I honestly feel like I'm always causing trouble for standing up for myself or what I think is right in the workplace. But at the same time, I always find myself in situations that call for it. I work as a part-time content writer, because I truly need the cash. It's an extremely small team, consisting of the family owners, editor, and then the writers.
My editor has been giving me my assignments super late. We have a deadline of Friday for payments, so to give us time to hit that target, our assignments should be given by Monday. She has been giving me mine sporadically throughout the week. And when I do finish my assignments days before Friday, she doesn't bother to check them on time to give me a chance to get payment. She just apologizes and says “sorry I couldn't approve your articles on time”.
I got paid absolutely nothing last week, so I reached out to the owner and explained the situation. I'm expecting a full-blown lash-out from the editor. It's affecting my performance—missing content briefs, late article revisions, and so on.
This is just one of the many experiences I have. I just genuinely I feel like I cause trouble for standing up for myself, but I'm slowly just believing that I'm workplace drama personified.
Last year, I applied for a similar job but got rejected at the last minute because I am too subversive for asking too many questions about the documents and timeline they required from me.
I have never been fired for any of my jobs, and I'd like to think that I perform well enough. But the minute things become questionable, I don't hesitate to ask or speak out. Does that make me a bad employee? Because I'm starting to think it's better to just shut up.