When I was hired I was desperate, was homeless trying to figure out how to house my family (rent hike forced us to move and everyone knows the current market for rentals so yeah not easy to move) I interviewed at a new place because it was closer to “home” and paid the same and offered undefined benefits.
The benefits? Employee housing at first I almost broke down crying because there was finally an out, my way to find stability for my kids. I started the following week. the employee housing is on the company property (red flag) he points at a decent looking manufactured home and said once the former employee clears out. It's yours in exchange for watchmen duty (7 days straight on call out of the month would pay “rent”)
Cool let's get to work then training and figuring this place out a few days go by and I'm parking headed into work, my boss pulls me aside and says I'm doing deliveries shadowing another watcher. As soon as we got into the vehicle and off the property coworker said he wanted to talk to me
He proceeded to warn me that employees who take the housing option usually end up being on call half the month and average 84-90 hours a week and tells me a horror story about the previous employee that's moving out is leaving because he was forced to do watch duty for over a month straight and when he refused? They pulled their makeshift “rental agreement” out and reminded him about their leverage. The reason why they offered me housing so fast? When they are done with you, they slap you with a 72 hour notice to vacate and will pull punches to cite reasons (imaginary noise violations, you've suddenly become a danger to people on the property etc etc) he even told me to look in C building when we got back I looked… Kids bassinets stroller baby stuff, some furniture. I ask him about it, seems odd. Apparently that's property the employer kept from a previous employee, they called the cops saying he was suicidal they took him for a psych hold and the employer took all of this his stuff out of the employee house and locked it into a building so he couldn't get it back. They are currently suing former employee for storage fees, cleaning fees and a list of other things.
I'm still currently working for them. But that's because at the end of that shift I was injured and tore my ACL, so I'm on workers comp with a NO WORK order. Boss hinted towards me not reporting the injury and is pissed I'm not “back to work” he can go to hell, he has no idea once this claim is over I'm quitting. I've already contacted a personal injury attorney since it was sheer negligence on their part that I was hurt.