I didn’t feel valued at my last company at all. It was my first job and I was desperate, so I accepted their offer of a minimum wage salary despite it being way below the market standard. I often worked overtime for no extra pay and after a while of producing good results I asked my manager for a raise. He said “we’ll talk about it”, postponed the conversation for 3 months and eventually just said no. I made some really good friends at my job in the meantime but I could barely make ends meet. Everyone (including my superiors) kept telling me I was doing an outstanding job but I felt like I was constantly being lowballed, so I quit.
I met up with those colleagues again a little while back and had a lot of fun seeing them, so much so that when one of the superiors offered me another position (this time with more benefits, 1x per month fly out to their headquarters, the works), I stood my ground and said I’m switching to freelancing so I will not be accepting any full time positions. They said they could make that work too, whatever I wanted so long as I joined their team again.
I was tempted, like I said I had a really fun day and it almost made me forget the reasons that I quit. So a week later I texted about the freelance position and they ghosted me. If anything it’s cemented that leaving was the best decision I made, but it’s also left me feeling super confused. What was the point even? Was this just some weird power play?