TLDR: Boss lies about a lot of things and I keep catching him in his own BS without him knowing. I don't trust him and since he doesn't even answer the phone for employment verification, I just want to get fired. He moved for reasons I don't understand and does a lot of micromanaging and annoying crap. I have my own business I want to start but I'm stuck under his thumb. What do?
This situation sucks. I'm not venting as much as trying to get a consensus on the situation.
I was about to quit this company I'm currently working at when the COVID-19 pandemic started. At that time, I saw everyone getting laid off, but MAKING MORE MONEY while I continued working from home. People getting paid for doing nothing. (I have no issue with it except not being able to enjoy it.) I got to work from home on some bullshit projects that I came up with, that my boss billed for. He did really well off of all the billable hours that I was able to generate during that first lock down. Actually, he did better during that time than he usually does.
In April of 2020, he asked if I would go to an emergency room and install some of our equipment. Mind you, this was at a time where people were wiping down Amazon boxes before they brought them into the house. It wasn't clear how the virus was spreading, but I said “ok fine,” and took the risk. When I was leaving, his wife, who also is part owner of the company, called me and erroneously reamed me out for something “not being done,” and when I asked her to check to make sure on the phone, she wouldn't do it. Then later she lied and said I spelled the name of the town wrong. More lies. I let it go though and figured that “this is all COVID stress.” Really don't like feeling I'm risking my life to save a business and then getting yelled at for it.
After everything opens back up, my boss and his wife announce that they are moving out of state to “pursue building the business in another market!” I saw them sell their home at a healthy profit, and buy another home that was about twice as expensive in a state with no income tax. Meanwhile, I'm told that “due to the virus there will be no raise this year.” I let it go. I shouldn't have, but I let it go. It's been two years now and the guy has not build anything out in his neck of the woods at all.
Micromanaging nuisances abound as time presses on through 2020 and 2021. During this time, business explodes. I'm busy as hell. I'm facilitating installations alone, I'm managing content across several platforms alone, I'm handling all support issues alone. My boss strings me along for a year saying he's going to hire a second person. He lines up interviews and I find a candidate that I like. Smart guy that just graduated, smart, eager to learn. However, a random dipshit with a padded resume shows up. After a quick interview with this guy he decides to hire him on the spot, without telling me. We'll call him Pete.
Pete is loud and obnoxious, and generally doesn't know when to shut the hell up. The first thing he says to me when he arrives is “I have to apologize as I'm covered in cat shit.” I was bewildered why anyone would say anything like that, what he meant was cat hair. He was. Really bad.
I don't know what was specifically going on with this person but during the month he was with us, before getting himself fired, he let it slip that my boss had hired him at 10k more than he had me.
I couldn't fucking believe it.
I have literally traveled all over the USA for this company. I have come in early and left late to do installations and provide support. I have done a lot, and continued to for some time, while I keep seeing this guy overcharge customers, pawn off my abilities while telling me “there's no more money,” and “you don't want that free money, no, you want to go to installations and work for me” type of horse shit. I threatened to leave and he matched my salary to what the new hire had. The other guy washed out shortly afterwards… I was expecting to be above where he was as I was supervising him, but I let it go.
He also keeps saying whatever he has to on my behalf to make sales. I don't sell Microsoft Excel, but to make a sale he told someone I would train them on how to use that software. I flat out told a client that “I don't train people in software that I don't sell.” This specific instance has created a ton of headaches for me since then. This has now been pawned off on another person in my company that absolutely does not do this. When I asked a guy in sales what the agreement was, he forwarded me the invoice that they paid for. I couldn't believe how much he ripped these people off. He padded EVERYTHING. He added about 400 dollars to the screen we sold, about 150 to the content player, he charged about 5k for my labor to mount the thing on the wall, and gets 30 dollars a month in access.
I got about 40 bucks for the amount of time I was there.
The kicker to all of this? I was able to establish that he got 60k… for free… from the government. A PPP loan… that was FORGIVEN. He didn't LOSE ANY MONEY AT ALL. HE MADE MORE!! AND ALSO TOOK A FREE LOAN! AND LIED AND SAID HE COULDN'T GIVE ME A RAISE…
Since I've worked for this guy, I've noticed that no one leaves on good terms. No one. There was a girl who left after she was tired of dealing with the unpleasantness – someone kept calling asking to verify employment on her behalf. HE WOULDN'T EVEN TAKE THE PHONE CALL. This rep kept calling for about two weeks, until I finally just said “that person worked here and they were great.” But he wouldn't even verify employment. This person didn't do anything wrong – my boss is just a dick head.
There are a couple of things I'm debating trying to use to move out of here – my boss had decided to buy storage space on the other side of the city. I have to drive there with my car to get our company vehicle all the time. This has been annoying as when I do installs, he doesn't give me more time as everything is spread across town now, he just keeps things as they are. I'm waking up even earlier. He's constantly putting me in positions with customers where I have to justify his line of bullshit. And he's 1k miles away in the meantime, soaking in the sun.
Since he isn't going to even give me the reference I deserve, shouldn't I just get fired on purpose? I hate this bullshit system. I've seen this guy do nothing but lie to his customers and take money that he somehow has tricked himself into thinking that he deserves. He's billing me out and making 87 dollars an hour profit off of my work, and that's without installation. On those days he rakes in about 4900 dollars profit.
I don't trust him, or like him, and I want out of this business. He sucks, his micromanaging is not productive, and I don't want to deal with having to be put into situations where his lies are something that I have to answer to.