I used to work full time at a prop house but after 6 months I had to leave because my boss was becoming increasingly impossible to work with.
She would angrily text me hours after the shop closed if she wasn't happy about something to complain and then demand answers even when I was at home and had to work off memory of the day. And the days when she'd wait until I was in the shop to address an issue, she'd talk down to me like an idiot.
She'd ask me last minute to stay late to help her pack her own rentals which she always left to the last day because, as she put it, she worked better under pressure.
If she was upset with me she'd give me the silent treatment and be extra friendly to other stylists and staff.
She was supposed to review a raise for me after 3 months and when I asked her about it she said “oh, I was wondering when you'd ask about it. We'll discuss it later” and we never did.
She asked me to come in on Saturdays when we were closed to help with an upcoming prop sale and finally, after I gave her 2 months notice that I'm leaving she became increasingly mean to me and when I broke down crying she told me it was because she was sad to see me go and was lashing out. I ultimately lied and told her that I was leaving the city to help my mum instead of telling her that I was unhappy.
I had become so unhappy that just seeing that I had a text from her, before even reading it, would make me anxious.
So I left and after a year, my boss had reached out asking if I would help with the summer orders. I said no. Then she was in an emergency and had someone else bail on her and she needed a couple days covered. I had one of those days off from my full time job so I went in to help. While I was there, she asked if I would consider coming in every other week to help out (at the time I was looking for a part time job to help with bills because I live on my own in an expensive city). It had been a nice day so I said yes.
Shortly after saying yes to coming in every other week, she asked if I was actually available for a couple hours one day EVERY week. I said yes, I could do that. Then she asked if I could do her bookkeeping, that I could choose my own hours and she would pay me more for it. I said yes because generally I prefer to work quietly on my own. She kept asking me my availability for the next few weeks and suddenly asked me to hand my keys in since I won't need them. I figured she would only have me do the books and not run the shop again so I handed them over. I was starting to enjoy going in for 3 or 4 hours once a week to do the accounting when she asked if I'd help train the new staff and be available for the full days. I said I was trying to update all of my ID and get appointments and that was my only weekday but she begged so I agreed to do the mornings if I could leave early enough. Then she asked if I could come in on Saturdays as well (which would mean I was working 7 days a week). I did it once and I was getting burnt out working 7 days a week so I told her that I couldn't keep doing that. It was impacting my social life and that was my day to actually do things.
She said she understood but that there was a lot to do for her to finish her tax stuff by her own deadline (which is months before the actual deadline here) and that it can't be helped.
So last week I'm at home and I get a text from her saying that I had mixed up some invoices and how could that happen? I apologized, said I wasn't sure because I organized them by the notes she left on them (“shipping” “inventory” etc.) and I was careful to separate them the way we wanted (I had asked twice how she wanted them organized) but I'll fix it when I come in next week. She said she wouldn't pay me to do it.
She has pretty strong feelings about paying people to do a job twice and if someone makes a mistake, she doesn't want to pay them to fix it.
So I sent her back my resignation, which was still respectful but addressed my boundaries. I was still nervous about sending it and not knowing what sort of response I'd get so I turned my phone off, listened to my meditations and took a nap. After 4 hours I turned my phone back on to see 5 messages from her saying she was sorry, she spoke in the heat of the moment and she wanted me to come back. She then did a 180 and said I was being mean to drop her when we were close to finishing the books.
That was last Friday and I have not and WILL NOT respond to her. Fuck that.