I'm from France, so I thought I would give you a bit of feedback from what goes on over there.
Over a year ago I joined this company which works in a very specific field. They have an agency which is a 15-minute drive away from my home, and they offered a good starting pay and were opened to teaching beginners the particularities and technicalities of this profession which was entirely new to me. They taught me everything, from the ground up, and I was really surprised to see that, despite joining in October, they still gave me a Christmas gift package in December, which must've easily been worth over 100$.
They also told me that I would be the manager of the agency I worked at within a few years ! Great !
But slowly over time and for no particular reason they've started treating me differently. Sending me to other agencies, without even a notice sometimes, which required me to take the highway with one of their cars…But slowly it became my personnal car, not only adding another hour dedicated to work in my day, but very high gas and toll costs. They were opened to refund those costs but slowly over time they were becoming pickier and pickier until I gave up on trying to get refunded.
They did what we call “bridges”, which essentially is, if sunday is off and tuesday is off (we have a ton of public holidays), they close on monday to give you a three day weekend. Cool right ? Well it's not free : they take away a vacation day for it. And you can't refuse because, well, the company is closed. What are you gonna do ? Show up and guard the front gate ? So, over time I watched them steal away almost all but ten of my vacation days (which granted is better than 0, but keep in mind that those are mandatory for an employer to provide. They're my rights damnit) which had to be scattered around thanks to their “first come first serve” policy for days off.
Christmas comes around, only having one vacation day left on the counter. I was expecting that this year's christmas package would improve my mood at work…Well lo and behold. No package this year. Guess what the reason was ? They couldn't afford it because HQ went to a nice, expensive restaurant. That's actually what they said.
So here I thought I could mention it when I get my annual HR interview where I can bring up those things to the HR folk…Nope, they hired some random lady from outside the company to serve as an intermediary between HR and the employees. Needless to say I didn't tell her much, I forgot even her name the second she told me who she was. Rushed the whole thing to get out of the room as fast as I could.
So here I am now, a year and a half into this venture. I've announced that I wanted the company to end my contract, and they reluctantly accepted so long as I stay until August 31st. They were supposed to send me the deets via mail a week ago but HR forgor. I haven't reminded them that they forgot since its such a common occurence that I don't want them to think I give two shits about their incompetence.
Oh and by the way, about the manager thing…Yea they screwed me over, offered the position to another guy behind my back, I only know it because the guy is a real G and told me. Main reason why I'm quitting, this work culture of turning “peasants” against one-another is disgusting.
But at least I should be earning unemployment.
So now you know that its the same shit everywhere ! Don't feel to bad screwing them over because they also screw everyone else over 🤘