In March this year I left a job that while rewarding, was completely draining my mental health. My boss would constantly praise my performance but she was also incredibly disorganised and this spilled over in to my workload as I’d constantly have to pivot to account for this. I was drowning in a job that had me doing everything from writing grants and managing budgets to climbing on the roof to fix the internet / modem and doing the accounts. But I did it because she treated me like a friend and I had zero boundaries. The amount of extra time and resources I gave to that place was endless, I even used my own money to buy supplies because our budget was so dismal. Boss never did this, she got reimbursed for every cent she spent (while driving a BMW and doing multi million dollar renovations to her already expensive home).
When I left I had a fair amount of unused annual leave because I almost never had a chance to take time off, there weren’t enough employees and there was always something that had a deadline (boss would always take the best leave dates to go overseas or to a retreat at the last minute). Fortunately for me this meant I got about $3000 paid out in unused leave. I left and went on my way to being self employed, all was well until about 6 weeks later when she texted me that I apparently hadn’t recorded the week I took off mid last year and we’d ‘have to come to some sort of arrangement’ (meaning I pay it back). I asked her to check again as I knew I’d recorded it. She was looking at the wrong month so of course it wasn’t showing up. She then tried to take another Avenue and say that I didn’t put in for a Thursday earlier this year, to which I replied that not only do I not work on Thursdays (how on earth did she forget this when we work in the same office?), I actually was travelling interstate on my own time FOR WORK that day.
I think in the end she found exactly ONE day in my work history where I’d mistakenly not put in leave. I then replied that perhaps we should just call it even as I listed off the times I worked late, on weekends, on days off, during annual leave, the expenses I’d paid for and never been reimbursed for. If she was going to be petty about one day then I could be petty too. She backed down in the end but it was a good reminder that your employer is not your friend, they will take advantage of you as much as you will let them, and they’ll squeeze you for every penny.
I can’t believe I put up with my boundaries being trampled for so long, this is how the rich stay rich, by sucking the life out of the rest of us.