Howdy y'all!
Well… I never thought I'd be posting here again, but at least it's not I myself who's the victim of the heartless capitalist machine this time, it's the Waifu's turn. (She asked me to write it up and post it here for her since I know big fancy words apparently)
Buckle up for a long-winded story of pain and regret but satisfaction in the end.
So my wife found work as an office manager a few months ago. It was a pretty big deal for her since it meant a bigger salary, supposedly better work conditions and room for career growth. The initial vibe she got from the place was positive during the whole hiring process, apart from when she met her department head.
The department head (let's call her Maria) gave off some weird fuck-you vibes from the initial meeting, but my wife was told she would rarely have to interact with Maria anyway so the she ignored that little red flag.
She starts work all well and good, and a couple of weeks go by… by now the company was in the process of moving offices to a brand new building. My wife's responsibilities grow from stocking the kitchen and making sure the cleaners show up on time, to liaising with movers and building contractors.
Over the next few months, Maria gets more brazen. She's demanding Wife do tasks that were never in her job description, screams and shouts because Wife can't read her mind, and to top it all off the other office employees are the biggest bunch of spoiled brats, who think Wife is on call 24/7 to order food for the office, adjust the air-conditioning because the remote is too complicated and complain why they don't stock some niche brand of hippy-bullshit herbal tea in the kitchen.
Now my wife is no shirker. She's worked her arse off since she was a teenager, been in the sales trenches in malls selling makeup and worked in a pharmacy during covid. She knows what hard work looks like and what to expect… within reason.
But this job broke her.
Every day she'd come home mentally exhausted, complaining that Maria chewed her out because the electricians didn't put the plugs she wanted or something that was completely out of my wife's paygrade and nowhere in her contract.
Wife's co-worker was zero help as well, because she works with the mentality of “my boss will always appreciate hard work, so if you're not being appreciated it must mean you're not doing your job right.”
My poor Wife turned from the happiest person I know into a bundle of stress with back pain and self worth from the regular berating from Maria.
After several months of having her soul crushed, Wife works up the courage to ask for a payrise, since she's doing the jobs several people across several departments in other companies. Maria flatly refuses because “budgetary reasons” etc etc… and then my wife later learns that several of her supervisors had also previously asked Maria to increase Wife's salary for her hard work.
And Maria scoffed at them and said “why would I give her a raise when she can't do basic tasks correctly?”
Needless to say my wife called me in tears and told me. I, in no uncertain terms told her to quit on the spot. No notice, no wrapping up loose ends. Just to quit.
And so she does. Sends a message to HR and informs them she's quitting effective immediately.
Maria goes ballistic to say the least. Any pretense of being a human being dissolves and she reverts to her final form, the Eldritch corporate abomination she is.
Wife gets a message from Maria, supposedly with a forwarded email from the company lawyers threatening legal action because my wife needs to give a week's notice minimum prior to leaving! No wait, make that TWO MONTHS NOTICE now shut up and get back to work! (This was the general tone of her message I shit you all not!)
Now neither of us is a lawyerology practitioner, but we knew she was bullshitting as soon as we glanced at Wife's contract and the local labour laws, not even mentioning the fact Wife's only been working there for 4 months only. Maria's head is so far up her own arse and dimension that she pretty much did Ctrl+F on one of the company's employment contract templates, saw “2 months notice” next to something completely unrelated and decided “yep good enough” and used it as a threat.
And that coworker from earlier? She messages Wife offering her sage advice like “if you leave here your reputation might be ruined” and “people dont like a quitter, you'll need to work hard at your new job”. Basically gaslighting via whatsapp.
Anyway, to make a short story long, Wife ignores the threats, signs her resignation and leaves, along with one of the HR personnel who also hates Maria.
To top it all off, Wife was recently contacted by her replacement. Seems that the company has learned absolutely nothing, and continues much as before.
Maria hires a new office manager, and blatantly tells her “the previous one quit because of me lol” like it's some sort of a “You think you got what it takes?” challenge.
Her replacement has been burned out in only a few days, and is already on the verge of quitting. This is despite being paid more money than my wife asked for in her payrise request.
My wife is doing better now, she's still a bit shaken from the sheer toxicity of that workplace but she's hopeful to find a better job soon now that she knows the red flags to look out for. No career is worth your sanity and no arse is worth kissing to keep a job like that.
This little victory is partly thanks to you guys here at r/antiwork and helping us both realise how fucked up the system is, but that we don't have to keep playing their games.