Right before and at the very beginning of the pandemic back in 2020 I worked for a small cannabis growing business in the states. I was originally going to be working with another team member doing order processing, sales, etc. I trained with my team member for 2 months and then he left for a much better job. At this point I was still very new to not only the job but the industry as a whole. I did my best and wore a lot of different hats, learning as I went. I had to teach myself how to use their unintuitive traceability software because my boss didn't even know how to use it.
By the time I hit month 5 I was proficient in the software and could do just about anything I needed to, or could at least figure it out quickly enough. At this point in time I was doing everything from trimming cannabis to keeping inventory to optimizing the daily operations of the crew. Essentially I was the general manager of this business, which were the words my boss used. He told me specifically that I was his go-to man.
Then the pandemic hit, and I was not working in the office. I was not comfortable being near everyone and I was the one speaking with people that came into the building which also made me uncomfortable. I did my best to work from home and it worked out for about two weeks or so, but it was a challenge since 60-70% of the job needed me to be in the office.
During the last week that I worked there, I was in a phone call with my boss. He wanted me to teach him how to do a specific task in the traceability software. I agreed and began running him through it. We got about 2/3 of the way through the task (about an hours time) when he told me something came up and he needed to call me back later. Sure, no problem. We hung up and I finished up the rest of the task. I continued to work for a little while and then he called me back. I picked up and he said “Ok, let's just go from where we left off.” I said, “Oh, I finished up that order, but I've got another one we can run through.” (I was already working on another task that was in pretty much the same place as the one we had been working on together).
And for some reason, that set him off.
“I TOLD you, I NEED to learn this stuff, why would you finish the order? I can't believe you would do this.” He went on like that for a little while. I tried to explain that it wasn't a big deal, it's not like he was going to get the process down on the first try anyway, there are plenty of orders to go through and I had no problem teaching him what I knew. He got more and more angry to the point that he was yelling at me.
Eventually I'd had enough. He was paying me $17 an hour to run his business and he wanted to talk to me as if I didn't give a shit and had somehow personally offended him. In the middle of his rant I said sternly, “Look, I am happy to teach you how to do this shit, but I will not let you speak to me like this. If you're done with your tantrum, we can start over from the beginning. Or you can keep going on like this and I can hang up. Which is it going to be?”
He stopped talking for a moment and then said very sarcastically, “Gee, thanks man, glad to know you've got my back.”
“So are you ready to hear what I have to say or are we done?”
In hindsight I should have just hung up, but I ended up going through the entire task with him. He was dead silent the whole time. At the end we hung up and I decided at that moment that he could either apologize and talk about what happened, or I would not do any work.
It took about 3 days of me not doing any work for him to call and inform me that he was letting me go. I said “Ok, cool.” and then applied for unemployment and made more from that than I ever would have working for him and his business.
TL;DR: Boss got angry at me for trying to teach him how to use his own business' software AT HIS REQUEST. I stopped doing work for him until he noticed and fired me.