asked for a raise (im the only employee at a small cosmetics company. i handle the manufacturing, labeling, packing, and shipping, as well as keeping up inventory and keeping the place in order. basically everything) and my boss responds by trying to gaslight me, pulling this “we’re a small business 🥺” bullshit
he just bought a 60,000 dollar car and is taking his second vacation of the year next week
he keeps trying to hold “a week of personal time” i had to go on strike by myself to earn, “paid winter break” etc over my head. all shit that the government forces you to give your employees in every other country on the planet. america is a shit hole with no workers rights and it allows the parasitic small business tyrant class feel like they’re doing something good by offering the bare minimum. literally “i treat my slaves nicely” shit
sorry yall just wanted to rant. fuck america and work under capitalism
small business tyrants are the worst. the ones who pull shit like "i can't afford an extra $120/week" while living in luxury, taking vacations, and making you do everything are total "don't believe your lying eyes" type of psychos. i hate how common it is.
i have managed to rat fuck 1 or 2. the sweetest plum is to secretly find other work while pretending you have become complacent about your job and time it so you can ghost their asses right as you are needed most. it is very easy to lull these people into security, because they think they are genius masterminds already. meanwhile, they flail hard when you take all the knowledge of processes and critical relationships and walk with zero notice. don't delete files or destroy property, but maybe don't be so great about keeping records or whatever for the last week once your new gig has a start date. whoops! doing a crappy job isn't illegal!
only ever give them a single sentence in reply when they ask where you are on that first day you're doing the new job, preferably as text something like "i am pursuing a different professional opportunity, best of luck." and then never say anything else, no matter what. i recommend disabling notifications from them. they will 100% have a narcissistic meltdown, blow up your phone, and hopefully text a shitload. all that stuff can be shared on socials, you can make reviews on google and glassdoor absolutely smearing the place with links to the texts they will send trying to bully you.
it really doesn't take much to poison the well against recruiting future employees if you've got a few texts of them being abusive, which this sort of gambit is certain to cause in this type of employer.
probably my only real advice for this to anyone wanting to replicate it is to temper your expectations on finding a better job. it's probably not gonna happen in a week, but if you only apply for a new job once every week or so, that's a reasonable tempo to keep up. and it's weird the way jobs pop up randomly, so the longer period of time you're looking is a better search than trying to find all the available jobs in a short window of time. and you'll be in a strong negotiating position, because you already have a job, so you won't have to accept something that sucks. it's a slow burn revenge. the wise fear the anger of the patient.
anyway, i hope you get a chance to stick it to this shit wizard.
lol not really a “small business”, but I worked at Best Buy before I could find work in my field, and the onboarding was aggressive in reminding you that they’re an “at-will employer”. Which is what I reminded them when I showed up for my shift to inform them I wouldn’t be doing it or any others. ✌️
this is a great comment and i appreciate all your advice, thank you comrade