Right out of high school until about 28, I always had pretty great jobs and bosses. I got hired as an accountant for a construction company to do payroll, hr, taxes, etc. The company was run by a couple good old boys. The president was relatively new, having taken over from his father who retired. From what I heard, the dad was a great boss, treated everyone fairly, gave good quarterly bonuses, etc. The son was another story. He used to get bored and walk up and down the hall looking for someone to humiliate. He would regularly scream at the engineers, sales people, etc. That was the first time I saw an older man in a professional environment cry. I kept my head down but decided that if I ever got yelled at, I was done.
Three months into working there one of the engineers approached me and asked why he didn’t get his quarterly bonus. He said it was part of his pay package from when he took the job. I asked my supervisor and she simply said no bonuses this quarter. Sounded weird, so I went back and looked at the history of bonuses and found out that the new president had given himself an additional $50k bonus (on top of the $200k bonus he was already getting) and cut bonuses for the entire staff to make up the difference. The previous accountant had let it slip to a few people so when they asked about bonuses going forward, they referenced the previous year and what had happened. This definitely was a final straw for me, but we were under contract for a house, and so I was kinda stuck until the mortgage went through and the house closed.
A week after we closed on the house, we got our first huge snow of the year. My car was stuck until the plow came through, so I called in and said I would be a few hours late. I’d been working there 6 months and never was late or took a sick day. When I got into the office my supervisor was fuming. She started going off on me about how I wasn’t committed to my job and I needed to be more reliable. She asked if I was really “in” and would give it my best. I said “no, I don’t think I am. I should probably quit.” Was willing to stay a week to help train the new temp accountant and then I never looked back. I don’t think the company lasted much longer, the new president ran it into the ground.