Tl;Dr boss tells me to do something illegal and when I'm caught, throws me under the bus and gaslights me.
So this is a story about a job I had about 8 years ago.
I was hired as a manager of a tutoring center in California. I had previously worked for a different owner of the same franchise and it became clear to me that this new owner was in it for the money and not for the children and that bothered me, but I ignored it.
During my training period, he had me at his main center, showing me the ropes. I was immediately put off by the state of the interior. The carpets were dirty and torn up. The toilet seat in the bathroom was rusty and crinkled. I went to vacuum and he warned me to only vacuum for a few minutes at a time and stop when I smelled the motor burning… Thankfully I was only there for a couple of weeks and instead went to his newer center.
At that one, he showed me what he wanted me to do. Part of the job was emptying the trash bags. Instead of taking the bags out of the trash cans, he would have me dump their contents in straight into the dumpster and leave the bag in, only replacing the bag if it ripped (we had the same bags on the garbage cans for over a year like this).
We also kept scrap paper in a separate pile on each desk specifically to put in recycling. When I asked him what we did with those papers, he told me to grab a pile and follow him. We went outside and walked across a section of the parking lot to the back of the neighboring Wal-Mart. There was a dumpster there for compost, mostly food waste. He then told me that the dumpster was often locked, but you could lift the lid and shove the papers in that way. This seemed suspicious, but I just assumed that he had arranged it that way previously with the Walmart owner.
Fast forward a year. It was summer. I had a good groove as manager. Most of the time I was there by myself, but on this day, the owner was there, training a new franchisee. I did my duties, including taking the recycling out. As I'm throwing the papers away, the security guard for Walmart asks me if I'm authorized to throw stuff away in there. I told him my boss told me to and he asked to speak with him. So I go in and get him. He follows me outside and I walk towards the security guy thinking my boss would have my back. Instead I froze in my tracks when he said “I don't know why he would ever throw things away there, we never use that dumpster. We only use this one next to us” (he was referring to the trash dumpster where did indeed throw trash but not recycling)
My boss went back inside and I was dumbfounded. I frantically explained to the security officer that he was the one who told me to and asked him why on God's earth I would go to that dumpster unless specifically instructed to do so. The guard told me he could tell he was throwing me under the bus to save his own hide. He also told me that I had to get the papers out of the dumpster or else he'd have to call the cops. I asked if I could get a garbage bag and he agreed.
I went inside and told my boss what I had to do now and he said, “I don't know why you ever thought it was ok to throw things away there, we never throw things away in any other spot than our dumpster” I shot him a dirty look and told him I needed to take the papers out and I needed a garbage bag and maybe some help. He told me I could get a garbage bag but that I needed to do it since I was the one who threw the papers there. I grabbed a bag and stormed out.
This was the HOTTEST day of the summer and I was in shorts and flip flops. The security guard unlocked the dumpster and helped me climb in. I navigated rotting tomatoes, meat and eggs to get the papers that had somehow gotten to all four corners of the dumpster. The security guard actually helped me by holding open the poster thin crap bags my boss kept on hand as I filled it with gross papers. The guard offered his sympathies and told me that I should probably look for another job.
I took the bag, threw it in the regular trash and then went to the bathroom to wash up. I was covered in sweat and filth. I used the sink and paper towels to clean myself up and took a minute to compose myself. I was seething.
After I left the bathroom, my boss continued to gaslight me and tell me he never told me to go there. I looked at him and said, just let me do my job. I tutored students the rest of the day until it was time to go. I left without a word and went home for the weekend.
I wrote him a firm but direct email that night, to which he replied continuing to gaslight me. I realized there was no convincing him. He called me up the next day, a Saturday, and wanted to make sure we were “all good”. I told him yeah, we were. I stopped caring about him and any customer relations. From then on, I used free time to look for and apply to jobs using the company computer. I didn't shy away from telling parents that the owner doesn't care about the kids, just their money. I didn't speak to my boss unless absolutely necessary. I left two months later.
To add insult to injury, about a year after that, there was another franchise opening up near me and I applied to be the manager. There was a woman from world headquarters there who said I was just what that center needed. She was there for two weeks. After she left and I came in, I was fired due to a “bad recommendation from a previous employer”. I was furious and demanded they tell me who. They didn't want to but eventually told me it was my old boss. I left telling them they made a big mistake.
Glad to be over a thousand miles away from him now.