I have worked for a small marketing firm for a year as an office manger. This experience has really showed me that small businesses can be just as greedy than corporations, usually more if the owner is a control freak. The boss is a nightmare to work with on a daily basis but doesn’t value employees. He verbalizes it but never offers raises and last minute decided we weren’t doing performance bonuses anymore (everyone on the team would have qualified based on our internal metric system). Over Christmas, I was notified that my hours were being cut from 40 to 25 for “cost saving initiatives”. I lost all the PTO and benefits that I had when I signed on as full time. My boss justified it as “You live at home so I know that you probably don’t have as many expenses as someone higher up in your field which gives you some flexibility“. I am 22 and a recent graduate but I am trying to save for a house and build my career, so I felt this was borderline discrimination. Throughout this time, my boss had expected me to be at his beck and call, spreading out my hours when immediate needs arose which prevented me from getting another part time job. My salary wasn’t amazing to begin with but going part time was totally unlivable. I could have filed for unemployment but I just wanted out of there ASAP.
Immediately after I was made aware, I started applying to places like crazy. I thought it would look suspicious with all of my work from home requests, but somehow nobody picked up on the fact I was planning to leave. It took a while, nearly 4 months, 200 applications and 30 interviews, but I was finally offered an entry level marketing coordinator position at a large real estate firm. The pay is around the same but the benefits are amazing and it’s nice to know I’ll be in an established company that doesn’t have a 1.8 star GlassDoor review. There will be checks and balances in place and I can grow. I’m excited for the future, I start Monday. I gave my 2 weeks notice and everyone was shocked that I was leaving. I don’t know how companies expect people to put up with this. My boss hired a part time replacement with no benefits. It’s a shame really but that’s why they can’t keep anyone for more than a year. When I resigned, I specifically made note of my hours being cut as a reason for my departure.