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Stop Selling Your Soul to Predatory Employers
If they won’t pay a living wage, then let’s reclaim our free time
On the first day of a new job, a disgruntled coworker warned me that the company owner had a bad habit of calling the staff outside of work hours — sometimes after his fourth or fifth highball.
That sounded fun.
This gem of a boss also expected his employees to monitor their company email after hours for these whiskey-fueled fireside chats. Later in my probation period, our “leader” asked why I was not replying to work issues when I was at home.
“My phone’s memory is completely full,” I explained while holding up an old android with a cracked screen I had fished from a drawer of discarded electronics at home. “I am not replacing it until I can afford an iPhone.”
I kept my working mobile in my car and did not bring it into the office. I never used company wifi as he was big into “monitoring” his employees’ activities.
We had some discussion about a company-provided phone which my coworkers warned would be pre-loaded with malware to track my location and online activities. Given that this same man had failed to honor a promised 90-day raise and company health insurance, I assumed this was true. Besides, since he was notoriously cheap…
