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Antiwork

Unsustainable work conditions

It's been a while since I last visited this sub and I figured it would be a good place to share my most recent and currently ongoing employment experience. I work for a local law firm. I was hired as a part time personal assistant and enjoyed thay position for a couple of months while I learned the bulk of what I would need to know to survive in a law firm. From the very beginning, I was asked to do extra stuff here and there, which I am not against. I helped to scan old closed case files into the computer to reduce the amount of paper sitting around in out storage rooms. I started taking small tasks from coworkers to help them out here and there like drafting letters for records requests using a pre-made template and covering the front desk during the receptionists lunch break, which became…


It's been a while since I last visited this sub and I figured it would be a good place to share my most recent and currently ongoing employment experience.

I work for a local law firm. I was hired as a part time personal assistant and enjoyed thay position for a couple of months while I learned the bulk of what I would need to know to survive in a law firm.

From the very beginning, I was asked to do extra stuff here and there, which I am not against. I helped to scan old closed case files into the computer to reduce the amount of paper sitting around in out storage rooms. I started taking small tasks from coworkers to help them out here and there like drafting letters for records requests using a pre-made template and covering the front desk during the receptionists lunch break, which became an every day part of my job.

Four months in they decided to bump me up to full time and gave me a dollar raise. Hooray! I went from $17 to $18 per hour and was feeling pretty good about it. However, that's basically where the good part ends.

The owner decided to make me a 'case manager' without consulting me at all beforehand and never made an effort to notify me. I found out through a third party who had received an email stating that I was to be the case manager for certain types of cases at certain stages of the process. An email that I was not included in for some reason.

At this point, things got rough pretty quickly. The other case managers in our office have an assistant to order medical records and bills for clients. I was not afforded this luxury, so I must fulfill the duties of the case manager and the assistant. With these added duties, it instantly became more difficult to fulfill the responsibilities of a personal assistant because I am constantly called out of the office multiple times throughout the day to attend to completely unrelated tasks that might take up anywhere from 2 to 6 hours of work. Sometimes I get called in back to back so rapidly thay I don't have time to write down what the boss told me to do the previous time I went into his office. This leads to me being completely overhwlemed and frustrated beyond measure.

Then they went and added yet another job title to my ever growing list of responsibilities and officially made me the firm's typist. Now I have three full time roles to fulfill and I am getting paid the same amount as the records custodian that has a bigger office than me and only has to fulfill the duties of one position.

To top it all off, the boss is insufferable. He constantly demeans and belittles me. If he makes a mistake, I get yelled at for it. He automatically assumes that things he asks me to do are not getting done and treats me accordingly even though I have given him no reason to feel that way. He won't listen to a single word that I say if I attempt to defend myself or talk to him about an important deadline or task he has given me.

I will do something for him exactly the way he wants it done and he will literally look at my work product and then look me in the eyes and tell me I did it wrong, but then use whatever I have him.

We had a receptionist quit when I first started because he was too mean. I wish I had asked to let me record out interactions so that 'I could better write down what he tells me to do' and I could use that against him in a suit for creating a hostile work environment. It has gotten to the point where I just can't handle it anymore. I wake up every morning dreading going in because I know he's going to treat me poorly.

He has overfilled my workload and contradicts my professional contributions with no regard to my mental health or general well being. And refuses to give me a raise despite the fact that I am successfully fulfilling the duties of three separate positions.

Thanks for letting me rant. Off to work now to potentially get fired because I had to miss a day of work because my babysitter was sick.

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