My first job out of college I worked for a small company. The company was owned by an evil man. His name is Ethan. The first red flag was that in the job application it asked for minimum desired wage (no max) and then offered me exactly my minimum. I was in a tight place at the time and needed a job ASAP so I accepted.
I could honestly write a novel about this company/owner and how awful he was but I'll stick to a few short snippets.
The Cutting of the Burger
Ethan always wanted to do a holiday party. When I say that, what I mean is that he wanted us all to think that he cared about us enough to host a holiday party for us but rarely followed through. Anyways, it happens once and he decides to have it at the office and have it be a potluck. He's bringing the main dish though, and no one else should worry about that – just sides/desserts. The main entree he brought was hamburgers! Great, right? Except he starts cutting the hamburgers in half. Now, getting half a hamburger sucks, especially when it's your dinner and you think you're getting a whole one. But you know what sucks more? He didn't stop! He cut them into quarters and then offered us each a quarter of a hamburger.
Gaslit by Your Boss
One of the first things you should know about Ethan (besides that he thinks a quarter of a burger is an acceptable meal) is that he is terrified of being sued. After working for him for a few years, I could see why. Unfortunately, this manifested in him strictly communicating via verbal communication, NEVER email. If you emailed him, he would straight up ignore it and call you. Any time you'd have a conversation with him about wages, he'd call you, no matter how hard you tried to get it in writing.
Anyways, after a whole gender pay gap saga (which I don't have time to get into in this post) and a promotion (no raise of course), I asked for a raise.
After a lot of back and forth – he said I had just gotten a substantial raise, but it was only because I'm a woman and we all found out he paid women significantly less than men and we forced him to match pay under threat of walkout/lawsuit – he agrees to give me one. A 50 cent raise. This is all done verbally of course, because he refuses to answer emails. Two pay periods roll by, no raise. Not shocked (he's done this before). I reach out, say what's up? We spoke about this raise, but you won't give me written confirmation of it and I'm not seeing the 50 cent increase on my pay stub. He says that he's so sorry and there must be an error on his side. He'll get it fixed right away. Oh, and I must have misheard him over the phone – silly me! He actually said it was a fifteen cent raise, not a 50 cent raise. I called him out on his bullshit and got my immediate supervisor involved, who basically threatened to quit if he didn't give me the proper raise, and (many pay periods later) I finally got my whopping 50 cents.
The extremely sad part is that he pulled this exact tactic on two other employees within the year (both women, of course!) who also immediately call him out on it, because did I mention this was an extremely small company and we all talked about shit like this?
The Most Offensive One Yet
The CEO of my old company (not Ethan) experienced the sudden and tragic loss of his child while I was still employed there. It was really devastating – if you've ever been around someone who's recently lost a child, you know. Because we were a small company, many of us had a (positive) relationship with the CEO, and when his child passed away, we were invited to the funeral, Ethan included. We all went and carpooled over together, as the funeral was in a nearby town. Because this was such a sudden loss, a lot of people from the community came to the funeral. This meant that there was limited parking at the funeral home. No biggie, we all parked in metered street parking and went to the funeral. I was not in Ethan's car, but 4 of my coworkers were. Apparently, when he parked, there was still some money left on the meter. About 20 minutes worth. He didn't put any money into the meter. When his meter ran out, he left. Yep. He left. Before the funeral even started. His business partner of 5+ years had a tragic loss, and he couldn't even be fucked to put another quarter in the parking meter to stay for the service. I have never, ever seen an action as cold hearted as that. Of course the 4 people he brought also now needed rides as well. But that's why he's an evil man, and why he deserves to be called out here. I have so many more stories about him, so many uniquely awful situations, but this one? This one is the worst. Ethan is the kind of person who makes me want to believe in hell.