Title says it all, not much of a spicey story involved, just some more details in case anyone wants to know more.
I started working in this small company three months ago, the job is basically doing different kinds of deliveries by bike. Everyone except me was working part-time, around 30 hoursmonth and they didn't care for the job. All of them did it with the intention of having a nice summer job and earn some extra cash, none of them had to provide for themselves. Imagine students who got food and shelter provided by their parents, but for extra cash they had to work.
My situation was different, I have to provide for myself and thus I wanted to work more, so I was hired for 30 hoursmonth. I took a pay decrease of about 20%, but I had much more freedom to schedule my own work, because most tasks weren't time sensitive, so it wouldn't matter too much if I did them 2 or 3 earlieslater. I live in Austria, so the laws are bit different, but important is only the fact that if you earn less than EUR 480 that you and your employer don't really pay taxes or into the social security fund. Which meant two things: My actual netto wage was lower than that of everyone else, but I would cost my employer more. Not by much, because of some other details that are not important, but still was my work hour a bit more expensive than from the part timers.
But I also did my work much faster, three weeks after I was hired, I was by far the fastest employee. The reasons are quite simple. I worked in those three weeks as they would work in three months, so my learning experience was deeper, I hate inefficiency (to a absurd level, I consider it one of my biggest weaknesses) and always look for ways to improve and finally, I was the only one giving a fuck, because literally all of them did it only for the summer and had zero incentive to give a shit.
Also, while most of the work was not time sensitive, sometimes it was. And in order to get it done I had to break worker protection laws, for example if you ended a full time shift, the next shift's start had to be at least 11 hours after that. Also I forfeited a lot of extra cash, like overtime bonus, granted by law.
I did this all willingly, because the work was fine. I did a lot of sports by cycling, I had a lot of freedom to schedule most of my work and the pay was still somehow okay. Not great, but I agreed to the conditions due to the other factors i just mentioned.
Two weeks ago I had a talk with my boss. He was praising my work, yet he told me to optimize even more – without giving me a single concrete tip how this should be achieved. Just do your work faster. And he compared my costs to the other workers, which is ridiculous, for the reasons given above. We talked about an hour, this part was only about five minutes long and the rest was just neutral or positive feedback from him.
Yet, it didn't sit right with me. I wrote a letter afterwards, waited some days if my anger due to the “you are the most expensive employee” comment subsides, but it didn't. I sent that letter per E-Mail and today is my first day off.
Yes, i need work, but I will find it again. But i heard that comment too often in other work environments and it's bullshit. If I was really expensive, no one would have hired me for that wage. But i provided the value and thus I deserved to get paid, without getting guilt-tripped.
In my eyes I overreacted, but yet, I don't regret it. Also he got quit angry, I had offered him to work to the end of August, but he dissolved the work arrangement immediately (with my approval, otherwise it wouldn't legally be possible). Which is quite nice, because I'm exhausted. I know if sounds like an easy job, but imagine cycling on average for 5 hours per day, always with some heavy stuff (usual load was 20-60 kg), with temperatures over 30 Grad, with no regular sleep schedule for months. Anyway, just wanted to share. Have a nice day.