I got the job i had before my current job in 2008. At the time i was a few months behind on everything and barely affording food. I lived in a town with almost no jobs in the SE USA. For example, when a lowes opened up a few years later, there were over 3000 applicants for about 200 positions. Anyway, so i got the job. It was a call center. Not a super bad place to work, until the end. It was there when i needed money to not be homeless. Some fishy things they did while i worked there: had to take a drug test (which is fine) and the nurse was in the bathroom watching me the whole time. Not that i cared, but it was weird. Had a bunch of middle manager types who gave conflicting directions and would “write you up” if you didnt follow them. I was never written up because i kept a journal of all of that. At 3 yeara in i had “topped out” at $10.50. I knew people that had been there 15 years and made the same. No cost of living raises ever. First level managers were much worse. They were salaried. If they ONLY worked 40 hours a week AND got all their bonues, they made $12.75-13.00 per hour. I don't think they ever got a raise once they moved into that position. The bonuses were based on their employees though and one that was very difficult to hit was detainment. So if you fired an employee or they quit during the 2 week period, you lost part of your bonus. I later learned that the client paid our call center (we were contractors) $30-35 per hour for us. Not that it was shady or anything, but i was hardly ever allowed any overtime. Out of 7 years, i maybe had 5 or 10 weeks where more than 45 minutes was allowed. There was a span of 6 weeks where we were only allowed 32 hours. Normally, if you hsd over 32:45 by the start of the fifth day you worked a week, you had to take a long lunch. And the schedules changed. All. The. Time. Like literally every 2-4 months we would do a shift bid. Sometimea i would be stuck working 5pm-2am, others it would be 9am-530pm. For a while i worked a split shitt (wfh) where i worked like 10-2 and 6-10.
In 2012 i switched from a tier 3 tech support role to a tier 1 role (no change in pay) because they would let tier 1 work from home but not tier 3. At the time, gasoline was $4+ a gallon and i lived 25 miles or so from work so moving to WFH was like $0.60 more per hour. In the last year i was there, 2015, the client i had been working for for 6 years dropped our company to outsource to Asia. I was moved to support a different company. Again, no change in pay. My new boss was terrible to work for. I was expected to know how to resolve the problem and not to ask for help. Every time i was asked for help, i was talked down to. To be fair, this was her problem personally, not the company, but whatever. In the summer of 2015 i started to have trouble with my work issued phone. This was call center work; i took incoming calls from customers. The phone was a voice over ip phone. All of the hardware except for the computer monitor and router were provided by the company. The issue i had is that, with increasing frequency, incoming calls would not ring, or ring half a ring, and then hang up on the customer. I was then put into a waiting state, which i often wouldn't realize until a supervisor told me, or i went to break and clocked back in. Obvious, i immediately told my supervisor, who brushed it off. I continued to tell her for SIX WEEKS, reporting the issue 2-3 times a week. Then, on a day my supervisor was not working, a different supervisor saw me in this state and decided to write me up. He said it would be a “verbal” warning and didn't care that it was broken and not my fault. He did have me call the help desk. Who did nothing. The next day my actual supervisor upgraded the verbal to a final written warning.
On Friday of my last week there, i started having some issue with some of my software. The programs would either be slow or not work at all. At lunch, i decided to reboot my terminal. I was unable to log in. I called the help desk. It was second shift. They said there was something wrong with my account. Nothing they could do. I immediately reached out to my supervisor via text and phone call, ignored. I was scheduled the next 2 days, but couldn't clock in to actually work. Great, no pay. Continued trying to reach my boss, but nothing. Didnt bother calling help desk as the weekend is still “after hours.” Monday morning i called the help desk and was told i “was no longer with the company” but the help desk person was unable to tell me why. I filed for unemployment that day. Wednesday afternoon, my then ex boss reached out to me and told me that i had been fired for call avoidance. A few days (i think) later, i was notified that i had been denied unemployment. I, as you all should, appealed. The company didn't even bother to have someone call in to the phone hearing, so i was given unemployment. I was on unemployment for 6 weeks before getting my current job.
Several years after i left, i was allowed to take place in a class action lawsuit because the company didn't pay us for things like logging in to our computers, especially when something broke ans we had to restart them. I am glad i left because i have a much better job now. I currently make, including second shitt (my preferred shift) premium, around $32. I personally like working overtime. I have had 3 promotions since i started and in my current role i am normally expected to work about 6 hours of ovetime a week on average. I get double time pay on sundays and double time plus holiday pay if i have to work on a holiday. There's no BS drama here. I might clear $100k this year too.
For any reading this: you should keep a record of things your told to do at work, especially if you have multiple bosses or receive conflicting information. If you get denied unemployment, appeal.