In 2021 I took a temp to hire job for a property management company. The role I was told I would eventually have was to be a salaried position of Marketing & Social Media Manager and starting salary would be $55k a year. I was ecstatic, as this was my dream job and far more money I had made at my previous job.
I started in February and was told I would start part time while I learned the ins and outs of property management, since I had absolutely no experience in this field. During my “training period” they offered me $15.00 an hour. I was offended, and I was pissed. I argued that the initial offer was a salary of $55k, I again was assured I would make that once I was hired into the position that they were now calling, “Digital Communications Specialist”. I reluctantly agreed to the training wage.
In May, I was STILL working as a temp, now doing leasing part time, and learning my new role at the corporate office that was now called “Social Media Coordinator”, and still only making $15 an hour. The property manager where I was learning leasing, had an emergency surgery and was suddenly and unexpectedly off work for 5 weeks. During that time, my Social Media Coordinator position was put on hold, and I was thrown into the position of Temporary Property Manager, and still making $15 an hour.
FINALLY, in October of 2021, I am told I will be coming to the corporate office as the full time Social Media Coordinator. I am happy, excited, and beyond ready! My first full day at the corporate office starts and I am looking over all of my paperwork for the new position when I suddenly see “Rate of Pay: $16.50/Hourly. I am no math genius, but I know that this does not equate to $55k a year.
I immediately go to my direct supervisor; she is as shocked as I am as she was told my rate of pay would be higher and vows to get to the bottom of this. I continue on about my week, right before I should be receiving my first paycheck, I am called into a meeting. I come in and our Human Resources Manager and my direct supervisor are sitting at the table. I sit down and I am told that because I am taking benefits, it has reduced my salary, the $55k that I was quoted was the entire compensation package which includes benefits, and vacation time. Also, since the position was new to the company, they were making it an hourly position until a time where I would require additional assistance and they would move me to a management position and hire someone under me to take on my current role. I asked how far in the future this plan was and they said within a year or two. I was immediately disappointed and asked if I could think about this and give them an answer the next day and they said yes.
I reluctantly accepted the lower offer, as it was more than I made at my previous job, would give me the experience I wanted, and seemingly was leading to a management position. Within the first couple of months in my new position, I had increased social media traffic, I had helped increase occupancy at all 25 of their properties, and I had implemented many things to help streamline and modernize their business. I also built them a website from scratch for a domain that they had purchased but never utilized. I was praised at the end of the year holiday party for my work and the Vice President pulled me aside personally and told me he was very happy with my work and they the coming year would lead to great things for me. I assumed he meant a promotion.
January came and new move ins slowed at all properties. All of a sudden, the VP was wondering if my position was adding value to the company. I was still doing everything I had done previously, but move ins were slowing, so it must have been my fault. It obviously can't be that its January and no one wants to move in the dead of winter! Now, there was a sense of urgency for me to prove my worth. I met with my supervisor who told me she thought I was doing a wonderful job and that she would make sure that my worth was seen. However, In early February, I am told that there is a chance that my position could be cut to part-time, until move ins increased again. I could not afford to only work part time, so out of fear and needing a job that was more secure, I started looking for other employment opportunities.
Later in February, I interviewed with a very large and well-known corporation and by mid-March, was offered the position I had interviewed for. I had to wait for some background checks and clearance to go through before I could start so they gave me a tentative start date of May 1st. Even so, I immediately informed my current employer that I would be leaving, and my last day would be April 29, 2022. They tried to get me to stay by now offering me the position I had held out for over a year. They offered me the $55k salary and my own office. But by this time, I had already checked out. Tired of being strung along, I declined their offer.
As my last day there approached, they asked if I would be willing to do contract work for them, in my own time, and they would pay me $25/hour. We came to an agreement that I would ONLY be available after 5PM and on weekends, UNLESS I let them know of times, I would not be available for vacation or family emergencies, etc. and they agreed. I started doing contract work for them when I left and it went great for the first several months. The extra money was great, it helped pay for my wedding in June of 2022, and allowed my husband and I to enjoy our summer without worrying so much about money.
In September, my husband and I were FINALLY able to plan our honeymoon, we had postponed it several times due to his company not allowing employees to take more than 2 days off in a row because they were extremely short staffed. I made the property management company aware that I would be traveling internationally in February and would be unavailable for that week, they had no issues, or so they said.
January 2023 rolled around and yet again, new move ins slowed and suddenly, there it was again, the question of if my position was adding value to the company or if it made more sense to split my tasks among people in the office. I plead my case as to the value I add. I showed my former supervisor how I created their content and posted it on social media, I showed her how I maintained the website, all of the things I did, and she said she didn't realize the time this all took up. Her and I had a lengthy discussion and she told me she would back me up and do what she could to keep this arrangement working.
February 9, 2023. The day before I leave for my honeymoon. I email SEVERAL people from the property management company: “Good Morning everyone! As some of you know, I will be going to the Bahamas for my honeymoon, starting tomorrow. Because I will be traveling internationally, I will have limited service on my cell phone. This will make it very difficult for me to be reached and therefore I am going to say I will not be available until I return on 2/17/2023. If there is ANYTHING anyone needs, please let me know ASAP so that I can have everything wrapped up by the end of the day today. As always ^%&( has access to the social media pages should there be anything that NEEDS to be posted or updated. Thanks!”
NO ONE told me of anything that was needed or anything they were planning to need during the time I was gone. In fact, EVERYONE I emailed replied and told me to have a great time and enjoy! So, I did.
February 19, 2023, I admittedly did not check my email until the Sunday after I got back. Nobody from the corporate office works weekends, so I figured there wasn't anything so pressing that it couldn't wait until Monday. Alas, Sunday night I checked my email to see that a property manager had emailed me some photos from Valentine's Day. I copied the photos and posted them to social media and then replied to her to let her know it was done. The next morning, I get an email from the property manager with several people CC'ed including her District Manager, the District Manager's boss, my supervisor, and the Vice President, asking why it took me 5 days to reply to her and that she wanted the photos posted ON valentine's day. I responded to her that I was on vacation and not available. I also reiterated that there are others on staff with access to Facebook and that they can be utilized in my absence, as I am entitled to vacation as is everyone else.
I then receive a response from her boss stating that she doesn't think this situation is working with me being out of the office and not readily available when there are requests. She stated that she wanted to have a meeting with upper management to determine how this situation should continue and what was best for the business. I was absolutely flabbergasted. I could not believe someone was acting so unreasonable over a Facebook post.
I immediately emailed just my supervisor and asked her what I should do or if I should wait until they met, and she told me to wait. That she too had access to the social media accounts but was also off on the day that the request was emailed. So, I waited. After about 2 hours, I received a text from my supervisor asking if she could call me, so I said yes. She called immediately and told me that the biggest issue property managers have is my availability and that I am not available during 9-5 business hours. it was requested of me to respond to all emails within 2 hours of receiving them, even if just to acknowledge that it was received. I told her no. I have a full-time job from 8-5 and that our initial deal was that I would do work for them AFTER 5. I refused to jeopardize my full time for a part time job that was quickly becoming more stressful than it was worth. I also stated that 1. If I had still worked full time for them, how would they feel about me doing another job while clocked in on their time. 2. If I was working for them full time, I would be entitled to a vacation and would still not have been available. Buying an international plan was $10 a day and unless they wanted to pay that, they cannot ask me to be available. 3. I told her that if this was the only way that this would continue, to work, then it would no longer work for me.
She said she understood, and she would talk to the VP to see what he wanted to do. and I said OK and we hung up. About 15 minutes later I received an email telling me to wrap up all my projects and to have everything done by March 1, 2023. I immediately went online and finished up everything I had in process, I removed myself from all of their social media accounts, and then submitted my final invoice and stated that there was no need to drag this on until March 1, 2023 as I no longer had access to their social media accounts and to let me know when I could come and pick up the payment for my last invoice.
NO RESPONSE, but the next day I was removed from the Microsoft Office account. I texted my former supervisor and asked if she had received my invoice as I was no longer able to get into Outlook and she apologized, said she did not know they would remove me so quickly and that yes, my final payment would be available at the end of this week.
Now, when I built their website, I branded it with my name and link to my own website where I am promoting my abilities to build and manage websites. They are asking me how to remove that because they don't want a link to a site they do not manage. I am also being asked, how I was able to streamline all of this work into a part-time position, as they do not see how anyone can take on all of this extra work. I don't know how to respond to their requests. I built their website and if you contracted a company to do that, their logo would be attached to it as well. They have even asked if they grant me temporary access, will I go in and just remove the link and I am very tempted to say yes and then delete their whole damn page!
Am I the asshole?