Back in the day I worked for a trucking company. I was in charge of their computer systems, having previously written some software for them. I decided to end my company & just work for a company & not have the headaches of running everything. I quickly found out that after working for yourself, it's hard to go back to having a boss.
When we negotiated my salary I told the guy what I needed to come over. He agreed to the amount but wanted to pay me a base salary of 60% of that amount an income-based bonus for the rest. The problem I had was that the % he used to get to that last 40% was based on very aggressive projections of income for the next year. I had no idea if they were reasonable. He said not to worry, if it didn't look like they were close I could simply take the 100% salary.
A few months in it was obvious that his projections were complete bullshit. I told him I wanted to go to straight salary, he was pissed, but said ok. Working for him was a nightmare. He was the kind of boss that would look at a new project that I had spearheaded & completed & there could only be 2 outcomes… if it was a success, he would take credit for it and if he deemed it a failure, I would take the blame. Even projects that were his “brainchild” that I didn't think were a worthwhile priority. And he had lots of bullshit pet projects like that.
I stuck it out for 3 years. During that time I never had an increase in pay. When I would bring up the subject, he'd say that I should have opted for the salary/bonus option. I pointed out that even after 3 years the bonus would still not have made me whole, but he just ignored that. So I told him that I expected a reasonable raise after 3 years service for my starting salary. My anniversary came up & he offered me a 3% raise. I told him that I was going to be leaving the company. He said that I can't do that, they relied on my heavily for all of the software projects that weren't complete. I first said that he should have thought of that when he decided to give me a 3% raise after 3 years. But I also said that while I was quitting, I planned to start up a consulting firm, writing new software etc and I would be able to continue working for the trucking company as a consultant on an hourly basis. He was relieved until we discussed my hourly wage. Now I was the one determining pay & the wage I offered was a 50% increase in what he was paying me. He was angry at first but the realized that he had no choice. In the end we signed a contract whereby they guaranteed me 30 hours a week of work and both parties had to give 6 months notice to break the contract. It was an insane contract for them to sign, but I was thrilled. My new company had a single client guaranteeing 75% of my time at a great billing rate. Not as good as my typical rate but still, it was a good start.
After I left, the son of the owner of the company wanted to do an exit interview with me. All he wanted to know was why I was leaving. I told him that he already knew the answer. We both knew the guy in charge was a moron. Six months later he was fired and he retired, too old to find new work. He played it off as a great thing because now he had all of this free time. The new boss was a great guy & I wished I'd held onto the job but life goes on.