For the past three months I've worked at a small product-testing lab that specializes in vitamins and supplements. Client companies send in samples of their products and we verify that they are not full of arsenic, lead, mercury, etc. I started in the 'prep' lab preparing the samples but last month I was moved to their wet chemistry lab where they do a bunch of little side tests I've had to learn. There's also a microbiology department. When I started there were 17 or so employees.
Three weeks after I started, the sample load plummeted. Now each day we don't have enough for even 8 hours of work when previously employees worked overtime to get results out on time. Shortly after, the chemistry manager (my boss) was fired. She had been no-call no-showing a lot but when she did show up she was often drunk. After she was gone the semi-retired boomer owner of the company came in and started making everyone in chemistry teach him how to do their jobs (his degree is in business so he had no prior chemistry experience). He now runs the heavy metals testing (MS Spectroscopy) machine.
Soon, three more people were fired, two from the front office and one from micro. Coincidence or not, they were all the company's only non-white employees. One had been there for nine years…
People were upset. When I started we had six employees in the chemistry department, including me. In all the drama, all 3 senior employees fled weeks ago.
Now the chemistry department is composed of the company owner, an employee moved over from micro, one loyal employee, a person who started two weeks ago and is leaving in January, a women who is on her last week, and me, who walked out on Friday putting in my two-weeks notice. Excluding the owner, the most senior employee of that crew has been there for 4 months. The chemistry department is screwed.
This company pays $18/hr and requires a degree and provides abysmal benefits. There is never enough work for a full day. Yesterday I finished all the samples I had an hour into my shift and read a book (the lab has already been cleaned three times over). The owner of the company walks around calling his employees kids, singing stupid songs about us, and giving us pointless tasks to distract us from the fact that all the clients are gone, along with telling us to violate our SOPs to get what little work we have out faster. There are no promotions to be had and no raises for learning anything new (just a yearly raise I've been told employees didn't actually get until they threatened to quit).
It looks like I will be going back to my previous job in animal welfare, but I'm not mad. The starting pay is less, but there is upward mobility, benefits, skills I want to know, and a fulfilling purpose. Turns out dealing with literal dogshit is better than this stupid lab.
edit: fixed a date
TLDR; lab company screwed itself over with poor management and fired/lost all its valuable employees and most of its clients, leaving a skeleton crew of new hires.