I started an estimating job about 8 months ago for a medium sized subcontractor after being recruited. They seemed like really nice and down to earth people – the business was relatively small (40 employees) and everyone was pretty close knit. The first few months were fabulous in terms of culture but difficult as I was starting in a brand new career – no problem. Put in the effort, was very successful.
The issue came when I had a sudden health crisis in April and had to stay in the hospital for 4 days and was required to stay home for an additional 3 days. This incident made a switch flip in my boss – he was very cold and seemed as if he would rather be lit on fire than have to speak with me in any capacity.
My 6 month review came up and I had made $2,000,000 in sales already (my goal for the YEAR was $1 mil) so I was very hopeful for a good review. Wrong. My boss said that me being in the hospital and missing a few days outside of that, which was all related, made me unreliable and not committed to the company. I was dumbfounded. It was their only critique – being unreliable because I had some unforeseen health issues.
They gave me a laughable raise and I tried to move past it, but my boss never warmed up again. He was also highly critical of everything I did and held me to different standards than others in the office.
The final straw was when I had to come in 20 mins late one day because my cat was having emergency surgery. He said it was fine, so I tried not to worry and stayed late for the time I missed in the morning. I also have been training a new guy that has taken up a major portion of my time during the day, so I had reached out to my supervisor and boss yesterday morning on how to prioritize my own work and training.
This prompted my boss to pull me and another coworker outside at 7:45 am to scream and cuss at us about how [paraphrase] “we don’t want to put in the hours and stay late/come early. We want to skip out on work because of our cat or dentist appointments – yet he still pays us for that time.”
Of course he still pays us. We’re salaried employees. Which ALSO means we don’t get paid extra every time we come in early or stay late. After the screaming, I went to say that I hope my email didn’t come across as me not wanting to work hard, but before I had gotten 3 words out of my mouth, he says “this conversation is fucking over.”
I told my supervisor that I couldn’t do this anymore, and that I refused to be cussed at by a man baby every time there’s a small misunderstanding. She begged me to talk with him before I decided anything because “He’s actually a teddy bear at heart…” I went to speak with him with a mediator present (his idea), politely told him how I was scared to approach him, didn’t appreciate him cussing at me all the time, and wouldn’t tolerate him using my hospital stay and cat emergency as reasons to berate me.
He didn’t say anything. Just got up and said “it seems like the ship has sailed.”
I said “I don’t want to leave”
He said “too late” and walked out.
I’m just at a loss – no job, will lose my insurance. But he’s certainly going to be at a loss because my sales to date at 8 months are $3.1 million. Essentially a quarter of our sales this year.