Sorry for the wall of text. I've been keeping this in – I just want to be heard.
I have a chronic disability. I had to take FMLA per my doctor's advice. While on FMLA, the company's insurance for short term disability kept asking my doctor for more information before granting me my short term disability payments (ultimately never granted). The doctor was pissed because there was no more information to add and I was on the fastest track possible for seeing specialists and then I needed surgery after and they were driving my doctor mad with requests for the same thing that he just answered. After 1 or 2 months of me and my doctor doing everything this insurance company asked for, I still hadn't received any disability compensation. I lose my apartment and due to the Florida housing crisis, I was priced out of my city. I filed a transfer request with my boss following company procedure and relocated to be with my father. A month after I move, I receive a call from my boss's boss saying I am required to return to the building for work immediately. Apparently the person who was filling my shoes experienced a stroke due to the stress. When I inform him I had filed a transfer request over a month ago with my supervisor and I had relocated I never heard back from anyone. When I went to check the status of some of the jobs I applied for that were compatible with my transfer request, I found I was blacklisted from the company for being “fired”. Damn, okay. I go to file for unemployment but they told the state Department of Economic Opportunity (DOE) that I quit – I never quit – so I'm now ineligible for unemployment benefits. There is nobody to contact at my employer because they “restructured” a year ago, got rid of our company HR department, and outsourced it all to a company. Communication with this HR company is only accessible through an internal company website portal, which, I was locked out of for being “fired”. I emailed everyone I could at my previous employer and I have gotten 0 responses.
It should be noted I won leadership awards with this company. I was well liked by my staff and improved the working conditions for all my staff and peers. I was constantly consulted with because I got the company's state of the art automation systems calibrated so it was the best performing in the country and used data analysis to detect potential issues and corrected them before they impacted performance. They consulted with me to help improve the efficiency of their inventory management and dispatching software because I was one of the most effective people in the company at utilizing it. I was doing 3 peoples jobs because people kept quitting and they couldn't find replacement staff. I saved the company 10's of thousands of dollars with many of my buildings optimizations. On top of this, to even get the full time position I had, I was required to get a BS degree, “any BS is acceptable” they said. Two weeks after my promotion to full time after completing my degree they brought me into the office to tell me what great work I was doing but If I wanted another promotion I was required to get a Engineering degree as well due to policy changes – at this point I'm already in debt over $30,000 for the education this company already required I get. They weren't willing to help pay for any more of my education (I got a whopping $2000 of tuition assistance over the years, oh, and they want me to pay that back now).
Fast forward to today and I'm a further $14,000 in debt (credit card debt) trying to survive and my car is about to be repossessed. My life feels ruined because I did what the company told me to do. And I was never able to get the medical treatment I needed and my health is even worse now. I cant even afford a co-pay. Fortunately I've had several good interviews recently but man, I was at a point in my life where I was close to being able to finally own a home. Now I have less than I did as a teenager, with terrible credit and massive debt. Good thing I have a degree! /s
Oh, and a couple weeks ago I see a Linkedin story the company did on my co-worker; They were celebrating this persons promotion to a position I badly wanted for years. She was dumb as a box of rocks, was constantly coming to me for help with her job, and had NO degree (Not even associates) but I guess because she was pretty and made all the guys blush with her “hot” Cuban accent (quotes represent words from my boss and peer) I guess that makes her qualified. This is just my opinion, but it seems the company just wanted to showcase how diverse they were, and to be truthful they were diverse. The union side did lots of great things for women and people of color and I was really proud to be part of a company that was uplifting traditionally oppressed people, despite the fact they abused and underpaid me. It brought me pride to make the working conditions better for the union employees and management alike. Unfortunately, I was in management and had no union protections. This whole Linkedin post really just rubbed salt in my gaping, infected wound this company left me with.
I feel worn out, abused, and depressed. I gave this company everything. Now my health is even worse because of the deplorable working conditions and I have no health care to deal with it and cant afford the type of diet required for my medical conditions. I even got Covid at this shithole because of their horrendous working conditions; at least I got compensation for the quarantine period. I feel like I was “the good hammer” they used me and abused me and refused to let me escalate my career because I was able to do the jobs of 3 people in my shift because I am a hard worker, a self taught quick learner, and intelligent. They didn't want to have to fill those other peoples roles so they could keep their ever shrinking budget in check. Why are they punishing me like this? I did nothing wrong but try to stay alive.
Employer is one of the big logistics companies in the US that made record profits during the pandemic while telling everyone we couldn't repair the leaks in the building roofs because of new cost saving measures. SMH