I quit my job a few months ago. It was a good place to work. I liked my co-workers and boss. The job, my boss, and family health concerns were why I left.
When I began work, it was after the worst of the pandemic. During the interview, my boss indicated that he only wanted me to work part-time because he didn't want to pay me benefits. I was in a position where I did not need benefits but was disappointed with how few hours a week I initially ended up working. However, I was being paid a decent wage for what I was doing. During the interview, my boss told me he expected me to clean the conference room and the waiting area; even though I have a master's degree, I thought that was reasonable. And it would be nice to clean something right away rather than wait for a cleaning service to come in. He also wanted me to water his plants. I didn't realize that he had approximately 25 plants in the office. The rest of my duties would be administrative. After working there for a few weeks, I noticed that my garbage had yet to be thrown out. I asked my boss when the garbage pick-up was. And he says: “Oh, I just take the garbage home with me.” I was completely horrified. I immediately thought I didn't have room for the office garbage in my home and that I would have to quit. I also felt he had canceled garbage and recycling services during 2020 because nobody was in the office. But no, I later learned that he had never had a garbage collection service. Nor, it turns out, did he have a cleaning service. After a few months, he had me cleaning more and more parts of the office. I probably wouldn't have taken this job if I had known that I would be a glorified housekeeper, I probably wouldn't have taken this job. But I wanted to keep working, so I stayed and did my best. Occasionally he would have someone come in and clean the office. By sometimes, I mean every six months, if that.
Then the ceiling caved in after a storm.
I immediately called the management office of the building to get the janitorial services into the office to fix the problem. Then I called my boss, who told me not to call management about it, which I found strange. A few months later, I discovered why: he had not paid rent on our office space. He was trying to fly beneath the radar. It worked until December when an angry man from the management office called asking to speak to my boss about the rent. Oh, and I had to clean up the ceiling cave-in. He did hire a professional to clean that, as well. Then my boss went on a trip for three weeks. My boss took four trips for about three weeks during my job.
Then one day, I made a mistake. I misplaced a drawing, which took me a little while to find. He was insulting and condescending to me about it. While looking for the drawing, I found all of these notices from utility services for cancellation of services. My boss owned some property locally and in other states, and it seemed he needed to pay the utility bills on those properties. After the confrontation over the misplaced drawing, my boss started asking me about some of his properties. A few months before, I had to call the taxation department of a certain state and ask them if they had received his tax payments on a couple of properties he owned there. I called twice, and both times I was told that it looked like it had been paid. Well, it turns out they hadn't been paid, and his properties had been sold at auction. He had not been paying taxes on these properties for a long time, which freaked me out.
Unfortunately, my father had cancer while I was working at this job. Working at a part-time job, I thought, would give me a little bit of flexibility to help my mom with my dad. One night, we had to rush my dad to the hospital, and I didn't get home until 4 AM. I texted my boss at around 9 AM, told him the situation, and asked if I could take the day off. Now, bear in mind, up until this point. I had only missed one week of work because my sister passed away. My boss initially said I could take the day off, but he needed me to come in. So, no, I couldn't take the day off. So, completely sleep-deprived, I went to work and texted him as soon as I got into the office so that he would know what time I got in, which was pretty close to when I would normally come in. And what was the big thing he desperately needed me to come in to work for? He lost his credit card and needed me to look for it. I looked for it, and after a while, he told me he had left it at a restaurant the day before. When I was supposed to leave, he asked me when I would be going, it was reaching the four-hour mark, and I was leaving in ten minutes. He wanted me to stay late to help him change the light bulbs in the office. To stay late and not get paid for my work. He was always trying to get me to do little extra tasks after I was done with work at the end of the day.
Finally, it got to the point where my mother was having trouble caring for my father. Around the time, my boss had yelled at me about misplacing the drawing and finding out that he wasn't paying taxes, on top of not paying the rent on the office. I decided it would be a good time to exit my job. I wasn't learning anything new, I wasn't earning a living wage, I'd worked there for over a year, and I didn't want to be working there when his business went under. I had seen his financials. At that point, I learned that he had some local properties that he also wasn't paying taxes on. I told him I was resigning to help my mother care for my father. Initially, he asked me why I couldn't do both (perhaps because he kept changing my schedule around and wasn't sympathetic when I needed to take ONE DAY OFF), and then he told me I couldn't because he was going on vacation for three weeks. I told him I could work for two weeks but that I would have to take one week off to help my mother with my father- it was a chemo week, and I never knew if he would wind up in the hospital for several days after treatment. He tried to get me to stay for three more months. I had to tell him multiple times, in various ways, that I would be quitting. He went on vacation. I continued to work and updated the administrative manual for the next person to take my job. Then my boss came back. He was there for a week, and I told him I would be out the following week because it was a chemo week. I asked him if he needed me to write a job ad. He looked very annoyed by this. I took the next week off. My father had been in the hospital for about five days. He wasn't doing great, and his oncologist told him to go to the hospital. He was in such bad shape they admitted him right away. Halfway through the week, I realized that my father would not make it through this time. I called my boss and apologized. I told him I would not be coming in for my final work week. He said he understood and gave me his sympathies. Unfortunately, my father passed away a few days later, and we had the funeral the following week.
A few days after the funeral, I get a text message from my boss asking me when I'm returning to work. I asked him if he meant he needed me to train the new person, and he said no, he wanted me to return to work. I was exasperated at that point. I had to help my mother settle my father's estate at that point, which would take months to finish. I needed more time to go in and clean his office. I told him that I couldn't return to work. But I could come in for a few hours and help him train someone. A few weeks later, I went in and gave the new woman a little bit of training (for free), and my boss was pleased with that. The job's ending was bittersweet, but I am glad I left.