Hey guys. I just wanted to share a story with you about my recent experience relocating for a job. It's bad. It's also quite long, so buckle up.
TLDR: I left my job of almost two years, drove across the country for another job. When I arrived in the new town, the apartment hadn't been represented accurately. It was disgusting and run down, and I broke my lease the next morning. Found an apartment complex while driving around town with one unit left, which was exactly what I was looking for and I took it.
Started the new job, things were fine at first, then boss turned out to be an insecure micromanaging psychopath. Took his bad days out on me, insulted me, humiliated me in front of my coworkers, reprimanded me for making a pun. Told me where I could and couldn't park in an unmarked lot, what music I could listen to, hovered behind me every 15 minutes, watched Tiktok all day and still don't know what his actual job was. Told me people didn't like the way I talked, would put me on the spot and corner me. Told me he expected more from someone with my background and that I'm basically a junior at what I do.
Diagnosed with autism as a child and tried to bring it up in order to possibly get accommodations and help explain how I communicate. Made things worse, and I couldn't afford to see a doctor. They then tried to make me sign a form saying that I decline accommodations and that I would need to fully perform the duties of my role after this. Basically a nightmare job scenario.
Had enough about two days ago, thought I was about to have a heart attack from stress, walked out on the job the Friday of labor day weekend. And here I am now. I don't have a plan. I'm scared, and don't want to be homeless. If anyone in the game or film industry is looking for a 3D artist, I'm now looking for a job.
The full version:
About six months ago I was working at an ad agency. It started off amazing. We had a fancy office in the most expensive part of town, the free snacks were plentiful and I basically got to do super cool stuff with racecars all day. Everyone was getting promotions left and right, and it really felt like I'd made it in life.
And then the honeymoon phase wore off and I realized that working till midnight every night, working on the weekends and even on Christmas was ABSOLUTELY unacceptable. The turnover was constant and despite working my ass off and putting my entire heart and soul into this job in hopes of a really good performance review, our one year reviews kept getting delayed. And I kept inquiring. Eventually, I was told that there wasn't going to be any raises and that performance and compensation were not related. That really sucked. A while later, I received a note from my landlord saying that my rent was basically going to go up considerably. That also sucked. So I started the search for new apartments. As well as new jobs. I basically had 4 months before I had to renew my lease and get stuck with another whole year there, at the increased rate. But I'd broadened my job search so I was a bit scared of signing a new lease if I needed to relocate. And at the same time, I couldn't sign any other leases because I didn't know where I was going to end up. And I didn't make enough at my current job to be able to afford to stay there with the rent increase. It was a LOT of stuff all at once.
Then the countdown was down to about 8 days. One of the interviews I'd had went super well and they were going to fly me out for a final interview. And this interview was in a part of the country that I'd always wanted to live in. I'm not going to say too much because I want to stay anonymous.
So, I was sitting at my desk on Friday when my phone started ringing. I just got an offer from another company I'd interviewed with, and for exactly how much I was asking salary wise. But I froze up. The other company had paid for my hotel and my plane ticket and I didn't want to just screw them over and tell them I wasn't going to fly out anymore. I also didn't want to just take that job without seeing the area first. So I explained this to the person on the phone and asked if I could have 2 days to think it over because I didn't want to make a decision on the spot. They said that they needed an answer right then, and maybe that was a red flag in itself, but I said I couldn't give them an answer right now and they pumped the brakes on the offer. It sucked, but whatever.
I catch my flight for the interview the next week and about 30 minutes before we land, I saw all kinds of insane scenery I'd never seen before. I was sold on this place before I even got off of the plane. Haha. My best bud from college picks me up from the airport, since he moved here a few years ago and we spend the entire day exploring the city, seeing all the cool sights and I was absolutely blown away. I knew that this was where I had to live. He drops me off at the hotel, I sleep, and then wake up for the interview.
I'm going to shorten the next bit so that I can get right to the good stuff. The interview went alright. I take an uber back and hang out with my friend a bit more and he drops me back to the airport and I fly home. I get the call a few days later and got the job.
We begin talks about relocation and they tell me that relocation will actually come in on my first paycheck, not up front. Okay, I get it. They don't want someone taking the money and running. It sucks, but it made sense. The issue was that because of my start date and end date at my current company, I was basically going to go about a month and a half- maybe even two months without a paycheck, I can't exactly remember what it was. I also didn't at all have the money to relocate. So what did I do? I decided to sell nearly everything I owned and only take what I could fit in my car. This would come back to bite me in the ass later. I did have some essentials that I could ship later, so I decided to pack them up and leave them at my moms place for the time being. But I didn't have the money for a 1400$ uhaul, and I didn't want to ask my mom for help.
I did receive my final paycheck from my previous job, so I used that to buy some moving supplies. I also made a bit from selling my stuff. Between all of this, I was searching for apartments…. and this part of the country was not cheap. I'd looked and looked and finally found one. A bit older, but it seemed nice enough. Then came the fees. This took a sizeable chunk out of my moving fund. There was a holding fee. An application fee. And then some other dumb fees. Whatever. I didn't have time to think because I needed to move. I frantically spent the next couple of days selling more of my things, saying my goodbyes, and packing things up. My mom and stepfather were a MASSIVE help in all of this and I couldn't have gotten here without their help. They helped me pack, take stuff back to their place and load up my car.
I was basically driving to the other side of the country, and have a small sedan, so I ended up buying a rooftop cargo box to fit more stuff in my car. It gets a bit blurry around here too, but basically I sold everything I needed to, Emptied out my old apartment, garage, and loaded up my car with all of my absolute essentials to move into this new state. I stayed over at my moms place the night before I would begin my drive across the country and it was nice. It hadn't hit me yet. I actually ended up staying up a bit later than I had planned, trying to pack my car as efficiently as I could, putting things in specific places so that unloading would be easier and I'd know what is what and where it would go. It was late, the garage was open, I was tired and that's when it happened.
A moth flew into my car.
And anybody that knows me can tell you….. I hate bugs. I was tired. And I lost it. I unloaded the entire car and searched for about half an hour until I found that damn moth and made sure that it flew out and didn't have any friends. Lol. I loaded my car back up so fast I probably set some sort of a world record.
Anyway. We had dinner, I went to bed and woke up early. It was starting to sink in. Ugh. My mom had bought me a ton of snacks for the trip and I'd put my car fridge on the front seat and loaded it up. There were drinks, sandwiches even. My mom is the best. So when it was time to say our goodbyes, man that sucked ass. And looking back on everything now, I kind of wish I'd stayed. But I know she also wanted me to move out here and was excited for me. We said our goodbyes and I began my drive.
I had planned a few stops in various states and my first stop was 14 hours away, where I'd be staying with my buddy for two days. 14 hours later, it was nighttime, I was nearly there and it was so dark out I couldn't see anything. But I kept seeing signs about altitude levels. I had a feeling I was driving through mountains or something, but I couldn't tell. It was still pretty cool. I finally got to his place we spent the next two days catching up, and he showed me around town and overall had an absolute blast. I hadn't seen him in so long so it was really nice. And then once again, it was time to leave, so I said my goodbyes, and again, the goodbyes hurt but I went on my way. I purchased a go pro while I was there and it ended up being worth it because starting at this part of the drive, it was absolutely breathtaking. I never knew that the US had scenery this gorgeous and it was honestly a life changing drive. I enjoyed every second of it. I arrived at my next stop 12 hours later, which was an airbnb and would be headed to my destination the next day.
I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. It was an incredibly cozy airbnb, but for some reason, I just couldn't sleep. I kept waking up, sweaty, heart beating out of my chest and anxious. Morning rolled around and I had another 14 hour drive ahead of me. This time, I didn't have anyone to say goodbye to and it felt a little lonely. But I started my drive. And not too far in, I started dozing off. Not good. It was rainy too, so I pulled into a gas station and tried to nap a bit. No luck. I decided to split the drive into 4 hour blocks at major cities to trick my mind into thinking my “destination” wasn't too far away, and it definitely worked. Each time I stopped I grabbed an energy drink. It probably wasn't the healthiest but I needed to get there. But each time I stopped, the scenery got even more gorgeous. When I got to the neighboring state of my destination, I'd started to see mountains so tall I was getting vertigo. I actually had to pull over because I was dizzy. I chilled for a bit, walked around, took in the scenery and then got back on my way.
Then I crossed the border into my destination state. After three days of driving, I'd finally made it. I was so damn stoked, and that's when, despite the scenery being the best damn scenery I'd ever seen, it somehow took that, crushed it, and then multiplied it by about a million. I was wide awake on 3 hours of sleep and honestly, I think it was more so the amazing sights keeping me awake than the redbull. And it just kept getting better because the sun was setting. I was so stoked to finally be here, speechless by how beautiful this place was and just happier than I'd ever been in my entire life. I was super stoked to unload my car, get my playstation set up and call everybody once I arrived and show them my new place.
So, by this point it was completely dark and I was about 15 minutes out from my new apartment. I called up my buddy that was going to help me unload my car, and we were both super excited to see each other and ready to get everything moved in. I hadn't eaten anything all day so I was ready to maybe try an exciting new restaurant in this new city I'd be calling home.
And this is where the shit hits the fan.
I arrive at the complex and it's pretty dark so I'm driving around trying to find the mailbox where my keys to the place are. I drive around the complex for about 20 minutes and finally find it and grab my keys. Now, I declined when they'd asked me if I wanted covered parking because I wanted to see my first paycheck and budget things out before I added an extra 200$ to my rent. Yeah. That was a mistake. I spend the next 30 minutes driving around this complex trying to find a spot to park and almost all of the spots were either taken, or people were taking up multiple spots because of poor parking. I was starting to get a bit agitated, and then finally decided to just park in a covered open spot near my unit. My buddy arrives and calls me up. He says he had just parked but doesn't know where to go. So I tell him to find this weird courtyard/pond area and he starts walking around. He still can't find me, so he asks me if I can hear the frogs. There were a shit ton of frogs croaking, and so he told me to follow the frogs. Lol. We do this for about 15 minutes before we finally find each other.
We make our way back to the area around my unit and go to my car to asses how we're going to unload things when a woman starts yelling at us. Apparently I'd parked in her spot. That's fair, so I moved my car back into the parking lot, turned on my hazards and decided that we should take a look at the place, because honestly, while the parking situation sucked, I was excited to finally see my new apartment.
I opened the door and my heart pretty much instantly sank. The pictures they'd shown me online looked nothing like what this place looked like. I looked over at my friend and didn't even know what to say. It was literally the most run down, disgusting place I'd ever seen. And I was going to be paying 2400$ a month for this. I tried to make the best of the situation and turned on the lights just to check out the kitchen. The cabinets were moldy. The fridge had some disgusting stains on it and was painfully loud. The ceiling had strange stains as well, and there were some weird fixtures on the ceiling that were brown, red and speckled. I didn't even want to know. There was some shelving by the bathroom where towels would probably sit on, and all those shelves were bowed and set in crooked. I went into the bathroom, which had an array of lightbulbs, and each lightbulb was a different weird color, and the paint was all mismatched, and the baseboards were coming off of the wall. I went into the bedroom and the carpet was disgusting, everything was disgusting, went back into the living room and didn't even have any words.
My buddy tried to comfort me, he told me that maybe it's not so bad…. but we both knew that it was. So we went out to begin unloading my car, and I started getting cold sweats. I didn't want to unload everything into this apartment. I didn't want to live there. We got everything unloaded and he could tell I was pretty floored by it all. I then went to go find myself a parking spot while he went to go get beers, and spent another 30 minutes trying to find a spot. I finally did, and despite getting lost, I made my way back to my apartment. And that's when THAT happened. my unit was on the first floor and was going to go check out my balcony, when I heard a screech or a scream and saw a couple of rats run off of my balcony. At this point, it was almost comical how bad this was.
My buddy heard the rats too and pretty much had the same reaction as me. We cracked open some beers and I tried to relax, but I'd lost any desire to eat at this point. It was also getting pretty late so he had to go home, and as soon as he left I started crying. I hadn't probably cried in a few years but this just didn't feel real. I laid in bed all night, still not being able to sleep, after driving 14 hours on 3 hours of sleep. I called my girlfriend and cried some more and told her that I couldn't live like this and that I was scared I'd made a mistake moving here. She tried to comfort me, and told me to just re asses everything in the morning. I probably called her at least three times before I finally did pass out for about two hours.
I woke up the next morning and decided that I needed to have some breakfast and come up with a plan. I looked some spots up in my GPS and found a nice breakfast joint with decent ratings. I got there, and I'd never seen anything like it. It was an outdoor mall, with amazing scenery all around and tons of really cool shops. I started feeling a little better. I went to the breakfast spot, ordered my food and started to come up with a plan. I'd decided that there was no way that I was going to stay at that shitty apartment and that I'd go break my lease as soon as the office opened. And that's exactly what I did. I finished my breakfast, went down there and told them that this was unacceptable and that I wanted to break my lease or I wouldn't be paying rent there. They threw a fit, told me I was going to have to pay 12 months of rent to them, and I told them good luck. I then showed them the pictures of the unit and that's when they started to sweat. The called the property manager and he finally allowed me to cancel my lease. But they refused to refund me any of the fees that I had paid, I told them that was illegal and then they told me they send me a check for one of the smaller fees. At this point, I was tired, pissed, and out of patience so I said whatever, I'll cut my losses and left.
I didn't actually have a plan, and was in the mindset that I had to find a new place in the next 12 hours or I'd be sleeping in my car for the night (Later realized an airbnb was actually an option. Lol) I remembered that I'd seen a really brightly colored building that morning when I was driving around, and it looked like an apartment so I decided that's where I'd go first.
I make my way to this complex, go to the leasing office and ask them what they had available and that I'm willing to sign TODAY. They told me that they had one unit left, gave me a map and let me go check it out. I took the elevator up, made my way to the apartment and as soon as I opened the door…. I knew. This was the place. The view was beautiful, it had tons of natural lighting, everything looked modern and it was exactly what I was looking for. I basically ran back down and said that I'll sign it. And that's when I ran into my next issue. I had to pay more fees, as well as a whole first month's rent. At this point, I had to ask my mom for a bit of money to cover the last bit of the first months rent. But I was officially out of money now. I signed the lease, and it all took a grand total of 45 minutes from entering the building to having the keys in my hand. I got VERY lucky. I didn't want to bother my buddy after he'd helped me unload my car once, so I went back to the old shitty apartment and 4 trips later, I'd unloaded everything from there into my new place. I dropped the old keys off and never saw that place again. Ugh.
It was evening again, and I finally came up to my new apartment and realized I hadn't eaten since breakfast. My girlfriend surprised me with 200$ via cashapp and again, the dramatic guy I am, I cried. I promised her that I'd take her and show her around once I'm settled and told her everything that had happened. She told me to get some food and so I went to target and got a pizza and some beer. I got home, realized I had no plates or a pizza cutter and was once again exhausted at this point so I used the pizza box as a plate and ripped the pieces off like a savage. The only chair I had was a 10$ walmart lawn chair. I ate my pizza and passed out. On a twin sized air mattress. But after the last two days, that was the best bed I'd ever slept in.
The next day, I set my computer up. Kind of. I didn't have a desk, and I didn't have the money for a desk, so I stacked my moving boxes to make a makeshift desk setup. It was honestly pretty badass. Eventually upgraded to a folding table.
Anyway. I haven't even gotten to the best part yet.
My first day of work rolls around after this crazy weekend. It's pretty uneventful. I do some onboarding stuff, fill out forms and the usual logistical/HR paperwork. I had some medication that I needed to refill and had timed my last refill to coincide with starting the new job. So when I found out that I wouldn't be getting health insurance until my first 90 days were up, I was pretty surprised. And pissed. I also learned the specifics of our PTO/Vacation policy. At every other company I'd worked at, PTO could be used for anything. Over here, PTO was only allowed to be used in emergencies and couldn't be used for planned time off. And I didn't get any vacation time for my first year. They also mentioned that I had to do a background check and with all the craziness, I realized I hadn't actually had a background check had I? I have a clean record, but lets say something came up in it and I'd moved up here and they saw something they didn't like. I would have been screwed. I started to get a little bit nervous and just wrote it off as some companies operate differently, whatever.
My first week goes by, and during one of the days, my boss walks me around the building and is talking about the job a bit and says to me, “Yeah, so this department really just requires two and a half people to function, you'll be catching the extra stuff that the other two guys don't have time for”To which my initial reaction was, “Well, it's just so great to hear that after moving across the country and quitting my job of nearly two years.” I didn't actually have any response, but that was my first sign that something was off.
A few more weeks go by, and we had a new person join one of our teams. He had an introductory email he'd sent out, but it had a typo and so him and a few others responded with some humor. I decided to join in and had made a pretty innocent pun and welcomed him to the team. Shortly after that, my boss calls me into his office. He says, “What do you think you're doing? You can't be putting people on blast like that. If it was me, I'd be livid” I had literally no clue what he was talking about.And then I did. He was talking about the pun. Oh boy.
A few weeks go by. As I'm pulling into the parking lot one morning, I notice that there's only one spot left so I take it. I walk into the office and before I have a chance to sit down, he calls me into his office.”You can't park there, that's not your spot” Keep in mind, none of these spots are labeled. He tells me that apparently that spot is where the owner of the company usually parks and that I shouldn't be parking there. We have a small lot, and I really don't think the owner gives a damn.
A couple more weeks go by, and at this point I've noticed that my boss doesn't like to communicate electronically, and he'll summon someone every 15 minutes or so, rather than a quick message or email. Some people like face to face communication. I get it. But when you have to get up every 15 minutes in the middle of a project, that starts to break your flow and slow things down to a crawl. He calls me into his office. “You know, I really don't like your communication style” Sigh. Here we go. “I've been getting complaints from multiple people about this” And you know what? I'll admit, I'm an introvert and I communicate much better through text, when I can think about what I'm going to say, how to say it, and plan it out. When I'm put on the spot, and pressed for an immediate response, I blank out. All of that aside, everybody else that I've worked with has always been super easy to talk to, we work well together and I genuinely really enjoy communication with my coworkers. They're great folks, super patient and I've never seen them get frustrated with me when I talk to them. So once again, I had no idea what this guy was talking about.
Other things I was called into the office for:
-We each have a day to play music. Any music. I usually play mine a bit quiet because hey, I'm the new guy. I play lofi and a little bit of EDM. No dubstep. Easy listening stuff. I am told that I'm not allowed to play my “Chinese water torture house music” I've never heard of that genre, but made sure not to play it. My coworkers played the same music as me.
-HR called me into the office one day and asked me if I was recording my conversations with my boss. They said he was distressed and came to them because he thought I was recording him. I wasn't.
-We don't have specific lunch hours, but I gave him a heads up a few hours in advance that I'd be taking an early lunch that day. He calls me in and asks me if I knew the meaning of the word “insubordination” Yes. I know that word. He explained to me that I was committing insubordination because I had “told” him I was taking an early lunch, vs “asking” him if I could take an early lunch. He followed it up with “Who do you think you are? It might not bother me today, but who knows, maybe it'll be a fire-able offense if I'm having a bad day”
-He told me that he doesn't like it when I challenge his creative direction and make him feel lesser in any way. Poor baby.
-I suggested a project management tool and explained how it could help improve our workflow. He said that it wasn't my place to make suggestions like that and that he already had a better system that he was working on. Still waiting on said system.
-We had a department productivity and planning meeting. I came up with a list of suggestions and how they could be implemented. The response was that we've always been doing things the way we've been doing them and that it's too late for change. They rejected every single thing on the list and ridiculed me.
-He once called me into his office, only to tell me not to talk to him when he is typing. lol.
And then began the public humiliation. He was walking down the hallway one day and someone asked him about my availability, and his response was “Are you sure that's easy enough for someone like him?” Oof. I started to feel like this stuff would make me look bad to my coworkers, and it really began to wear me down. The check-in became much more frequent and it started to feel like I was getting up every five minutes to go into his office. He then told me that I wasn't allowed to communicate with any of the project managers, and that I had to go through him. And this is when I realized how clueless he actually was. When I would communicate with the project managers, they'd give me all the information I needed and I was able to jump right into a project. When I started going through him, I'd realize that he never actually brought himself up to speed on any of these projects. If I was approached by any of the project managers, he'd storm over after they left and ask me what we talked about and reprimand me. And when I'd submit projects, he'd be completely clueless on the actual scope of what was being asked. He also decided at one point that we would no longer use email to communicate, and that everything needed to be communicated verbally. Yeah. That didn't last very long. Combined with having absolutely no project management software, or plans to implement one, it was literal hell to try to keep track of things.
Eventually, what this turned into was constantly being over budget on projects because of nitpicky changes that weren't relevant to anything and hadn't been discussed with the project manager. I was starting to question if he even had any sort of design background at this point, and couldn't find any proof of it. His feedback was always extremely basic, and he had no understanding of how long things actually took to do. I had no idea how someone this clueless had made it this far. He'd be watching tiktok videos every time he called me into his office, and I honestly didn't know what his purpose was at the office.
Don't worry. The end is near. I didn't expect to write this much and If you've made it this far I owe you a beer.
So. Between all of this, my stress levels were reaching their breaking point. I dreaded going into the office. I felt trapped and I felt like I fucked my life up by taking this job. It also didn't help that I didn't want to tell my friends about all of this for a while or worry my mom that I moved here and things didn't work out. I also didn't have a damn bed for the first 3 months I'd lived here and the month and a half with no paycheck was brutal. I didn't even have a tv, and the only seating I had in my apartment was a 10$ walmart lawnchair. Eventually my mom paid for a uhaul to send all my stuff up to me. I finally had a desk, all my clothes and my cooking stuff so that reduced some of the stress. But things only kept getting worse at work.
I had been dreading this, but I decided that I'd try to request disability accomodations. I'd started to think that maybe I actually was doing something massively wrong and that I was the one messing up. I was diagnosed with autism pretty early on in my life, and I've always been a bit of an introverted, awkward guy. I'd come a LONG way from where I was, but with the way things were going at work, all of that progress and confidence I'd had with my communication skills kind of just faded away. My thought was that maybe if I let them know about my autism, they'd be able to understand my communication style better and work with me on things. Going into the office became the thing that I dreaded every sunday night, and each day I'd wonder what I'd have to be faced with.
I let HR know what was going on, and to my surprise, everything actually stopped. He stopped harassing me. He stopped trying to check in with me every 15 minutes. He used email more. Things genuinely got better for a bit and I thought maybe this guy was so clueless he didn't even know what he was doing. (I was wrong)
I submitted my paperwork of my autism diagnosis and a psychological evaluation that was quite recent to HR and at first they said it's perfect. Then they went back on it and said I needed a current diagnosis. That's fine, but my health insurance still hadn't kicked in and there was no way that I was going to front the cost of a psychological eval out of my own pocket. I told HR this and I think this is when things got really bad.
My boss reverted to his old ways, and turned up the dial to 100. He started to walk over to my desk ever 15 minutes and would stand there and stare. He started to judge the work on my screen as I was doing it. He would tell me to stop clicking so much. I'm not even kidding. He would tell me that what I'm doing isn't the way he would, but I was certain at this point that he'd never designed anything in his entire life. He would walk over and and ask me why I was still working on something and would ask me if I needed my coworkers to step in. He'd call me into his office every time I submitted a project and demand answers on why I did something a certain way and would frequently tell me he didn't understand what I was saying or that I didn't correctly follow his direction. And if I didn't respond right away, he'd get agitated and keep pressing me. I had a couple times that I almost threw up from anxiety and blanked out. I told him I need time to think about an answer to his questions. I was deteriorating fast. I was starting to have trouble sleeping, work would be the only thing I thought about all day and my motivation to do anything at work had pretty much hit a -100.
And then there was a meeting. He called me into some weird office at the other side of the building away from everyone and basically told me that I am performing at the level of a junior designer. This was all prompted after I was asking questions about a project to gather information before I jumped into it. He said that I should already know the answers to all of these questions, and that I can't just keep asking questions. He then said to me that I had also been going over budget constantly on projects. And I was. Because I was making pointless changes on projects and had not been allowed to talk to the project managers about the scope of the work. He then said that he expected more form someone that came from where I did, and that was when I completely checked out. I stopped talking at work. I couldn't look anybody in the eye. Not even the coworkers I knew truly cared about me, and I don't have the heart to tell them how bad things really were. I'd go home and feel like I'd failed at life and not be able to think about anything else.
And that brings us to the last five day or so. Health insurance had kicked in a while back, I've been at this job for 6 months and I've still been paying off moving expenses. I'd been so overwhelmed with everything I honestly didn't have the energy to try and find a psychologist. I could barely get out of bed, and kind of gave up on the accommodations thing since things only got worse ever since I brought this up. I told them that I can't afford to see a psychologist right now and that I would have to put it on hold.
And this sounds borderline illegal, but they then sent me a form to sign saying that I was declining disability accommodations and that I would be expected to now perform the full duties of my role. I did NOT sign that.
Alright. So. The moment you've all been waiting for. Yesterday.
I'd been working on a project that was reaching the limit of the hours allotted because of more needless changes. I submit what I thought was going to be the final version, and within about 10 seconds I get an email saying “I have questions. Come to my office” Ugh. I go to his office and once again, I “completely missed the mark” and everything was wrong. I explain that we can't keep making changes like this and that we should consult with the person in charge of this project. He snaps back at me with “Do I need to bring your coworker back in on this project?” and at this point I was more than just checked out. I was about to walk out. I said “Sure, why not” He calls my coworker over and looks at him, then lets out a long sigh and shakes his head and says “Yeah, he really isn't understanding this project. He said he doesn't know how these parts would be built”
My blood started to boil. It was one thing to be shitty to me, but then I realized that by agreeing to let my coworker back in on this, I'd played into exactly what my boss was trying to do. He'd put my coworker in one hell of an awkward position. If my coworker stood up for me, he'd piss my boss off. If he agreed with my boss, he'd think he's pissing me off, but I wouldn't have actually cared. I could tell he was uncomfortable and trying to be neutral. I didn't want to involve anybody else in this and I felt horrible. My boss said that we're going to have to basically redo the entire thing and that's when I completely checked out. I was done. I was tired of everything I submitted being wrong. I was tired of all the demeaning comments. I was tired of feeling like a piece of shit, and my heart was literally beating so hard in that moment that I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I tuned out the rest of the meeting and went back to my desk. I thought about things for a little bit. I really did.
And I realized that I was just a scapegoat. My bosses' management style was basically to make someone else look bad in order to distract people from his own incompetence. And boy, did it work. I moved here with really high hopes that I was doing what was right for me, and when I realized that I'd actually just fucked my entire life up, it sucked. I sold a lot of things I worked really hard for, I left my family, friends and support system, my girlfriend and my whole life behind. And maybe it's karma for being selfish and doing just that. But all this went through my head for about a minute before I said to myself that I deserve better. I took my stuff out of my desk, grabbed my water bottle and started to walk back to my car. I'm pretty sure my coworker knew what I was doing. I was shaking. My car was parked around the back of the building, but I made a point to turn it around and drive it past the front of the building so that he knew that I wasn't going to sit around and take the abuse any longer.
Which brings me to today. I'm not going to lie. I am scared. I don't have a back up plan. I have no idea how I'm going to pay this company back for the relocation. I don't have another job lined up yet, and becoming homeless scares the shit out of me. I can't tell my family what I just did because they helped me get here and it would break their heart. And I feel selfish for just walking out, but I really did try to go through all the proper channels and be open minded. I just couldn't take it anymore.
If you made it this far, I'm impressed. And if more than two people read this and tell me I'm not crazy I'll be happy. I've been doing my part to actively apply for jobs for the last three months. The friends I have told have been super supportive, and I just paid rent so I have a month or so to hopefully find a new job.
If someone reading this happens to have any connections in the film and/or game industries, I'm an experienced 3D artist with a passion for my craft, and 10 years of professional work history. I am a bit of an introvert and may not be the best speaker ever, but I let my art do the talking for me, and I work hard as hell. I'm just trying to find a place that appreciates and accepts me for who I am.
But yeah. That's my story. Maybe I'll post some photos of that disgusting apartment if anyone's curious.