Back around the year 2014 I took on a job with a Family run business. Family run as in full on Family. Father, son, fiancé, daughter in law, uncle, etc. There were just a few non-family members who were employees. Myself being one of them.

Over the course of that first year it was such a great job. I loved every aspect of it and also loved the Family, but as things changed over the course of time, I had to quit and find a more permanent and full time work. So I reluctantly left but had kept in touch from time to time.

The years went on and I had quit a fulltime home-based job, which led to another job outside the home, which led to me finding out it was just a contract job so, again, had to look for another full-time permanent job. And then there it was. The Family run business was looking for a full-time administration/office person. I was all over that ad like white on rice!

The “son” was the General Manager and just about ran the place. I got in contact with him straight away and he was excited to hear from me and just about hired me on the spot.

With the current job I had, I had met some great people, one of them whom knew the General Manager of the company I was about to go back to, but only just through speaking on the phone. She worked for a similar company so their telephone paths crossed on a lot of occasions. So, I said my goodbyes to my co-workers and she said, “good luck” and tell him I said hello.

Once I started the job I mentioned who I worked with and he lit up. He asked me to see if she’d come work for him as well. He said he tried for 10 years to get her to come and work for him but she always rejected him. So, I did. I text her several times, got her to call him etc. And after about a month of begging and pleading… she accepted his offer.

This is where things began to change.

After working in the office for a few months, I began to notice changes in him. Perhaps they’ve always been there but because I never previously worked closely with him in the office I was never aware of them. I noticed that he had narcissistic traits.

Now remember, I hadn’t worked for this company for about 7 years. The first thing that happened and that I noticed was a remark he had made. Writing this may be quite difficult as I don’t want to disclose the company or the person (as much as I wish to ridicule them) I have morals and I have ethics, so I’ll try my best not to reveal to much of the job description.

The first instance involved me not knowing something that I had no idea about even knowing. I guess this began the whole “lack of communication” issue that I will later get into. Had there been some sort of note, or instructions, it would have made things much simpler but there was nothing. And on top of not knowing, there was also another statement he made that made me feel like I was stupid for not knowing. His comment.. “everyone knows where it is!” So when I turned to ask my few colleagues, even the one he begged me to get for him, she looked at me with a question mark as well. She didn’t know where something was either. We had to Google search it.

From there things just progressed.

He’d forget he showed me how to do something. Consistently saying I need to pick up the pace and be fast at things. Mind you, COVID was in the midst of things and business was super slow. Blame his mistakes on others, especially me. Yell at us instead of owning up to his own mistakes, etc. It was becoming out of control.

When COVID hit, he reduced our hours and we were forced to just “clean” everything. I mean there’s really only so much cleaning you can do, especially if it’s quiet and there’s no foot traffic to make things dirty. When he reduced our hours he stated it was only temporary and that he would slowly increase our hours back to full-time status. That never happened. Instead another former employee had caught them out on an issue and had taken them to Fair Work. Our hourly wages were cut and we were put on Award Rates. But here’s where it really kicked in. He redrew the contracts for everyone but had illegally turned my full-time position into a part-time one. I spoke with the person who is suppose to be HR, however, is rarely there to do HR stuff, and advised him of the situation with my contract. He said he didn’t realize I was full-time. I said I was and he can look at my first contract to see it.

Anyway, that finally got sorted but only to find out that the Contracts they were using were generic and were not fitted for each individual employee, which should have been done. I later found out that he had put two of the other employees on a Salary based contract where it didn’t matter how many hours they worked, they got paid the same rate. This was accidentally said to another part-time employee.

The poor lack of communication was also a very severe issue. Again, I was to blame for it. If I were to try and explain, I would only be giving away the company and what they do. Although anyone who knows me and reads this will know what I’m talking about and can relate.

Jumping to conclusions without asking questions first. Big issue there. Too many times that I can’t even count I’ve been, again, accused of something when there were perfectly good explanations as to why. Shoot first, ask questions later.

They lie to make themselves look good. Their website is full of inconsistencies. It’s misleading and I constantly had to make excuses to customers as to why it says what it says.

I could go on and on about so many things that happened. I literally wrote them down on my phone. Every minor to major incident that occurred over the following 10 months that wasn’t my fault or I was being blamed just led me to believe I was being forced to quit. So of course, they won. Or did they?

There were 5 other (non office) employees that left due to reasons that were totally uncalled for by said Employer. And then there was myself and a part-time office staff that has now resigned. Another possible third employee that works remotely is also struggling with the thought of resigning. He actually sent an email to the Manager stating he will think about it and provide his answer. Sadly he has decided to stay, and I believe it’s because it would truly leave the company short staffed in the office.

So this once loved family has now left a very bad taste in my mouth. I feel sorry for the girl I worked with at the previous job who now will be under his spell. She had once told me before she started there… “ I don’t want to go back in that line of work”…. To “I guess this is what I’m meant to be doing”. I feel for her and I feel for the person who works remotely.

For the remainder of the last three months working for this company, I had been looking for another job. I do feel like I was pushed into making this decision. He got what he wanted. He got the employee he had been after for the past 10 years. I wasn’t needed any longer so the only way to get me to leave was to force me out.

And if you’re asking if I found another job? The answer is, yes, I did.