About 3 weeks ago, I left a small(ish) software development company. I was working there for about 2.5 years, and to put it nicely, it was fucked. I was constantly working until ~7ish every night, with no overtime. The stress was immense, I'm 23 and I've started to get gray hairs and I swear it was because of that job.
The amount of responsibility I had, for the pay I was on, was insane. I was put on a new project 1.5 weeks before Xmas break last year, and was expected to get it done before the break. This was easily a project that would have taken 2-3 weeks. I was working until at least ~10PM every night those days.
There was no documentation for ANYTHING. For anyone that is familiar with software development, you know that no documentation is horrible. It was all “cultural knowledge”, so you had to bug a senior developer every time you had a question.
Anyways, I started at a new place a few days ago. And they actually respect me as a person! I can leave at 5 without feeling guilty. In my first week, people are genuinely impressed with how well I work. Why didn't I leave the last place sooner??
If you're reading this (old boss), fuck you for cultivating suck a toxic workplace.