I'm 21, I live in france and i haven't worked that much in my life, only 4 real jobs, but lots of internships, anyways, My “current” job was fine, the only one i actually liked out of all the jobs i did, not because it was a fun job but because i had a good relationship with my boss and my coworkers (except my manager which was pratically harassing me by making me do shitty tasks and not giving me breaks ever, work is her entire personality, when i say i work to have some money on the side and buy cool stuff i enjoy since i still live at my mom's she says “that's so lazy, you should want to work everyday, that's such a weird thing to say”) (i was working 10 times more than her, she spent her day watching tiktoks in the office thinking i wouldn't notice when it was only us 2 while i was busting my ass off)
Well see, they screwed me quite alot without me knowing i was getting screwed, for example :
I had asked my boss to leave with her permission cause i didn't realize that if i ever wanna leave i'd have to get her approval or i wouldn't get unemployment, she said she'd give me her approval if i worked good for 2 weeks
They asked me to come in 10 minutes earlier, and when i said “i'd rather come on time cause i have a routine and i know exactly at what time i'm doing everything, waking up, showering, leaving for work, and honestly breaking my routines puts alot of stress on me even if it's just 10 minutes”, they basically told me “everyone does it so you should do it., you don't HAVE to but if you don't i won't let you go” (so i did, and that stressed me out but it was ok, i wanted to go with my unemployment) (all 3 of them came about 30 minutes early to work to “drink coffee together”, my brother i can drink my coffee in my home by myself i don't need to come early just to have coffee with u)
another example is : they had me wear a winter coat the whole summer because they “didn't have my size for t shirts” and i thought that was common practice, IT WAS NOT.
I asked my boss about 9 times to help me figure out something cause i was so hot i was feeling ill everyday, she told me “you have to adapt to us, not us to you.” and i said “Really ? what ? i've been so nice to you guys and i've helped out countless times i'm the only one that comes in when anyone is sick cause i'm the only one that don't have kids”, and she said “well i don't care, if you're gonna bring it up just don't come” and i said “well who's gonna come ? i'm the only one that can” and she said “i'd figure it out” and then told me to leave
Last one now : In france, after 6 hours of work you HAVE to take a 20 minute break, no exceptions, well i wasn't aware of that. you see where that's going huh ? basically, for the first month when i started i didn't get any breaks, until about a month in, where my boss told me she would give me and my coworker friend a break everyday IF we did a VERY good job, so that motivated us, but we only had like 1 break per week because there was always something, at some point my friend just walked out and never came back, i stayed and i was mad at him cause i thought “they're treating us so good here why would you leave without the respect of a notice” but now i realize, after that, few months passed, and i started getting less and less break until one day, a new rule was made “if you work for more than 6 hours AND we have time, you can have a break” i thought that was just a cool gesture from them, they gave me about 2 to 3 breaks per week, which then went back to once a week and then to never
After awhile of just bad encounters with my boss where she would tell me i was unprofessional and an insolent (she said this because i went to HER boss to ask questions about my outfit to work (which he fixed in 5 minutes, she couldn't do it in 6 months)) i decided to quit on my own, without unemployment, i was just sick of it, the day that i did quit, i learned that not letting me take my break after 6 hours of work was illegal, i confronted her and the whole team who knew and never told me and she told me “You're a liar, you knew you had a right to a break and you just never took them” so basically she was gonna fabricate evidence that i was lying