TLDR: Toxic owner/boss is upset that an hourly worker isn't as dedicated to the company as he is, dismisses employee for not following a non-mandatory procedure on the same day that employee files for state-protected paternity leave.
Until Friday I worked at a small company casting figures in plaster. I had been there just shy of eighteen months. I knew going into it that the boss/owner (we'll call him Bert) was almost certainly toxic, but I took the job anyway because I thought I could deal and I needed the money.
There were two other people in casting when I started, and within three or four months I was the senior person in my department; one of them got fired for taking too many/too long bathroom breaks, the other quit in response. About six months after this, Bert casually tosses off that he didn't think of me as the department manager despite the fact that I'd been doing that job since my starting crew left. Later I had a conversation with him about it, and how dismissive it felt, and he claimed not to remember saying that.
As I was preparing for the birth of my daughter about a year ago, I sat down with Bert to discuss paternity leave (the company didn't have any written policy). He told me I'd be able to take as much time as I needed, and I left with the understanding that this would be unpaid time off. The baby comes along, and after a week I call to check in and Bert is very insistent on getting a return date, preferably sooner rather than later. I agree (against my better judgement) to take one more week, giving me a grand total of two weeks to adjust to life with a newborn before I return to work. When I do return to work, Bert hands me a check for the two weeks that I was out and tells me to keep quiet about it because he thinks other employees will go have kids if they find out he's paying for parental leave.
A few months later, when the kid is old enough to start some activities, we sign up for a weekday class because that's what's available. When I tell Bert that I'm going to start taking that day off for childcare purposes, he says okay.
Our last paychecks came with info sheets about the new state law regarding family/medical leave; under this law, I qualified for more paternity leave paid for by the state (by way of a new income/payroll tax that started in January). This is where the excrement collides with the air conditioning.
The next day I inform Bert that I've filed for more paternity leave under the new state law.
“Well, that's bullshit,” he says.
He then drags me for feeling entitled to this time off, adding that it's a problem I'm already missing one day a week for for my child. A disruption to the work flow, he called it, which is pretty rich considering that casting was shut down for two months because we were so far ahead of painting. He says it seems like I'm only there to earn a paycheck, and I tell him that yes, that is the arrangement we have; I sell you my labor, because I work to live and not the other way around. I head back to my workstation, pretty sure that I'm getting the boot.
I work a full day, and on my way out tell him that I'll be contacting BOLI based on our conversation that morning, specifically that calling my desire for paternity leave 'bullshit' seems rather unethical and possibly manipulative. He has the gall to say that he never said that, and when I stood my ground he said I was inferring a meaning from something that didn't happen. I'm no expert, but that seems like gaslighting to me.
On the heels of this, he and the office lady hand me my walking papers and last paycheck. The justification is insubordination related to demolding methods; I wasn't doing something that Bert suggested. He didn't demand it, he didn't require it; it was always framed as 'try it and see how it goes', which I did and found it to be largely unhelpful. Of course, explaining this to him never made a difference–and I explained it to him on at least three separate occasions.
So that's how I wound up unemployed on Labor Day. I'm still going to contact BOLI, and I should qualify for unemployment assistance.
Some further context:
-Bert told me recently that the value of companies like Amazon and Tesla comes from the shareholders, not the workers.
-Every person who'd been there for any length of time told me that Bert does not understand any of the departments as well as he thinks he does, and the best thing to do was smile, nod, tell him what he wants to hear, and then do it your way anyway.
-Bert told me himself that he doesn't fully understand how each department works.
-Bert's favorite reference point for methods was when the company was based in a different state: thirty years ago, a thousand miles away; before the plaster powder changed, before the mix chemistry changed, and before they were pouring with the aid of vacuum chambers.
-There was a period of about two weeks shortly after I started when Bert was helping out in casting (finishing some of the figures after hours), and we had to toss about half of the pieces he worked on because they were so bad. The other half had to be redone, saving us exactly no time at all.
-Another ex-employee told me that the temp agency she was with wouldn't work with this company because of its reputation.
-Bert claimed to me that he draws no wages from the company. I think he wanted me to think it was some kind of noble sacrifice on his part, but my opinion is that he's either (a) disingenuous, (b) bad at business, or (c) avoiding tax liability. This is pure speculation on my part, take it with the appropriate amount of salt.