I’m sorry for the rant in advance. TLDR at the bottom.
Some back ground, this was in Canada. I medically released from the military(depression), former boss(CWO reservist) knew me from said organization and hired me, as a civilian, as a specialized delivery driver. Stuff like setting up and delivering photocopiers and hospital equipment. The job also required road trips that were usually 5 days with lodging and food paid for.
I worked there for about three and a half years.
I took the job and was excited for the new opportunity. Things were okay for the first year, a lot of last minute(literally 5 minutes or less before quitting time on a Friday) informing that he wanted myself and coworkers(3 of us total) to work the weekend or stay late. I said yes to some, no to others, and made it known that if I was being asked to work outside of my regular hours I would require a reasonable amount of notice as I wouldn’t always be guaranteed available. As close as possible to 24 hours or morning of if it was that day or a weekend, and as close as possible to a weeks notice if it was a week long trip(so I could reschedule my life as make sure I had things done for my significant other before I was gone). That worked okay for the first year.
In the years that followed my boss started giving me less notice and would be upset when I wasn’t available outside of work hours. He would demand I perform unsafe work and try to retaliate anytime I called in sick or injured. One such event culminated with him telling me I had to work on Sunday BECAUSE I was off with a bad back earlier that week. I said I couldn’t as I was standing in a wedding. He threatened to fire me and I went to his boss and then, under the advice of my boss’ boss, the CEO. We had a meeting then and there(Myself, boss, and CEO) where it all came out that my boss expected me to not have a life and act and take orders like I was still in the military. Myself and CEO both made it clear that he can’t do that and that I have rights as a civilian and as a worker that I didn’t have in the military and my boss had to accept that. Begrudgingly he agreed and stormed out.
That should have been the end of it.
Since COVID the world has shifted I regarded to my(all) industries. The lack of supply chains during the pandemic has made it far busier than we expected. So overtime hours and extra man power were required to meet the demand. Extra man power was never given and my boss learned nothing and still demanded I be available at all times. I made it clear I am an hourly employee and not salaried or on-call, and if he wanted me to behave as such I would need an appropriate raise as well as a change in my job description for myself to sign off on. These requests were of course ignored and he proceeded to continue his previous actions.
The year the company hired about 7 permanent employees. Out of those only one was for my division. Out of that 7 only 3 are left. They all left because they didn’t want deal with my boss. The one extra that was hired for my division was my boss’ bestfriends son-in-law. He quit without notice(with a baby due the next month) because my boss would try to coerce him using his FIL to snoop on his personal life and plans to deem if what he had going on in his free time was “worthy” of being off.
So he quit, then another co-worker went on stress leave, returned and mysteriously was gone after two weeks with no explanation from management about whether he was still working with us. I recently went on stress leave as well, returned and made it clear that the boundaries I had set prior are to be followed. Two weeks later I agreed to a road trip that was Thursday over night, return Friday end of day/evening. My boss goes out of town for the rest of the week. Come in on Thursday and the trip is apparently now going to take until Sunday. I go to my boss’ boss and explain that I’m not doing that, it wasn’t what was agreed to
and I’m not available. He tells me to do what I can. So I go and bitch about it with my co-worker who is my helper. An hour after I am told to return to the office. I’m then fired without notice. Off the record they said it was because I complained. I get a severance and all the legal jazz they are required.
Everyone I’ve spoken to tells me that it sounds like retaliation for being on stress leave. I’m not sure how I would even begin to prove that.
TLDR: Boss expected me to give up my rights and behave like a military dog and fired me when I stood my ground on my rights and employment contract.