So im not from the usa. It happened to me few months ago. I work as the marketing/advertising team lead. And one small company hired me. They didnt have a marketing department before and they wanted me to gather the team myself. The first Red flag that should have caught my attention was that the company didnt want to hire me on legal rights, but preferred to hire me as the independend contractor. Many companies have been doing that here lately to avoid paying taxes, so i let it fly by.
So i was also promised that i Will be reporting directly to the CEO of the company. That i Will get to make any marketing related decisions. And i was told that during the first month they will pay me $1000, but then they Will pay me 2000 bucks (again, not from the states, so it's pretty good money here). The second Red flag was that they didnt want me to work from home at all. While many companies are switching to workin from home format, they wanted to do it the old fashion way, even through my job doesnt require me to do anything around the office, i still had to be there. And it's an hour commute. After some negotiation i was promised they will let me work from home 3 times a week in a month.
So i started workin there. And the third Red flag was that everyone else but me was working a 6/1 schedule there (6 days of work, and 1 Day off). I was told that by CEO's assistant. She said that i should be grateful they were nice to let me have 2 days off instead of one. And its actually quite illegal here, but nobody can fill in a complain cause everyone in that company works as the independend contractor.
So their promise that i Will be making all decisions myself and Will be reporting directly to the CEO was broken within the first few days. While I was preparing the marketing development plan, i was told that i have to report every step i take to the assistant of the ceo. And she was Just saying “no” to anything i suggested. She put me on the customer service job (!), and was looking for another advertising specialist (she said she was looking for my assistant, but again, i was told i Will be the one Who gets to gather my team). And I didnt even do anything to prove Im a good specialist, i was working on a report, and it takes a long time. No idea why they did that to me Without my concent. Forth Red flag
In my country the labor code states it that i get to have a 5-10 min break every hour and an hour long lunch. I noticed that nobody even took lunch breaks there, but i didnt care – i know my rights. I was approached by the sales rep one Day, and he told me to be careful with my breaks cause “the guys upstairs dont like when the employee relaxes too much”
So for the next three weeks i was going behind CEO's assistant's back and reporting directly to the CEO. she approved all the budgets and campaigns. Said that i Will get to work from home soon. I almost forgot about all these Red flags until she called me into her office.
Once i stepped inside i saw her and her assistant. They were yelling at me for daring to communicate with the CEO instead of her assistant. They told me i should be grateful AF that i get to work only for 5 days a week. They told me that they decided not to let me work from home. And, the cherry on top, she decided to make her assistant the head of the marketing department, when they originally hired me for that position! And her assistant doesnt even know how to launch a Google ad campaign!
So i quit on the spot. And they only paid me 500 bucks instead of 1k! Even through i worked there for a month!
There were also other Red flags, but i dont want to go too deep into them. Im thinking about filling in a complain to the IRS, but they technically got everything right, so nothing Will be done about it