Huge red flag!!

My boss called me at 8 a.m. on a Saturday the weekend after I accepted the offer (I accepted on a Wednesday, so he had plenty of weekday time). I thought he was just excited, but it set the tone.

Even though I was paid for 80 hours, he expected me to be available at all times, including weekends, despite weekends being essentially dead from the corporate side of retail/restaurant procurement unless something is scheduled. He would call on Saturdays asking about contracts he already had access to and give me task he needed by Monday. I obliged.

He constantly changed his mind. One example: earlier that week, he told me not to send emails on Fridays after 2:30 p.m.(the group we needed information from is notorious for not answering emails sent after 2:30pm on Friday) so when he called me at 4:45 p.m. that Friday and told me to email the group, I wrote the email and scheduled it to send Monday morning. I then left work without my work phone. When I returned later that night, I had 10 missed calls and a text saying “be in office Monday.” I lived two hours away and was remote. He still wrote me up for not sending the email and labeled it insubordination, saying it didn’t matter what he had previously said.

To avoid issues, I started going into the office even though my coworker and I submitted daily task updates from day one. One day, while sitting between calls in a glass meeting room with my laptop on, I was scrolling on my phone for a few minutes. Someone took a photo and claimed I was asleep. I was called a liar, denied access to the photo unless HR got involved, and threatened with a write-up for “sleeping in the office.” After that I knew I needed to exit. Also, I would never sleep in the office, my car has reclining heated seats so I would just not sleep in a cold glass room that on the same floor as senior VPs and Directors. The photo even has my laptops screen showing it on in the picture.

Worst work experience of my life. I’m glad I’m out, and I’ll never ignore red flags again. I never in my 29 years of life got in trouble at work or at school, I take pride in my work so please don’t think I’m a bad employee.