I'm a PA at a studio. Classified as a contractor. I have worked there for over 1 year now, and tried very hard to be a great employee. When I'm there I am proactive, friendly, independent. There have been various times other coworkers didn't show up and I had to do all the work. For example, one of the last times I was there, a higher paid coworker was supposed to help do a big project with me but decided to take a random long lunch, so I ended up doing most of the work. A supervisor even said that they would remember this and appreciated how hard I work.
In general I love working there but the worst part by far is my manager. I feel like she expects perfection and if someone isn't perfect, they're fired or not asked to come in much. I witnessed 4 other PAs be hired then fired during the last year, and with all of them it came down to the fact that they weren't learning fast enough, their personalities weren't fun enough, or some other arbitrary thing. It makes me super stressed about making any mistake, and I do make mistakes, definitely not perfect. I'm autistic and adhd, which my manager does not know, so she probably just thinks I'm weird or not trying hard enough. I could go on about her behavior, like how she's chastised a coworker publicly, does not tolerate any questions about hours, and the number of people who have personally mentioned to me that they find her cruel or bad at management, and the fact that she was one of the direct reasons a few peopke quit… but I digress.
My job goes on break every winter. They came back from winter break almost 3 weeks ago, I am the only PA they haven't asked back yet — have the work email on my phone so have been keeping up. I hate that my manager is like this. She hasn't even had the decency to be like “hey just so you know, things are pretty slow right now but we will likely need you soon” or something. She just hasn't said anything. I'm okay with things being slow, but find it disrespectful to not even get a heads up about it. Sometimes it feels like she doesn't see me or some of her other employees as actual human beings.