I wanted to help with deliveries as much as I could and hoped that we could find a way where I could help and also continue my fundraising project.

I told her I wanted us to work as a team to make deliveries work for everyone. I went on to put myself out there and share that the tone of her response had felt a little hurtful and not been what I expected. I also explained that I was sharing this out of respect for the feminist business practices that we had all agreed to in the handbook. I received a response which suggested I take a few days off and we could revisit the conversation later that week. a follow-up message told me that since orders were “unpredictable,” it would be better if I just didn’t help for a while. Lauren said she wanted to have a thirty minute “chat” sometime. We scheduled a call for a couple days later. I was nervous and felt like she was angry with me, but I knew I had handled this request and communication professionally and respectfully. There were really no grounds for her to be agitated.

Going into our phone call, I still had a feeling Lauren was angry. As soon as we got on FaceTime, it was clear that she was furious. She asked me to start talking, even though she had asked for the call. I explained to her that I thought there’d been some sort of misunderstanding, watching her face look at me coldly, jaw set. I was flustered and tried to explain that I realized and appreciated how hard she was working and that all I was asking for was a delivery route that was focused more locally, or with fewer stops to farther places. Since the understanding was still that we were volunteering to help with deliveries, I didn’t think it would be too big of a request.

When I was finished, Lauren laid in. She immediately raised her voice and scolded me for “asking for special treatment.” She was ranting how I must not understand what’s going on right now to even say these things to her. She explained how hard she’d been working day in and day out to keep the business afloat for us. I was shocked at this reaction and tried to explain again that I was so grateful for all the things she was doing to keep Rebel going. I wanted to assure her that I saw how hard she was working and that was why I was so committed to the help I’d been giving. She continued to tell me I was being selfish and asking for special treatment. When I mentioned that the delivery route I had done the earlier week had taken nearly four hours, she looked at me with an eyeroll and said, “What, do you want me to say thank you?” I was shaken. I wanted to try one more time to soothe the situation and explain where I was coming from but as I talked I could see in her eyes that she wasn’t listening. I could tell over FaceTime that she was doing something else on her screen while I talked. I was hurt, but I said my piece, I assured her I saw all her hard work, that I appreciated her and that I knew this was an unbelievably stressful and difficult time.

She said we clearly weren’t going to solve anything on this call and that she wanted for me to take a two week break from the business. I was stunned but I agreed. I asked if it was just for deliveries or if she wanted me to stop coming in to fill online orders and do my other tasks. She said to stop all of it. I told her I’d forward on the emails I received. She said we’d talk in two weeks. As soon as I got off the call I burst into tears — it was hard not to after being berated for forty-five minutes. After crying and getting a hold of myself, I went to open my work email to see if there were any time-sensitive emails that needed to be forwarded. Gmail informed me that my account password had been changed within the past hour. I tried to log into our business Instagram and the password had been changed. I went to our website, password changed. With no explanation or warning, I had been fully locked out of all of my Rebel Rebel accounts. All of this because I requested a lighter delivery load, so I could bake bread to raise money for important organizations — a value I learned and loved from Rebel.

A few days later, I discovered that I had been removed from the Rebel Rebel staff Slack. I felt so hurt, confused, and disrespected. Clearly, Lauren didn’t want me on the team at all.

Two weeks passed after our conversation with no contact from Lauren. I began to draft an email expressing to her how hurtful this situation had been and the way it made me feel about my place on the team and the way that she valued me. I shared with her that I still believed in the vision of Rebel Rebel, that I wanted to continue to support and work with the team. As I was preparing to send the email, I got a message from her asking to set up a time to talk. I sent my message expressing my thoughts and feelings and included options of when I would be available to have a conversation. Four days passed with no response.

On the day I had suggested we might talk, I received an email from her in the morning. She explained that she wanted to talk in person but was just too busy to make it work. She thanked me for my “feedback.” She told me it was time that I part ways with Rebel Rebel. She told me that there wasn’t any more growth for me there, but she looked forward to whatever I did next. She told me that because of the pandemic, she’d have to dissolve my role and there was no way forward that she could see with me there. She reminded me to remove Rebel Rebel’s Instagram handle from my profile and wished me well.

After all of this happened, I wanted to tuck my head in my shell and protect myself. The betrayal of trust from our friendship hurt one way and the betrayal of who she presented herself to be and what she said she believed in hurt in a different way. I know now, the way I was treated was inexcusable and wrong and I see clearly that the way the situation blew up and the hurtful and unprofessional way I was fired was not my doing. To fire an employee-but tell the staff that they quit- just months into a global pandemic for no discernible reason is unacceptable. It is a lie. To verbally berate an employee or friend or mentee, for communicating openly and effectively is at best a contradiction and at worst abuse. Taking out the stress of the moment on another person is harmful and deserves an apology, not an email firing. The pain of that final action laid bare the toxic relationship and work environment I was a part of at Rebel Rebel. I am still working to understand and process how easy it was to be discarded.

I appreciate and feel gratitude to Lauren for the things I learned through Rebel Rebel and the people I met, but that does not absolve her of the responsibility for the way she treated me. Taking time to reflect on how the situation unfolded and became what it was taught me a lot about the subtle manipulation and abuse that can occur under the radar when lines of power are blurred. Abuse within professional spaces is not always loud and obvious, it’s not always seen by others but the damage it leaves emotionally is lasting and complicated. I have struggled to come to terms with my experience, to feel comfortable with using the word abuse. I have struggled to accept that much of the relationship and friendship I experienced with Lauren was grooming. I wouldn’t have the perspective I have today and the benefit of healing if not for the wisdom of many friends who have supported me as I grapple through the emotions and implications of my experience. When you’re in the restaurant industry you hear the rumblings, you hear the stories, you hear the warnings of where not to work or who not to work for. However, those rumblings stay rumblings, those secrets stay secrets, passed around quietly, whispered from ear to ear. Keeping these experiences quiet enables this sort of emotional abuse to continue. When everything is kept in the dark it’s easy to feel alone in your experience, to question your reality. I won’t keep my experience a secret and I hope that telling my story can be one step in showing others that they’re not alone. I hope that sharing my story, even though it is painful to recount, will shed light on the toxicity and subtle abuse that happened under the leadership of someone who has built a brand, a name, and a following on Feminism and speaking out against abuse in the restaurant industry.