What’s the worst thing an employer has done to you?

[BDR]

What’s the worst thing that an employer has done to you that may have helped guide you to your FTE?

 

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[BDR]

Here’s mine:

The company that I currently work for started honoring prior relevant experience from your past as current experience within the company. This was to help from losing mid-career experienced people (like myself). This move got me an extra 2 weeks of vacation. That brought me to 7 weeks total. I was pumped.

My department has too many untrained people and did not have enough qualified people to consistently fill the jobs. They decided to remedy this, they would make everyone work their days off.

For the hourly folks, this sucked but they get paid lots of OT. I’m a Supervisor and am a salaried employee. I swallowed these days. So far, I have worked an additional 21 days off (12 hr shifts) for no additional compensation.

Since I do shift work, this is an equivalent of 5-7 weeks of vacation. That extra 2 weeks doesn’t mean crap anymore.

I believe this is also going to be my FTE.

 

[Mattie]

What’s the worst thing that an employer has done to you that may have helped guide you to your FTE?

Back in 1996 the boss gave me a pair of dentures in my hand and said here, clean these, and put them in someone's mouth. Now, first day of being a nurse aide, is kind of where it's not glamorous to know you have to do things most people would never do.

I think this job, kind of was the ideal job since, there's nothing fun about being a nurse aide all the time. You have to do some pretty gross stuff, not always enjoyable, annoying sometimes, but teaches you to look at all the ugliness of being human. Dentures is nothing really comparable to other moments, but obviously, just the first day of the whole experience.

Now, nothing like holding people's dentures, brushing them, soaking them in the little cleaning solution, rinsing them, and stick them in someone's mouth and hoping they don't bite you.

Funny thing is, I remember one nurse telling the other nurse during training, she'll never make it as a good nurse aide. Let me say in 2022, that I've had this with about every job I've ever had in life. And every time, I end up being the best of them all. I think pretty much, it's mind over matter. People love projecting you can't do things.

Sure, the job was gross at times, I had to deal with all kinds of personalities, injuries, sickness, death, but probably the greatest profession I ever had, because it was showing you, you don't have to have something you love to do because it's a shiny sparkling diamond, but the diamonds are found in the ugliest places where there's a treasure chest of gems hidden beneath the first day of having dentures in my hand and looking at them and thinking at the time, this is just gross. Now, if i didn't do it, walked off the job, I would have never gained all the wisdom, knowledge, and insight for years upon years with the traditionalists.

Not so much about the boss, as the clients because they rang the bell every five minutes, and try 12 of them at once and learning patience, understanding, compassion, empathy, and self-discipline in handling the whole crew by yourself. Maybe the elderly, but their your best customers, they don't hold back on their complaints about customer service. If you don't have it done exactly the way they want it, they'll let you know one way or the other.

I think pretty much most people believe you just find the sparkling diamond without ever getting dirty, the self-discipline, facing the ugliness of it all. This is not for those who don't want to put the hours in, the practice, the application, go through the process, the inner transformation, adapt, adjust, apply, and be dedicated, devoted, and go the extra mile.

You can say being a Nurse Aide was boot camp, because you will find most nursing staff is short-staffed, because your made to do it, or your not. You have what it takes or you don't. I've seen more people walk off the job because they can't handle it. The same with the entrepreneurship.

People want an easy job, easy way to make money, fast money, chase money, and not go the distance.

That being said, you can't be afraid to face the rough stuff, the adversity, the obstacles, the delays, the opposition, and that one moment in time in 1996 if i didn't have those dentures in my hand, go through all those traditionalists, I would not be who I am today. They were my greatest team of teachers who I wish were still here with us, but bless their hearts, because they were the best at teaching me to be resilient, strong, determined, and they all had to go through the situations they were in to teach me themselves. They walked the walk, talked the talk, and led by example. It's pretty tough to be an old person with a walker, walk down the hallway, do certain things by yourself like button clothes, and see where they're going.

Even in one of my Human Service classes we did this experiment. Put a pair of sunglasses on with vaseline smeared all over them, walk down the hall way with a walker. Then put a grocery bag in the middle of the walker filled with food and a bag of flour, and then try it yourself. You'd be amazed how you run into the wall and lose your balance. We laughed about it while we did the experiment. But, it was learning what it was like for them to hall around stuff with a walker. Add some cotton balls in your ears and see if you can hear clearly.

We have plenty of experiences in life where we learn even like right now in the world crisis we can use that same experiment, because you don't know what is ahead of you, but still you know to keep your balance, clean your glasses off so you can see clearly, and take the cotton balls out of your ears so you can hear.

I'm rambling, but good memories of what led me to the forum from 2011.

 

[Matesrate24]

My team leader many times forced me to do overtime, while shouting at me that I don't work fast enough. (Even through I was doing my best)

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

This is not me, but from a personal friend of the family...

Our friend is a nurse and left the medical organization she was working for to follow 3 doctors who were going to start their own practice. The doctors basically told her if she left and joined them, that she "would be taken care of".

For the first year with these doctors she worked 50 and 60 hour workweeks, not only doing "nurse work" but entrepreneurial start up tasks. She basically was working like an owner and was responsible for getting the medical practice up and running. She does things (and created systems) that the doctors know nothing about, but now they leverage to their benefit. In effect, she puts in an entrepreneurial effort for hourly wage payment.

When she left her prior job, the doctors at this new medical practice paid her the exact same hourly rate, with of course, the promise "to be taken care of later."

So after one year and the new medical practice is making money hand over fist, she still is making the same wage when she left her prior job. When she confronted the owners about this, and reminded them of their promise to her, the head-doctor said, "Oh yes, we didn't forget. We'll make sure to make the adjustments on your next check."

The next check rolls around and she sees the "adjustment" on her next check ... their VIEW on what "we will take care of" looks like...

She got a whopping 25 cents raise per hour.

In other words, she'll be lucky to take home an extra $80 a month, which doesn't even cover inflation for the last 2 months, let alone the last 18 months she sacrificed.

a**hole entrepreneurs like this is why we business owners are an easy target in culture as slave drivers, or feckless POShits. In this case, yes.

 

[Black_Dragon43]

This is not me, but from a personal friend of the family...

Our friend is a nurse and left the medical organization she was working for to follow 3 doctors who were going to start their own practice. The doctors basically told her if she left and joined them, that she "would be taken care of".

For the first year with these doctors she worked 50 and 60 hour workweeks, not only doing "nurse work" but entrepreneurial start up tasks. She basically was working like an owner and was responsible for getting the medical practice up and running. She does things (and created systems) that the doctors know nothing about, but now they leverage to their benefit. In effect, she puts in an entrepreneurial effort for hourly wage payment.

When she left her prior job, the doctors at this new medical practice paid her the exact same hourly rate, with of course, the promise "to be taken care of later."

So after one year and the new medical practice is making money hand over fist, she still is making the same wage when she left her prior job. When she confronted the owners about this, and reminded them of their promise to her, the head-doctor said, "Oh yes, we didn't forget. We'll make sure to make the adjustments on your next check."

The next check rolls around and she sees the "adjustment" on her next check ... their VIEW on what "we will take care of" looks like...

She got a whopping 25 cents raise per hour.

In other words, she'll be lucky to take home an extra $80 a month, which doesn't even cover inflation for the last 2 months, let alone the last 18 months she sacrificed.

a**hole entrepreneurs like this is why we business owners are an easy target in culture as slave drivers, or feckless POShits. In this case, yes.

That sucks and is very unfortunate, but don’t you think it’s ultimately her fault? I mean she didn’t decide on clear criteria from the get-go and allowed vague statements such as “you’ll be taken care of” to go almost unnoticed. If she had assumed responsibility for that, and had clear goals for what rewards she’d like to pursue, when they would happen, and what work would be required of her, she wouldn’t have been in her current position. I see this ultimately as being a case of someone who outsourced responsibility for their life to a third-party.

Unfortunately, abuse is very common. I have a US-based friend and he happened upon a startup that is requesting all interview applicants to provide specific feedback on their app and website. Nobody gets hired, but they get free feedback from all the applicants, these being people who attend some of the top universities in the country. Humans are very inventive, especially when it comes to taking advantage of others.

I have an interesting conjecture… I feel that abuse is the result of people trying to make businesses that aren’t supposed to work (usually due to bad economics) survive. When your margins aren’t high enough, you can’t afford to be generous to people. This is VERY common in the agency world… some agency owners out there are totally ruthless and cutthroat… and it’s usually those who charge low prices for the work that they do. Their economics simply requires them to take advantage of others to survive. So I feel this is largely the result of entrepreneurs being lazy and trying to force businesses to work when they simply don’t.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

but don’t you think it’s ultimately her fault?

Kinda like getting sexually assaulted because you wore a sexy outfit? Or because you walked down that dark alley at 10pm?

Her complicity in being taking advantage of was 10%. The rest is on the dickheads that used her faith in humanity against her.

 

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[ZackerySprague]

I worked for a medical device manufacturer, family owned business, the company basically lived off of credit. I was their one-stop shop IT guy who did everything IT wise. The company as a whole was less than ~150 employees. I made $14.45 starting, after 3 years working their. I left at $15.95. Your Standard 9 to 5 job, but with huge responsibilities (to a degree).

I always called myself the necromancer, they did not have an IT budget to begin with (no wonder why, because of credit). They always saw IT as an expense, instead of an investment. To be honest, it is kinda hard to explain to CEO's and CISO's how the company can get an ROI on their dollar bills for IT.

But anywhere, it took almost 2 years to convince them to replace their old equipment. A family member who was married into their family told me that each and every employee was paid via by their business credit card with a limit of $75,000 at the time. He told INSIDERS secrets because the daughter of the CEO cheated on him with another office employee.

We got our raises, but only .25 cents per year. My highest was a dollar. He told me they were trying to sell the company to a previous client for $30million at the time as I guess that was their evaluation on paper. For 3 whole months, we couldn't spend anything in terms of fixing stuff and this was for all departments.

Hold your breath boys and hope nothing bad happens. I had enough of the position as I felt I have outgrown it.

I started looking and couldn't resist an offer that was made. They doubled my salary. When I left for the new company. The previous company doubled/matched my new salary.

I asked the IT manager if the CEO wanted to match what the new company offered, he said no.

Sad sad sad. I hope you enjoyed my story.

 

[BDR]

This is not me, but from a personal friend of the family...

Our friend is a nurse and left the medical organization she was working for to follow 3 doctors who were going to start their own practice. The doctors basically told her if she left and joined them, that she "would be taken care of".

For the first year with these doctors she worked 50 and 60 hour workweeks, not only doing "nurse work" but entrepreneurial start up tasks. She basically was working like an owner and was responsible for getting the medical practice up and running. She does things (and created systems) that the doctors know nothing about, but now they leverage to their benefit. In effect, she puts in an entrepreneurial effort for hourly wage payment.

When she left her prior job, the doctors at this new medical practice paid her the exact same hourly rate, with of course, the promise "to be taken care of later."

So after one year and the new medical practice is making money hand over fist, she still is making the same wage when she left her prior job. When she confronted the owners about this, and reminded them of their promise to her, the head-doctor said, "Oh yes, we didn't forget. We'll make sure to make the adjustments on your next check."

The next check rolls around and she sees the "adjustment" on her next check ... their VIEW on what "we will take care of" looks like...

She got a whopping 25 cents raise per hour.

In other words, she'll be lucky to take home an extra $80 a month, which doesn't even cover inflation for the last 2 months, let alone the last 18 months she sacrificed.

a**hole entrepreneurs like this is why we business owners are an easy target in culture as slave drivers, or feckless POShits. In this case, yes.

People are F’d up nowadays. I wouldn’t say that I’ve lost faith in humanity but I sure as hell don’t trust them like I used to.

After being forced to work 21 of my days off, my first instinct was to apply for new jobs. I started getting interviews right away. Then I realized that I don’t think I even want that. I don’t want to work for another “job” and open myself up to being taken advantage of. I started canceling my interviews.

 

[BDR]

I worked for a medical device manufacturer, family owned business, the company basically lived off of credit. I was their one-stop shop IT guy who did everything IT wise. The company as a whole was less than ~150 employees. I made $14.45 starting, after 3 years working their. I left at $15.95. Your Standard 9 to 5 job, but with huge responsibilities (to a degree).

I always called myself the necromancer, they did not have an IT budget to begin with (no wonder why, because of credit). They always saw IT as an expense, instead of an investment. To be honest, it is kinda hard to explain to CEO's and CISO's how the company can get an ROI on their dollar bills for IT.

But anywhere, it took almost 2 years to convince them to replace their old equipment. A family member who was married into their family told me that each and every employee was paid via by their business credit card with a limit of $75,000 at the time. He told INSIDERS secrets because the daughter of the CEO cheated on him with another office employee.

We got our raises, but only .25 cents per year. My highest was a dollar. He told me they were trying to sell the company to a previous client for $30million at the time as I guess that was their evaluation on paper. For 3 whole months, we couldn't spend anything in terms of fixing stuff and this was for all departments.

Hold your breath boys and hope nothing bad happens. I had enough of the position as I felt I have outgrown it.

I started looking and couldn't resist an offer that was made. They doubled my salary. When I left for the new company. The previous company doubled/matched my new salary.

I asked the IT manager if the CEO wanted to match what the new company offered, he said no.

Sad sad sad. I hope you enjoyed my story.

Sadly, it’s my experience that the best way to get raises is to leave the company you’re working for. Most companies have even moved toward a 401k in lieu of a pension. There is no loyalty toward employees anymore. They’re viewed more of an expense rather than an asset. That’s one of the main reasons that I’m choosing to ditch the corporate world.

 

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