Hello all! Needing a bit of advise as I've been thinking about quitting my job. Before I get into my reasons why here's some info about the job.
I work as a Software Testing Consultant, this is my first job since finishing University. In fact it's my first job ever. At university I studied Computer Games Development and finished with my Bachelor's degree in May 2022. I then started looking for work, applying for around 700 jobs in a 5 month period. No interviews, got word back from 10 rejecting my application.
I'm based in the UK so I wasn't entirely surprised. After failing to find work within my field I started looking for work in other fields. By the time November 1st arrived I had went for 1 interview, and quickly dwindling funds. I then got a call from my now Boss offering me a job as a Software Testing Consultant. As I was desperate I jumped on the opportunity.
It's a remote job where I need only login to the laptop provided by the company and join Teams calls that are on my calendar. I then use Microsoft Excel to write test scripts based upon documentation that is provided. I then upload these tests to Azure DevOps then earlier this month we started running them.
My salary for this job is £23,000pa. However, after my 3 month probation period that's meant to be going up to £26,000pa. That 3 months has come and gone, I'm now in my 4th month and haven't heard anything about it.
Now let's get to the red flags. There's quite a few so I'll list them out here:
- From what was said in the interview and from my own observations, the company are constantly hiring due to having a high turnover rate. I've started to question this a lot as of late and I now understand why this is the case.
- The Boss fired 2 of my colleagues after discovering that they were looking for other jobs. He found their resumes online and got rid of them there and then.
- When I was hired they gave me the most complex part of the job to write scripts for. This “area” tied in to the work everyone else had done in a very critical way. Surely they should have given this to someone with more experience.
- The documentation we need to follow is complete rubbish. It's either insanely vague, doesn't cover everything we need to script or is unfinished/non-existent.
- The boss is constantly asking people to put extra time in. Had me work overtime one weekend which I was fine with but then kept asking me to do more. Plus immediately after Christmas he wanted me to work eventhough we had that week off. We were told about this a month in advance and were told we'd get overtime if we worked it. I agreed then 2 weeks later he said it wasn't classed as overtime and if people wanted it off they could use their annual leave. This made me start to question everything.
- Also wants people to put extra time in at the end of each day and we'd apparently get that classified as “time-in-lieu”. In the 4 months I've been working there I haven't seen this happen even with folks working extra.
- Boss started scheduling calls with myself during my lunch hour and after hours at the end of the day. After this started happening I realised that since they are more than happy to waste my time I should do the same. Thus I started to slow down the amount of work I did daily (after slowing down I was still doing more than others) and if I was in a Work call I didn't actually do any work.
- The boss is slow to get back to messages and emails. On Friday the 27th of January I sent an email stating that I wished to take 5 days of annual leave starting on the 20th of February. First time off work I'd taken since starting. After a week he hadn't answered to I sent a follow up message. He hadn't bothered to read the first email.
So, what would y'all do in this situation. Since my probation is up I have a feeling that I'll be having a call with the boss soon and I have a feeling that my pay will remain the same. Should I just up and quit? Since starting this job my mental health has taken a nose dive. Anxiety is through the roof and headaches are a daily occurrence.
I don't have much in the way of expenses so have managed to save 80% of my pay since starting. Based on my current expenses and my income from YouTube/Patreon I could go 6-12 months without working. Maybe I could use that time to build my YouTube/Patreon income stream. In the past year I managed to 10x it. Maybe I could do that again.
Any advise you have would be appreciated. Cheers!