I've really enjoyed watching this Reddit page explode this year and wanted to share my own success story in finding a better job.
I am a young woman of 27 and have a background in customer service. I've been working since high school and worked my way up to being an assistant manager at a coffee place and also at a convenience store. I was also a full time college student during this time and eventually decided that I'd like to move toward a different direction because the food service franchise I was working for was brutal. My franchise owners were gross, didn't follow safety protocols, offered only full time hours to the assistant and general manager to avoid healthcare for employees, and generally abused the workers. I applied to be a Specimen Accessioner (processor) at a large corporation. The job entailed handling biological specimens and routing them to their appropriate destinations for testing.
In spring of 2020 I volunteered to travel to the site that was rolling out covid test processing. I drove 4.5 hours to work at this site. It was a short assignment and back to my regular duties I learned as much as possible and took on many extra responsibilities.
At some point the company did market raise increases and really shorted me in the process. I had a colleague who had identical, literally identical work experience and yet they classified her as having one year of prior experience that they didn't give to me. She had about a 10 percent greater increase than I did. I called a meeting with the supervisors and was told tough cookies and that if I complained and continued to persist on the issue that I wouldn't be successful and at most my colleagues extra raise amount would be subject to be taken away. This really bothered me and I let it be.
I became pregnant and they challenged me often about appointments and sick time. I had a few sick days because I had a complicated pregnancy that led to a stillbirth. The way they handled it was shameful and I had to fight tooth and nail to be compensated for my time out. They tried to pay me disability instead of maternity leave which was very demoralizing with my late loss. The company had contracted an HR company across the country and I never spoke to the same person twice and everything continuously fell through the cracks.
I got pregnant again and this time my husband was out of work so I purchased the health insurance through this company. It was very expensive at about 350 a month and I live in a state where the minimum credible coverage thresholds are high. Come to find out that our health insurance did not even meet our states minimum requirement and that I would be penalized on our taxes the next year. The company said that they would not change the health care and if you were penalized they would reimburse. That turned out to be false in the end. Still can't believe the insurance issue.
They again gave me an incredibly hard time about my maternity leave. Being super high risk I needed a lot of appointments especially in the third trimester. I needed to havea modified bed rest situation in order to keep the baby inside as long as possible. My doctor said I could still do my job I just had to have the ability to both sit and stand when I needed. Eventually I was medically approved for a shorter work week because of these issues. My job said I needed to start my maternity leave early and use a whole weeks worth of FMLA time for the one day (8 hours) a week I needed to be out. This was ridiculous and would have meant much less time with my baby once born so I declined and still worked my full schedule. I was also really busy with trying to stay pregnant long enough to have a healthy baby and didn't have time to harass these people into giving me what I was entitled to. It shouldn't have been my job to do so.
Then my company decided they were not going to pay me a dollar in maternity leave and threw that responsibility on my state. They still owed me some maternity leave funds that the state didn't cover that I never saw because again they made the process overwhelming difficult and I didn't have time. Then the health insurance through this company stuck me with a $10,000 bill even though I had met my deductible.
And they were surprised that I didn't come back.
I interviewed for a Montessori school because I thought that it would be nice to get a tuition break and also go to work with my child. I was very clear that I could not accept less than X dollar amount an hour. This woman who owned this school had me get a physical from my doctor and do all kinds of things for the onboarding process. I had some early childhood credits in college that could have licensed me in my state to work with babies and toddlers which was a good thing to have. Right before I am to start she sent me a contract with a clause that I need to give a 2 month notice or she will sue, and she offered me 3 dollars an hour less than my minimum which was already less than I was making at the lab. I was very insulted and ghosted the lady. She emailed me months later looking to see if I was still interested. Nope.
I took a leap of faith and applied for an entry level insurance job. I now make more than I did at the lab, work 37.5 hours a week, have phenomenal insurance, have never had to drive to work in the snow, and have the ability to work from home 2 days a week. The work culture is generally very good in the office as well. The things my colleagues complain about are amusing to me because they are really no big deal in light of how bad many employees are treated elsewhere. I have a few thousand dollars in sign on bonuses coming my way soon, have secured an insurance license on the company's dollar for over 40 states, and will get bonuses year round as they are available.
We are at an opportune time to not put up with such abusive employers. Please try to get yourself out there for a better opportunity. r/resume is super helpful