Ever since I was first hired straight out of university, my boss kept promising permanent contracts, but then hiring me on temporary contracts, and whenever the contract would be close to expiring, he didn't make a new one. He would always be busy, and I would “just have to continue working without a contract while he eventually got around to making a new contract”, often with the benefits removed or renegotiated. It happened several times. I kept feeling sick to my stomach, had trouble sleeping, kept being unsure if I would have a job tomorrow or not, and in general my salary was very low for my qualifications.
So as you can imagine, I lost all respect for him and the company. When in the office, I would be on Reddit all day. When at home, I would sleep until 11, cook lunch, watch YouTube videos and maybe work an hour or two towards the end of the afternoon, and some days no work would be done at all. No motivation, no desire to perform, no joy, no real effort in anything I did. Just the bare minimum to not get fired and to receive my paycheck, for around 2 years straight.
Anyway, it was time for a new contract again, but problem was that this time I ended up moving abroad and needed to continue working remotely, and I also needed a lot more solid documentation for various reasons as well as a stable income to support my family, and all of this happened right around the end of a big 3 month project I had been working on exclusively.
I told him that my contract would expire in a month, and he said he would take a look at it. I then reminded him 3 days before, and he called me on the phone all angry and said he had other things to do and that I shouldn't be so difficult and that he was doing ME a favor by keeping me employed as I moved abroad, and was I honestly telling him with such short notice that I didn't want to keep my job?! I told him to eat shit and that he is keeping me employed because I am a valuable asset at a low salary and he wants the project finished, and that I am literally just asking for a contract, and that I reminded him multiple times that my contract would expire, and none of this would have happened if he had just hired me permanently or at least made the contract in time, and maybe it was also about time that we discussed a major increase in my salary since I am being underpaid big time and he is obviously aware of that. He got quiet and apologized. I said no problem, let me know when the contract is ready, I'll be at the beach until then. And that's exactly what happened. I went to the beach every day, swimming with the fishies, chilling on my balcony and working on my game engine. Great summer holiday, I had savings, I didn't give a shit.
I got a few updates about the contract every so often but then didn't hear anything for weeks, until I found out my boss was fired for negligence and fraud, and that the new CEO (previous board chairman) wanted to hire me back for only a few months with really shitty benefits. I told him no thanks. I have been at the company for 3 years under shitty conditions, partly because of you, and I am in a foreign country with a family to support, and this is all you offer me? I am a computer scientist who graduated from a top 100 university with above-average grades. I found a much better and higher paying job down the street in this foreign country after a couple days of replying to people trying to headhunt me on LinkedIn. Are they stupid, thinking I would be interested in their trash offer to please come back for a month or two to finish my project?
They then had the nerve to ask me to please share my knowledge with the rest of the team since I would be leaving with a lot of specialist knowledge that only I possessed. Uh, sure, if you pay me 8 times my hourly rate. Still pretty cheap, considering my shit salary for 3 years and all the bullshit I had to go through. He huffed and puffed and said it was a ridiculous price, but eventually he agreed after I told him that we're not negotiating my pay – I am telling him what it is. I set the price since I am now being hired as a contractor outside business hours and they can pay if they want my service. He agreed to pay me. Then I just ghosted him. It honestly wasn't even worth a few hours of my spare time, and I didn't feel like doing it anyway.
No idea what happened to that 3 month project. I formatted my work pc and sent it to the company, and as far as I can tell, the project is still not completed lol.
Now I'm working with some super modern technologies in a fairly prestigious company, and my salary is good for the area that I live in. Not sure if I regret the 3 years at a shitty company with shitty pay, or if I feel happy that I was paid for years to jerk off and watch YouTube videos just to leech off the company and use this “job experience” to land my next job. Either way, I definitely grew as a person, dealing with all this shit, and I am much less tolerant to this type of behavior. And I'm still young, so.. 🙂