Long story, tried to sum it up
Backstory, I am a 24M, I have a wife and two kids (2 and 6 months). I was laid off right around when Covid hit and I was having a hard time finding good work. I have lots of experience in different aspects of construction and carpentry so I started freelancing as a way to feed my family and pay my mortgage and bills. After about a year of looking for a job and freelancing, I started doing lots of work for one person in general (my current employer). I remodeled various rooms for him so he could sell his house and by the end of it, he hired me to work for his business (low voltage wire and smart home stuff for very wealthy people).
There are lots of different products that we use and my boss was a very hands off trainer. His style of training was showing you how, not answering much of the questions I have then throwing you out into the sharks, so I started teaching myself how to program security systems, cameras, home theaters, set up routers, huge server rooms myself. Completely out of my realm. And I was very open about what i knew, so when I was out by myself, I’d always call if I had any questions, he never answers and he would say something along the lines of, “feed you to the sharks, you’ll sink or swim, 3 years and you’ll get it”. This was my first red flag, but I stayed on anyway.
Few months later he gives me a pay raise, gets me a new work truck, and an apprentice, to train and teach him about Wi-Fi and all the other things that I barely (or didn’t) know how to do. I was very upfront with my apprentice and let him know that I am a very untrained employee and I have no business teaching any of this stuff and asked him to not get frustrated when I didn’t know how to answer his questions. I got a pay raise I didn’t deserve for “training” an employee, when all I did was have this guy watch me, while I try to figure stuff out that I didn’t understand. This is right around when I started getting angry texts “you’re going to slow”, “it’s not that hard”, etc, then he’d give the next day off. I find this very unprofessional, and I told him that, It didn’t make a difference, it still happens. This was my second red flag, stayed on anyway, but started being much more careful. I started letting him know what was going on, what we were doing, if we had any issues, multiple times throughout the day. Sometimes he was understanding, other times not so much.
Few months later all 3 of us went out of town to do some work for a day or two, and this is when I started to question my situation. One of the nights we were out of town, we decided to go out to dinner then go over to a bar to watch the football game. I soon found out that I, the 24 year old, have to be the responsible one when my 30yr coworker and boss were pounding drinks. I was trying to reason with them “we have to work tomorrow guys, long day, we need our sleep” they agreed so the plan was to leave after the game. Not 1 minute after the game did they say, “you can go if you want, we’ll catch an Uber, we want a couple more” so I leave for the hotel and go to bed. I wake up at 6am ready for the long day when I had 40 missed calls and 25 texts from my coworker. I walk out the bed room and see a random man laying half way out the patio and half way in the living room, it was winter in a ski town. My coworker was no where to be found. I found him sleeping in the bed of my work truck after he and my boss got in to a fist fight in the middle of the street, belligerentlay drunk and my boss locked him out of the room. They took the day while I worked the long day myself. 3rd red flag, but stayed on anyway.
Few months later I get a angry text about me driving the work truck around after hours. The only driving I’ve done in that truck after hours is the agreed to the store if I needed and I always reimbursed what I used in gas. I was being accused of take the truck out of town, which I’ve never done after work hours and I told him that. He then told me I was lying and gave me the following day off. I wake up in the morning to an apology text “sorry my wife did, just watch your after hours driving.” I was prepared to quit on the spot, but instead I just got my personal truck up and running and never took the work one home again, and started looking for a new job. That was the 4th red flag, and I’m now looking.
Today I got a text from my boss about something being wrong on a TV that we hung together. I told him while installing it with my construction knowledge that it wasn’t going to hold and he said “I’ve been doing this for 15 years, it’ll hold.” It didn’t. And it’s my fault. I reminded him of that and he said “you’re making excuses” then started complaining about an outlet cover I installed at his house “it’s the wrong color!” “Sorry boss, it was the one sitting right next to the outlet, I just assumed you left it there for me to install it.” “Stop making excuses! You also mess up on this satellite dish, I didn’t want it on the roof” “well the only mount you gave me was a roof mount, and I told you that when I installed it.” He is know blaming me for his mistakes. This is the 5th red flag. I’m still looking for a new job but I can’t find one and afford to feed my family. Any advice would help