I moved to Los Angeles from another big city a few years ago and moved into a house with a bunch of friends. With the split costs, my rent was now cheaper than what I was paying in my previous city. I quickly got a job interview at a place in a supply chain position, which was the bachelor's degree I earned. The owner interviewed me and asked me my salary requirements and I told him, “$32,000 per year.” I know this is a low number, but I was a new graduate and it was more than what I was making at my old job. The owner agreed, but then said, “We don't do salaries here, everyone is paid hourly, so $15 per hour is $32,000 if you include all of the paid holidays we give everyone.” That should have been a red flag, but whatever. I knew $15 per hour was Los Angeles' minimum wage, but it was still more than my previous job and the most money I'd been offered before, so I accepted.
The guy I replaced was fired about a month before I came along and, judging by his work on the computer's records, he was a total idiot. I don't blame him, though, because very few people have degrees in supply chain and understand the nuances of the manufacturing, shipping, and receiving process the way I did because I researched the subject for years and was heavily tested on it. As a supply chain specialist, I was in charge of making sure that my facility, plus two other facilities, were manufacturing, shipping, and receiving the exact number of supplies or products according to different schedules, JIT (just-in-time). I cleaned up the entire process, beginning to end, in a way that all of my work was finished by at least a half hour early every day. The owner saw me sitting around one day looking through the ULINE catalog online and asked me if I completed X, Y, and Z tasks. I told him yes, I streamlined the process so that was all completed at least a half hour before the end of the day. He checked the ERP statuses on the computer and told me, “Well, if you finish a half hour early every day then you need to go home a half hour early.” Well, if I leave a half hour early every day, then my annual income has now dramatically dropped. From this day on, I started giving 1 less fuck per working day.
Six months later came my employee review. The owner said everything looked good, except I never took any of my PTO and that I was, “Coming in late by between 1 minute and 9 minutes about once per month.” The thing is, I rode public transit to work which required one bus and one lightrail. Every once in a while, things were late, but I didn't care because I got paid hourly and I would be the one losing money, anyway, not him. I told him that I was also aware of the policy that the more tardies you got, the less likely you were to receive a parking pass for the month, so go ahead and take me out of the running for a parking pass because I didn't even drive to work. He obviously didn't like how the one thing he could use as leverage (a parking pass) was something I didn't care about, let alone was something I could use. He asked me why I never used my PTO and I told him it was because I was always busy during the day and nobody could take over my position for the day because I had no backups and nobody had the skills to do my job. He told me he'd gladly take over for any time I took off.
Well, a couple weeks later he approved my request to take the later half of the day off so I could go see a lecture. Before I left, I came up to him and said, “I'm leaving now so be prepared to put in the orders before the end of the day.” He was surprised and said, “You took PTO today?” He looked at his calendar and said, “Oh, I must have forgot to set a reminder for myself. I'll start right now, actually, can you show me how to do a couple things?” I stick around and he has no idea what he's doing and I end up staying for the next 3 hours. I miss the lecture I had planned on going. He apologized to me and said that he'd add the PTO back to the hours he owed me. Another red flag.
My one-year anniversary rolls around and my annual review comes around. Nothing is bad on my record and he brings up me not taking any of the PTO again. I told him the last time that happened, I couldn't even use it. He remembered and said, “Oh yeah, well, who do you think here is capable of substituting you for the day?”
“Nobody,” I bluntly said. “I do not trust that anyone here has the skills or knowledge to do this job properly.” I was also implying that he, the owner, was also incapable, based on his previous demonstration. He said he would work on that (I knew he wasn't gonna do shit). I asked him if I was eligible for a raise, something above minimum wage, and he said no because it wasn't in the budget. I went home and immediately started looking for other jobs.
I submitted an application for another supply chain position and that very night, I got a phone call around 7 PM. “I'm sorry to call you in the evening, but I just got your application and I'm very interested in talking to you,” the guy on the phone said.
“That's fine,” I replied. “Are you working the night shift?”
“Oh, no, I'm the director of the company and I'm just checking my emails at home. When are you available for an interview?”
I told him I'd be available the next day, a Thursday, at lunch and he agreed. I go into work, told the owner I was adding 1 hour to my lunch, which he was fine with because I'd still be able to take care of the end of the day tasks. I go into this new business and the director of the company just said, “Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice. You know I've read your resume so I know your education and experience, but just describe to me what you do every day at your current job.” I tell him my day to day after about 12 minutes and then he says, “Well, that's exactly what I want you to do here. I'm offering you $24 per hour with full benefits. What do you think?” I accepted it immediately without haggling. “So here's the thing, we need for you to start as soon as possible, but I understand you're still working at the other place. Can you possibly start immediately 2 weeks from today if we get you onboarded right now?” I told him I had been training my replacement at my old job (a lie) and I was actually ready to start in one week. I get onboarded, sign my contract, get a copy of it with signatures, and get an Uber back to my office, proofreading my contract on the way to my current job. Everything is there: guaranteed start date, hourly rate, benefits package, and the signatures from me and the director.
I walk into my office and finish my tasks for the day. After everything is finished, I read my current contract for my current job along with the employee handbook (a PDF on the computer) to make sure everything was clear, and exactly what I wanted to see was right there on the page: “As an at-will employee, your employment can be terminated without cause and without notice by the employer or yourself, the employee.” I print this page out, fold it up, and put it in my desk drawer.
The next day was a Friday. This would be my last day at work, but I acted like everything was completely normal. I was the last person to leave the facility on Fridays and was responsible for locking up. After the last person left, I double checked that I completed all of my duties for the day. Everything was done. I opened my desk drawer, pulled out that one single page I printed out before from the employee handbook that read, “As an at-will employee, your employment can be terminated without cause and without notice by the employer or yourself, the employee.” I get a black ballpoint pen and write on the back, “I quit,” and sign my name along with the date. I neatly fold it up and wrap it around my company credit cards and the company key. I put a binder clip around the whole thing, holding it in my place. I go to the front door, punch in the alarm code to arm the building, and lock the door from the inside. I drop the resignation letter, credit card, and key bundle into the mailbox so it falls to the floor before the building is armed. Then I take off running down the street, actually running. The way I see it, if my current boss wasn't willing to actually let me take my actual PTO that he promised me, I'd just go on my own vacation on my own terms.
The following Monday, I'm in vacation mode and I know I have to cherish it for the week. My old boss tries to call me and I keep ignoring him. A few of the guys at work I actually like text me and tell me that I made it into the company-wide daily report (pic included); it was kinda bullshit because I brought up how I couldn't use my own PTO, didn't have a replacement, and was denied for a raise previously and nothing about any of my requests were actually worked on. A few other guys tell me how funny my method of quitting was, how I was their hero, they owe me a beer, etc. I have a good laugh. Everything at the old job starts falling apart; things are late, they can't find certain things that should have been sitting around for the past week, things get lost in shipments, incoming and outgoing inventory is completely off count, none of the information on the ERP systems can be trusted, etc.
That's pretty much the anti-work part of the story, but if you're wondering what happened after that, here ya go. It's pretty boring.
This is where it gets kinda fucked up. About 3 months into my new job, the pandemic hits so I get sent to work-from-home since I could do my job from laptop. Everything is fine. I text a few people from my old job and ask them how it is and they say business is real slow but they all have to come into the facility to work, nobody is allowed to work from home. It makes sense because many of them work in some sort of industrial role, but those guys also make minimum wage so I thought it was terrible that they couldn't get some sort of break.
The pandemic starts to get more serious as spring progresses and my current director at my current job gives me a call. “I've made sure you're taken care of, so don't worry about money, I want to make that clear before I say this, but our entire facility is closing as of today.” He proceeds to tell me that because I worked for more than one fiscal quarter, I'm eligible for a severance check and that because I was laid off and not fired, I'm eligible for the maximum unemployment. Well, on top of the severance and unemployment checks, I unexpectedly got approved for multiple federal emergency COVID payments twice a month from the government, plus multiple one-time stimulus payments from the state and federal government. I was making the most money in my entire life. I call up one of my friends from my old job and ask them how it is. Business was slower than ever, but the owner was dead-set on toughing it out so he closed one of the three facilities and crammed everyone into the two facilities; everyone was required to come to work and if they quit, they were ineligible for unemployment. I felt terrible because I was getting paid more than double than most of these guys for NOT going to work. A few months later, another facility was shut down and some people were laid off, but because they were only making minimum wage, their payments weren't that much. The old business was now down to 1 facility. I checked in on the company again recently out of curiosity and they were either shutting down or moving to a smaller place and were giving away all of their office equipment. By then, I had accepted another work-from-home position from a different company for the highest salary I've received, so far. My new position is also a job in which I've done the least amount of work ever. It's been over 2 years so far and I've got no complaints about it at all.
