I didn't control myself today and made a mistake. Maybe. I criticised my former job publicly today.
I used to have this one “lovely” job. Looked like a dream job at first but lots shady things were happening in there. I made a post about it here before, specifically about the things that had affected me personally but there was so much more. No training yet expected to know everything. Creating the weird Catch 22 situation and not helping me with its consequences. I signed the document which allows employees to keep their salary tax-free under certain conditions. My superior taxed it anyway and then kept telling me for two weeks I'd never signed that document, even though I'd signed it in front of them. At the end of those two weeks, they made up that I'd been vulgar to everyone and never done any work (guess who had been taking the most shifts and had everything documented – not that they cared) so that they could fire me. Going so low as to “quote” stuff I'd never said. My mental health really enjoyed that.
Anyway, that was several months ago but the pain is still fresh. I've told many people in my life – thank goodness for the amazing support network. Today I saw my former classmate promoting this job on the social medias. We were hired at the same time and struggled with no training together but then our ways gradually separated (it was a remote job). He still enjoys the job.
Something in me moved and I criticised the workplace in the comment section. He replied and kept claiming how everyone has been so friendly, so I just told him everything. Basically what I wrote above. I was very honest about what I think about that place (not resulting into insults though – the worst word was “disgusting”, not great but whatever). He got very upset. Very. He accused me of making this up and telling me that this was the reason they had fired me. Apparently I shouldn't slander people who treated me like crap. I decided not to respond anymore and eventually deleted that entire convo (when you delete your comment, every response to it gets deleted as well).
However, this got me worried. I may have crossed the line by letting him know that I'm willing to criticise this job publicly and have done so privately before. Call me stupid for this, it's okay. I stand by my words and I have a proof of everything. I have all my former superiors blocked on the social medias and this happened in the private, almost abandoned group (no idea why he even posted about the job in there, tbh).
My question is though: can this former job do something about this if they find out? This is in Central Europe and I no longer work for them, but I live near their office and might bump into my former superiors in the city. My current workplace occasionally cooperates with them and I don't trust one of my superiors, but the rest is great though and I know they would support me. Can my former job do something about it, like going after me or even contacting my current superiors? You know, for me basically talking crap about them. They have their truth. The question is who will trust whom.
Should I be worried? Or am I too paranoid?