Throw away account. This year has been a rough year for me. I work(ed) in a specific industry. I left two jobs due to the environment being toxic.
First one, the owner was misogynistic, immediately dismissed my ideas unless they were raised by my male coworker, and vastly underpaid me. The second was toxic and a miserable work environment because one girl there was on an extremely abusive and deluded power trip. I was the seventh person in six months to leave that job. It didn't matter that at either job, I had significantly improved net income and workplace efficiency and was great with the customers.
A week later, I found another position, and it was great. Quiet, no drama. Rote work. Not much better pay, but a lot less work than the previous jobs. I had a vacation planned to an island before I started, and when I went, I randomly met people in my industry who wanted me to tour their facility and interview. It was going to be an eye-opening tour, and why not interview and see what's out there?
They gave me an offer. I told them I had to think about it, and they gave me time to. Moving from the US mainland to an island is a big change, and they understood and wanted me to take that time to make sure I was going to commit if I was going to go. It would have been a life changing opportunity.
Of course, I had already committed to the no-drama job before the vacation, and they were treating me so well. It was hard to choose to leave that. I'm near family, great benefits, great work-life balance. But also living on an island in the Atlantic?! How cool! I could scuba dive regularly, be on beautiful beaches all the time. Why would I not think about it?
I linked my personal phone to Microsoft Link on my work computer so I could text coworkers about work stuff on there. The CFO went on my work computer for something, saw that I was using this app, and went through my texts. They fired me for thinking about taking this offer, and the service manager said he knew the owner of the company that gave me the offer, and was going to call him (and say what, I don't know…).
I just feel so defeated and want out of this industry. Starting over is so hard.