I got a job at a construction company back in winter of this year, and two months ago my best friend joined the company as he was also looking for a new job and we had worked well together in the past (we've both been employee of the month and had won numerous awards at Home Depot for our work ethic).
For the most part, we were working the most difficult section of the company that involved building their largest structures and thus their most profitable ones. No one else wanted to work in the area as many preferred working less physically demanding positions where they could get away with taking more breaks during work hours, but my friend and I pushed through and did very well in our jobs according to the foreman.
Now, as relative newbies and the unofficial leads of the area, management and the foremen were being very careful with us to make sure that we were doing everything by the book and weren't breaking any rules at all. Rules that their current employees frequently break, and even break even worse rules, yet don't even get a slap on the wrist for it;
For example;
- Frequently don't show up or leave early without warning
- Showed up to work blatantly drunk or high but never got written up
- Took frequent and long breaks (15-30 minutes) with their coworkers, sometimes right in front of the foreman and manager
- Left their work station to hide in the back offices and would not return for long periods of time (again, 15-30 minutes)
- Take videos doing work which they frequently put up on social media and have the CEO and his wife like and follow (despite how its against the use to use social media or do any unauthorized recording during work on company property)
While many employees were frequently doing this, management would get on our case for rumours that we weren't using the air hose to clean up after work, or not wearing gloves when we should have been, or using our hammer too much.
Which I found very suspicious…
Then today, I happen to be put working somewhere else in the factory and my best friend ends up teaching the co-op student that they have who started in the summer and is working there until December. He's never been on the factory floor before and has only ever done minor work in the yard since he's just a student and not an official employee.
Also, we notice that we're suddenly being given far less strenuous work that are typically done by other segments of the factory…
This I also found all suspicious, but I tried not to pay attention to it.
However, just today before lunch break, my friend comes up to me with a sullen face and presents me with the termination notice he just received.
Needless to say, I was shocked, confused, and straight-up pissed off.
Here was a guy who had been working so hard in the most difficult section of the company being fired for absolutely no reason when there are far worse employees in the company.
When I thought about how they betrayed my best friend, and considered the recent suspicious moves they were making in the company that made it easier to replace me and fire me without cause, I quit as well.
There was no way that I would be able to live out the rest of my life continuing to work for a company that would betray my best friend like that.
So while we're both not jobless, I don't have a single regret. Just some pent-up frustration over the injustice of it all and how things really should have been better than they ended up.
TL:DR; Best friend and I joined a construction company, put up with the most difficult position there and constant micro-managing from higher-ups while other employees working far easier jobs were getting away with much worse offences (example, a new guy came in and worked while high off shrooms and they just told him to leave for the day and he came back to return to work without any write-up), and after they chose to fire him today and seeing as they were setting up our area to no longer need me, I quit as well.