First time poster, long time lurker. (Throw away account) I'm writing this out on my phone and I've never posted before, but I'll try my best so bear with me.
I (21M) had lived with my parents until I was 20 (I am the youngest of 5). I felt that it was time to be able to move out and start making decisions for myself.
I decided to move five states away to the west coast (I am originally from there) and live with a cousin of mine so I could get on my own to feet. It took about 2 months, but I was able to find a WFH job.
I was glad and rather surprised that I was able to have a WFH job. For context, I work for a call center (it could be considered telemarketing but whatever). In the beginning it wasn't bad, but always felt that I wasn't gonna make it. I realized, unless I sacrificed all my time and pledge complete unwavering loyalty then they weren't gonna keep me around for long.
Once my numbers started dropping (we had a qouta that needed to be met) after fall and winter came, my Supervisor started hinting toward quasi-harrasment, bullying and scare tactics. I felt deflated and backed in a corner, and there were other people I worked with that felt the same way because there were a lot of other people finding themselves in the same situation.
There is about 150+ agents total across the whole country. About 80 a day can be on the same program dialing. The kicker is is that they secretly use stack ranking and special queues for certain people and not others. It's infuriating hearing higher ups deny it because we all know what is going on and we're not stupid.
There is actually a group of people (including me) that started a group chat. We have discussed amongst ourselves how unfair, nasty and vile our employer has been treating its workers. We have been lied to, gaslit, reprimanded and even terminated for speaking out. There have been people that have worked there for 10+ years who have already left because of all the bullshit we put up with.
They hired too many people and during the winter months business is slow. They resorted to cutting the leads we call in favor for their favorites and brown-nosers. They offered VTO (volunteer time off) on days that are slow, i.e. every day. We are left with either using our PTO in the face of their mistakes and poor business choices or just going unpaid for the time we do take off.
At this point they've practically created an environment so toxic and hellish, that any person who doesn't bend over backwards for this company is forced to find another job.
Having this job has kept me on my feet and helped me pay for my expenses but, on that same token its caused a lot of stress and anxiety for me as well. I fear losing of this job and having to start over again somewhere else. It's hard not to feel hopeless when everything has become so expensive. I've barely just started trying to live on my own and all the effort I put seems to be in vain.
This was a long rant and there's a lot of details I tried to leave out for anonymity and legal reasons for my job. But this is pretty much what I've been dealing with as a young adult in a nutshell.