I was laid off from my job at a fancy convenience store chain when it suddenly shuttered. My final shift felt like 'The Purge.'

• Foxtrot, an upscale convenience-store chain, shuttered its 33 locations on April 23.
• Declan Rhodes, 25, was one of hundreds of employees laid off while on shift.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Declan Rhodes, a 25-year-old former employee of Foxtrot, an upscale convenience store chain that was based in Chicago. On April 23, the company announced it had laid off its entire staff and shuttered operations across its 30-plus locations in Chicago, Austin, Dallas, and Washington DC. Business Insider verified Rhodes' employment history. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

In August 2022, I moved from Springfield, Missouri, where I got a degree in musical theater, to pursue artistic endeavors in Chicago.

I've worked all the "survival jobs" in the customer service and food industries. Little Caesars was my first job. But I landed a job at Foxtrot in January 2023. I was like, "OK, I'll do this. This will be a nice little survival job while I'm auditioning."

Foxtrot was a convenience store and coffee shop, similar to an upscale 7-Eleven. We sold and made different drinks as well as grab-and-go food, a lot of healthy alternatives, and gluten-free snacks.

I worked at the biggest location in Chicago. We had a wide range of clients — from older clientele, who I could smell old money on, to younger clientele, who either would come and study in the morning or work remotely.

I was brought in as a shift lead, a step below the assistant manager. It was not a salaried position, but I was doing full-time hours.

The silver lining was the queer-friendly environment and accepting atmosphere that I had with my coworkers.

But there was a disconnect from the corporate side.

A great example of this: We had a wonderful coworker who was in his 60s, maybe early 70s, one of the sweetest humans I've ever met. He was our main receiver. He would receive all of the products we would get. We used to have a working elevator that made it easier to load stuff onto a cart. Eventually, that elevator ended up breaking down. It was never fixed, never made a priority. We had several people young strapping people who would help him out. But eventually, this wonderful human ended up leaving.

The next day, one of the corporate people comes in and says, "Oh, I guess we've really got to get that elevator fixed now."

They had a facade of caring for their workers, but it felt like a lot of us were expendable.

There were red flags before the company went bust

Looking back, the biggest red flag was an eviction notice we'd gotten a week before the company closed.

It was explained by my assistant manager, who was told by his district manager, that there was some turnover at the corporate level, and it would be taken care of.

We had also gotten a message in our work group chat from my general manager the weekend before saying that we were having supply-chain issues.

On April 23, I got up at my usual time, 4:45 a.m., to get there at 5:30 a.m. We opened the store as normal and started making lattes. At 8 a.m., my manager instructed us to stop selling gift cards. At 9 a.m., my manager attended an emergency company meeting. Every manager across every Foxtrot was on this Zoom call, I believe. They didn't know what it was about.

After the fact, I was informed by my manager that the phone call quite literally lasted 10 minutes. It was just: "Kick everyone out of the store, take out the trash, lock doors, and close the store officially." There was no "good luck" or "sorry" or well wishes in the next chapter. They were just as blindsided as we were.

At about 10:10 a.m., on a Google Hangout organized by my manager, we were instructed to close the store and leave the premises with all our personal belongings by 12 p.m. Not everyone who worked at my store was on that call. It's possible people did not realize they were losing their jobs until the companywide email was officially sent out at 11:38 a.m.

We were not given any clear direction. I'd probably say we had 20, 30 people in the store. It was pretty busy. Two guys looked like they were having a business meeting. My manager said, "Sorry, guys, we are closing forever."

It felt like "The Purge." My manager ended up taping two notices to our glass doors that said something along the lines of, "Thank you for letting us serve you. We are closing our doors for the final time."

A mob of people started collecting outside. I could see them taking videos and pictures of the sign.

Foxtrot employees are trying to hold the company to account

If I could talk directly to the CEO, I would say, "First and foremost, thank you for instilling an environment that felt accepting and tended to be warm and welcoming to new workers. On the flip side, a caveat: Shame on you for the way that you handled this, and absolutely shame on every single person who had an inkling that this was coming and did nothing."

The next day, my former coworkers and I went to my manager's boyfriend's restaurant. One of my other former coworkers is a teacher, but works on the weekends as a barista. He put his teacher cap on and printed out full documents with the WARN Act.

It is Illinois state law that for mass layoffs, you are to provide 30 to 60 days' notice of termination. Clearly, they didn't do that. We are full force taking part in a class-action lawsuit. It's surreal.

My next move after Foxtrot

It's back to square one in terms of finding a survival job.

I was trying to manifest — not the closure of the entire company, but a career shift in that I could be making an income doing fully creative projects. But the universe works in mysterious ways.

I have comfortable-enough savings. I should be OK for at least a few months. I might pick up some side hustles or gigs.

I'll donate plasma twice a week, and that's a nice little check there.

I tend to be a pretty optimistic person. I feel I will find another job. I'm just really trying to adapt and shift direction.