TLDR: Worked and lived under shitty conditions for closer to a year, taunted by the empty hope a promotion. The promotion was given to someone else who was also given the same hope and had to live under shitty conditions. I was then cast aside and effectively forced to quit.
Long version.
Last August, I moved to the city to help my old workplace re-open for COVID. I was lured back in with the chance of a big promotion from my student job to a salary position at a workplace I thought was really fun.
However, because the school does not want to pay its employees benefits, I would only be allowed to work 1000 hours per year. That averaged to about 20 hours per week. As such, I could only surpass that limit if it was requested of me. I was told this would be okay, because I would only have to work that few hours until I was promoted. But, JUST IN CASE, I was listed as per-diem so that I MIGHT be able to surpass the 1000 hour limit if necessary. This was at the cost of not being able to accrue sick hours during COVID time. In addition to the office work I did, I had to work full days when clients requested services. Services could be requested any day of the week, so I had to keep my schedule open and wasn’t able to get a second part time job in the meantime. I was just getting by (barely in the positive with living expenses) and always worked hard to build my work skills and train new student staff to help my department.
The department only had 2 full time workers, when it historically needed 4 or 5 to function at full capacity. My overworked supervisors continued to push for full-time jobs to be posted so they could get the department running properly. But as the year went on, the school pushed back and led us on to believe they would consider putting up the job postings “soon.”
Eventually, in April, I was told that the school decided that the school would only on-board 1 full time worker. And my supervisors had decided that would be my co-worker (who had also been rehired with hopes of promotion and forced to work in similar conditions to me, but in a different area). Though I had no say in the matter, I do think the other person deserved the promotion more than I did. That is because the other person was about to be promoted full-time before COVID, but the school closed down and the offer was rescinded right after before she signed the final paperwork. The offer she got this time was barely higher than the salary she was offer YEARS ago before COVID. And the contract was to last only 6 months, which was previously unheard of.
I was told that there would still POSSIBLY be an option to hire me full-time by this coming December when my coworker’s contract ends. But I did not believe that was true. Frankly, summer was the money-making season for our department, and I think that the school will have no incentive to hire me or even re-hire my coworker when her contract is over. Furthermore, if I wanted to stay until December, I would have to renew my apartment lease for another year! I took some time to consider if I would stay and consider their offer, because I truly liked my supervisors and wanted to provide them support in reopening. While I was considering my options, many of my job responsibilities were stripped and given either to my coworker or to workers that I had trained who would do the work for less pay.
Once I decided that I would, by principle, no longer work for the school, it seems my direct supervisor now deemed me “unnecessary”. I had already helped train several employees and developed a manual for new employees to be trained with greater efficiency.
When I expressed my confusion about my position at the workplace, I was told that I was no different than any of the other workers we’ve trained except for “a little extra experience”. Note that I had been working there for a year before COVID even hit. To add insult to injury, my boss followed up by sending me an email that contained a copy-pasted BASIC JOB DESCRIPTION that I had been aware of since years ago, used to train new employees, and referenced to create a staff manual.
Afterwards, I felt several instances of my boss trying to “put me in my place”. This included, consistently questioning and overriding my decisions TO AND IN FRONT OF the staff I’ve trained, belittling issues I face and telling me I should have been able to handle them, and gathering all the staff to introduce our “key” workers then excluding me from that introduction. All the while, I felt a responsibility to pretend to the other staff that I was feeling and doing totally fine. I was also recently informed that the 1000 hour limit was immovable, so my per diem employment and lack of sick hours was all for naught.
Feeling that I had no other option, I sent in my resignation shortly after. I did not give a reason, because I didn’t want to burn bridges and would ideally want a reference for a new job. I did not speak a word of this to the other staff members, because I don’t want to put student staff in an uncomfortable position or make them dislike their jobs when they are just trying to get by. I do believe they can acquire helpful life-skills from the job and wish nothing but the best for them.
However, I have been completely emotionally defeated. I am lost and filled with hate and anger that I have no idea what to do with.