I got fired Sept 2020, out of the blue on a Monday at 4:30pm. Told I was great, my work was great, everything I did was awesome and they were letting me go. I worked so hard and made over $1M in personal sales in 14 months and over $1.5M with a shorthanded team during the pandemic and a poorly-planned and chaotic roll-out kickstarter/igg style campaign that skyrocketed the startup.
I had been trying to help my supervisor by whistleblowing when I found out that the entire dept was actively looking for new jobs and they were all new hires. We couldn't keep staff for more than a year and now they were going at 3 and 6mos. My supervisors were burnt out training and hiring. They were too scared to say anything to anyone because of the conditions there.
They thanked me for speaking up for them that day against management because ceo wanted another random terrible change in policy that would make our lives harder but being sold as it would make our jobs easier by picking up work they used to outsource. I kept everyone abreast of the situation and they were shocked when I was fired before end of day. I suggested a round table discussion with the dept and that policy changes shouldn't happen immediately on a reactionary whim. People were so angry they told me they weren't just thinking about leaving, they were already actively applying to new jobs. So I phoned my supervisor like hey by the way, the whole department is actively trying to leave so you really should address it even if you don't like my suggestions.
I made the suggestion that they have to pay them better, not even me, they made much less than me. Some were working other jobs to pay the rent. A retired detective who worked there about a year told me it was the hardest and most grueling job he's ever done besides working at Mcdicks as a teen. It was hard work. A ton to learn. Like specialty knowledge. They were making $11-16 per hour.
He fired me without notifying my supervisors. He didn't know that I'd been on the phone with his right hand man all afternoon trying to help him figure out how to retain and not retrain all the employees.
I tore him a new one on and off while crying for 45 min. Right after he offered everyone my severance + $1K to leave now, gave everyone a raise, then was posting for my job at higher than my rate not 3 months later.
It was an impressively bad day at the office for him and he really hit the shit ball out of the park. But he didn't care, he got what he wanted which was to not pay me more money, I'd been consistently requesting a raise.
I've had 6 interviews since then and none have panned out, 2 closed the positions, and one was the start up hub that launched my old ceo. I had to explain what happened and I cried in the interview. They closed the position after 3 rounds, apparently due to a hiring freeze.
All of this is whatever though. The thing that has me mega-steamed is that now roughly 6 months later I'm seeing this guy in my nightmares. I should preface that I have nightmares every night due to cptsd, but having this gutless clown appearing in them is driving me crazy.
I let him have it while I was getting fired that day. I'm 5'0 and I was professionally yelling at three people who were seated and looking like a dog who shit the bed. One was crying and having a panic attack she later told me and then never spoke to again. My other supervisor was teary-eyed. I had my own panic attack immediately after then a couple in the days after but my husband's grandfather was dying so we got to deal with that whole thing first, literally said our goodbyes not 24hrs later.
It was so awful and traumatic at the time but I got through it with my justified rage and work reform activism. I was and am righteously angry and ashamed at how much my job and my self/life was intertwined. And how much I actually hated my job. I was actually happy to be fired and felt like the universe had cut me out of a toxic dead end situation. I still feel like that and I'm working on my personal interests and goals now. I'm grateful he made me grow a backbone. I walked out of that place with zero fucks, a different person. I still feel like I became a better person that day and although this current path is unstable, I'm grateful every minute I'm not working there.
But now he's in my head apparently. I'm so fucking angry that this shitty job amd shitty boss who exploited me, who crashed my life plans and finances with no thought or concern to me and my family, is in my nightmares. I hate that it was that traumatizing. That he had/has this much power over me still that he's lurking in my subconscious.