I work for a big pharmacy in Germany. I get paid the bare minimum for the job that I do and live from paycheck to paycheck. I started working there about a year ago and was thankful to have a boss that I had until recently, because she always said yes to everything we wanted and really gave her workers a lot of freedom and was really tolerant. However, she quit about a month ago after 25+ years working in that company. She was one of the founders of that pharmacy. Everyone was shocked by her decision. I was incredibly bummed out since she was the first ever boss I liked.
She told us she quit because her family life was suffering because of too much overtime she always did. Also, it seems like she left in bad terms with the owner of the pharmacy because they aren't speaking anymore.
The fact is, the owner keeps taking new projects and expanding our workload while refusing to pay people more than what she absolutely has to (the absolut minimum), so it's also almost impossible for her to get new employees. That means, all of us do a lot overtime under stressful conditions just to get the work done. Last sommer (it'll be the same this year) we weren't allowed to close windows and turn the air conditioning on “because of corona” (in winter all the windows are closed and they are heating so wtf that makes no sense) so we were working in the glass building with medicine often in 33°C (91.4F) which is also against the law, and obviously just to save electricity.
The only redeemable thing about working there was that my ex boss let us take days off for all the overtime we had.
Now however we got a new boss chosen by the owner of the pharmacy. She and the owner had us go to the meeting last week where they told us that our ex boss was far too lenient and we can't be working like that anymore. So now we are not allowed to take holidays for the foreseeable future and taking time off because of doing too much overtime is absolutely off the table. She packed this news as something thats “good” for us “because she wants to create an enviroment where there is always everyone there so the workload would be finished without working overtime”.
Needless to say, even with everyone there it's impossible to finish everything in time because the owner takes more and more projects and hires 0 new people (people are actually leaving all the time so it's reverse).
After this talk last week I decided to never hurry to finish my job again, and I get there just in time for my shift (I used to come early to get a better start and I used to hurry to finish all my tasks), and now I go home after my shift is over regardless if everything is done or not. I do as she wanted but now the work is done messy since others from upper managment have to jump in to help out and/or finish everything and they don't know how to do it properly so they are staying long and are pissed all the time because of that.
Soon I will quit if they don't fire me before that happens. I refuse to build wealth for someone who doesn't even provide the basics to her employees. Also, my family doesn't live in Germany. I used to use my overtime to visit them for a week or two longer, so the new rules effectively take the time away from me with my family. F.that!
Edit: spelling and form of the text