The only big business I worked for was BAE and I do work as a contractor now… so kinda more on my own terms… but I was told how amazing an opportunity it was to work at the amazing BAE… I wasn’t paid well but ‘I can move through the ranks’ and ‘make a career’ out of it… as much as my morals hated me working for an arms dealer… I endured, but 6 months in, we were given basic online training for certain software/coding language… I didn’t fully understand it and wanted extra support, my boss gave me tasks to do involving this to help me along I thought… when I completed the tasks he told me it wasn’t what he asked, he moved the goalposts… I told his boss that I felt I wasn’t sure what the job expected of me and I felt intimidated by my boss… he said it was just his personality and he is old school and brash… the rest of the team was women, which I was fine with and thought was really cool for IT security… but as you would not want to be caught dead abusing or being shitty to women in the workplace anymore, like it happens I know, but being the only man on the team, I ended up feeling singled out and that my work wasn’t adequate… and even when I voiced concerns to my bosses boss… I got fobbed off…
I got put on a Personal Improvement plan by HR after a fucking awkward meeting with my boss and HR… he basically brought up the couple of times I was 2-3 mins late for morning meetings (working from home online) I then had him using the fact I showed off my new PS5 in the group chat as a bit of fun as I was excited, to say that I was distracted from work as I had my PS5 at my workstation… and I was like… you fucking what? Unbelievable… I never posted anything again…
I knew from the start this process was a slow push out the door, because I was just slowly told I wasn’t producing or wasn’t doing well enough and moved along the improvement chain bollocks… when we had to return to office I didn’t want to see my boss in person… so I quit… before Christmas… on a call he was like “oh… I see, well anywhere here is the process” like not even phased… he pushed me out of this ‘incredible job’ and didn’t care, like he was waiting for it…
My family was livid, telling me to just put up with it for a bit longer, but I said no… I’m the most anxious and stressed I’d ever been and it wasn’t worth it… I went and worked for Amazon as a stop gap after that, and felt so much more relief to just be doing something and not being fucking belittled for it… I’m now a contractor and earning triple what I did there…
I once saw him check my linked in profile when I got my new job… and felt like a fucking god… like yeahhhh, I’m happy, doing well… and making lots of money now… so I’m glad you taught me that work isn’t fucking worth stressing over, it’s to get paid and that’s it…
I work from home and it’s a chill job with a chill boss… glad I learnt these life lessons… work isn’t and shouldn’t be your life and make you fucking hate every day…