I work as a secretary/administrative assistant in a real estate agency. I've been working here for a year and a half, first as an “intern” and then as a maternity leave filler-in.
To be clear, the person who went on maternity leave did not have my position, she is a proper real estate agent. She just took in the workload of the previous secretary until I came in – for a month or so. Shortly after, she went on maternity leave.
I had no prior experience in the field and only got taught how to vaguely use the company program, and soon found myself in a kind of jack-of-all-trades position. I worked my butt off, because my boss promised me that if he saw growth he would employ me full time and with a open-end contract (which was my objective, so I was very motivated).
However, there were sketchy aspects to it. Just a couple examples:
1) I got my hand on my coworkers' pay slip. Coincidentally, every female colleague – whom I know to work full time – had the no end contract but there was “part time” written on it. They were basically paid as much as me, even if they had been with the company for decades and worked double the hours. I figured that maybe they got paid the rest of the money “under the table”, but I didn't want the same thing to happen to me… so I got to search another job (and THANK GOD I did)
2) My boss used the prospect of the full time, open-end contract like a hostage against me every time I made a mistake, even little. For example: I also manage the advertisement and the social media (no prior experience with them, but I did what I could). One time I forgot to make a post to commemorate mother's day (NOT mandatory, but “surely appreciated”they told me) and he called me into his office, saying that “this kind of slip-ups” do not give him the peace of mind to think seriously about “taking the next step” with me.
Regardless, my boss, his right-hand and his associate all told me multiple times that the next step in my career would be that contract, but that they wanted to time it with the return of the coworker on maternity leave. I received compliments from both them and clients, and overall, I thought that my effort was gonna pay off and everything was going well.
BUT. Since point 1 happened, I tried to cover all my bases, just in case, and I've been looking around. And since I got radio silence at work and september was closing in, I gathered my courage and asked my boss what was going to happen to me.
Well, as you could have guessed by the title, my boss said that I won't be working here anymore when my contract ends. Maybe, just maybe, I will be transferred in another office, but nothing is decided yet. The reason? “There is not much work, and *mom coworker* is coming back, so I would have 2 people filling the same position”.
Except that he won't, because me and her have 2 different jobs. And also… just a month prior, he was still talking about the “promotion”. So, what could possibly have changed in one month to make him decide that we don't have enough work? Not only this, but since I also oversee the nonexhistant HR aspect of our company, I KNOW that we are currently actively hiring!! The irony: just today – the day after he told me the merry news – I had to interview another person!
I cannot describe how angry the whole situation makes me, and also because I felt that his excuses were barely concealed – like, he really thought I was so stupid that he could make me believe the foolishness that came out of his mouth.
I was a fool to believe in his promises, but not enough of a fool that I didn't start to cover my bases some time ago. So, at the very least, there's that.