I worked for this B list personal injury attorney in Miami Florida (let’s call them A) who is making a name for themselves. Lots of ads, face name recognition, “gives back to the community”, someone who tries to make everyone like them and my favorite part says that employees are their family.
When I started this position it was intra COVID and I took it with a pay cut. My friend had practically gotten me the job he told me it seemed like a good place and I always chose a healthy work environment over pay. However in my interview I told A I would accept the position on the condition I would get a pay raise once I proved my worth as I was highly overqualified for the role.
In the personal injury field case managers are ranked by how much attorney fees you close. Let’s just say I made this attorney over 200k less than 6 months. As a reaction A began to ramp up marketing A LOT. Mind you this is a small understaffed firm as cases start to come in every staff member had to multitask multiple roles (very Miami thing). So me and my coworkers start asking for assistance at this point we didn’t even ask for more money just help.
No help comes while A continues pumping marketing funds higher and higher. A begins to stress due to the higher workload since they are the only attorney working the firm. However A had their spouse and cousin working for them. However instead of helping they often just got in the way, added to company drama, or flat out didn’t work while still collecting a check. Realizing the situation and my ability to put in extra effort I speak with A regarding a raise (which I would have more than happily worked extra for). At this point A tells me no knowing very well how much money I am producing her. A states “even im a employee of the firm and if I want to make more money I come in and work extra on the weekends” (firm A owns outright no partners)
A week or two after that A starts telling everyone that they should be working weekends and if we want to “get that money you need to start coming in on the weekends.” So here’s the deal. For a 42k salary I was already working 45hrs a week. A wanted us to work additional time for which we were going not going to get paid in our paycheck rather via bonus. Mind you at this point I’ve closed 150k in attorney fees (straight to my bosses bank) and only received a totes bag for July 4th weekend and 200 dollar bonus after that.
Firing day: A tells me they have to let me go because I have “checked out” because I didn’t come in on the weekend. Meanwhile I had closed an additional 50k in attorney fees between the time I asked for a raise and firing day.
So now I’m out of a job during COVID little to no savings since I’m the head of household keeping things afloat. Come to hear that A’s cousin who was a living pain to work with (think of Tik Toker who doesn’t like to work and act like they know it all) was fired. Not only was she fired but had the cops called on her because she got in an argument with As dead beat spouse. Nonetheless A’s cousin received a severance package a luxury I didn’t receive. Let me also tell you how A’s cousin had less than 30% of my attorney fees and was working under me as my assistant.
I was a loyal employee and got sucked into the “family mentality” never tried looking elsewhere knowing very well i am extremely overqualified and under paid for a personal case manager with my experience. Well after a few weeks I got a text from a recruiter offering to pay me little over 4x what I was making. Life is good. I might work slightly more now but no longer have to deal with “family problems” and I am no longer in the brink of poverty.
Tl;Dr – Boss wanted me to work extra hours overtime unpaid because they worked more as a result of influx in revenue from hiring me and my friend. Boss increased marketing team, ads, workload, stress and kept pay the same after agreeing to renegotiate salary. Got fired for not working unpaid overtime after making my boss over 200k in 6 months. Now I’m making over 160k a year and thought I would share with you folks here. You never know what’s waiting for you once you leave your abusive employer. It can only get better once you leave them.
Edit: Fixed some typos and grammar issues.