I had a job as a chef in a busy resteraunt having never done this kind of work before, I'd work very hard and always go the extra mile for everybody. I was only contracted to work 40 hours a week but ended up being pressured to work 50 hours minimum, I started having panic attacks in the middle of service and developed insomnia. I would work from 10am to sometimes 12-12.30am because they expected us to stay and clean after work. They had promised me at least £10.00 an hour plus tips, they were paying me £8.90, when I confronted them over it they said it was £8.90 but the tips made up for it, which btw was untrue as you only got paid about 13 hours worth of the pay you should have been getting by that explanation. We had a verbally abusive manager who would talk trash about other employees in front of us, so he definitely talked about me as well.
My breaking point came when they made me fill in for people who had walked out which meant I worked 120 hours in two weeks. My body and my mind had broke, I had bad anxiety, was sleep deprived and sick, and was always aching. I told my sous chef if I had a panic attack today I was going to quit, lo and behold, I did. We spoke about me doing less hours and told them I was taking 2 weeks off by the doctors for overwork and stress. They then chose to fire me on christmas eve by sending me my p45 in an email with no explanation.
I came into that job extremely healthy being able to run 5k every two days, I left with a smoking habit, weight loss, bad anxiety and a total change of outlook on the working world. I'll never go the extra mile for a job again and you bet your ass I'm leaving at the first sign of lies or exploitation. Taking two to three months off because fuck it, I'd rather be poor and happy than broken and being able to afford some extra things.
Extra details – A nice guy who worked there had been there for 4 years and he was getting paid £5.00 an hour, even though he was under 18 he was absolutely exploited, he was better than me and got paid dirt. He was fired like he was nothing when he asked for an extra pound an hour. Appaling.