Hi r/antiwork,
I got hired at a startup almost a year ago. They were/are very disorganized and many people seem to have no idea what they're doing, which I'm sure isn't uncommon. I've been putting out fires since Day 1, which is how I ended up being brought on full-time last fall.
All of the following is completely outside the scope of my contract, unless it falls under “other duties as requested.” I just finished up developing two large internal training programs. I also developed the entire curriculum for two separate group therapy programs.
All four of these projects are far above my pay grade– they're the type of thing that someone with decades of experience and training would be doing, as group therapy is literally the main product the company was selling. I did allllll of this extra work at the same time as also doing my regular job and supervising incompetent, irresponsible team-mates. Even so, I loved my job. It barely felt like work except for keeping my co-workers in line.
I'm pretty pissed off at the abruptness of this change. I did find out yesterday afternoon that they cut the entire group therapy program I was involved in, as $$ wasn't pouring in six months after launch. ::facepalm:: “Welp, we've tried almost nothing and it didn't work, so we're giving up.”
The silver lining in this is that I had a really great boss who went to bat for me re: a position with one of their other startups. She stressed over and over that it was nothing to do with me, and that it was 100% cost-cutting. She raved about me to the other company and I'll be interviewing with them this week. I was told that the role, responsibilities, and compensation will be about the same as right now, but what does that even mean?! Will they also be having me do the jobs of 2-3 people? Will I be stuck among the incompetent and end up doing their jobs too?
By the time we finished the call, I was locked out of Slack, my email, Google Drive, and all of our dedicated software. Didn't even get to say goodbye to anyone. I was told that if I choose to pursue this other position, I will be kept on payroll until Friday and then start the new job on Monday. If not, my last day would be yesterday and I'll receive severance.
I'm going to take the other job just to have the income, but I don't think I'm going to stay. I'm also now sending spiteful energy out into the universe that the old place fails and fails hard.
The website is shit, very slick and generic, with no real information about the program. It's now just yet another pop-up telehealth cash-grab, trying to jump on top of the trend. The only thing that made us stand out was the group therapy program. Nobody cares about the patients– in fact, one said to me that “I feel like now that they've got my money, they don't care anymore. I'm just $$ to them.”
So yeah, I hope those fuckers SINK.