3 ms·

My first "real job" (31, had two, fired from both) was in a small web dev shop of about 15 people. One morning I walk into the office and there was a giant wet

My first "real job" (31, had two, fired from both) was in a small web dev shop of about 15 people. One morning I walk into the office and there was a giant wet puddle on the carpet in the middle of the open office. The roof had leaked in the office building and gone through a few floors. The air was damp and all the windows covered in condensation. Clearly a safety and health issue. I lived about a 10min walk away, so figured I'd just work at home and announced that's what I'd be doing. Everyone wanted to work elsewhere or from home. However the boss decided that he'd cram everyone into the boardroom for the day. I was the only one who stood my ground and told the boss I was going home despite his bullshit about not being a "team player". Wage slavery is a dangerous mindset.

monochromatic 8y ago
Was this the episode that got you fired?
- tru3_power 8y ago
  Hah. I hope not. If more people stood up to these things they wouldn’t happen so often.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- paulie_a 8y ago
  Years ago I had a meeting with my boss about an "incident" and flat out said I told a coworker to go fuck themself, twice and I wouldn't apologize for it. And then asked for a 20 percent raise. It was completely justified and my boss knew it. I also got the raise. Gp is right about wage slavery, sometimes people actually need to stand up for themselves.
- treelovinhippie 8y ago
  Nah they eventually got me on a technicality. 3-day per week gig, but they kept pushing me into doing a 5-day week. I was the "innovation manager" funded by a government grant. So I was a one-man show expected to build, market and sell new profitable internal startups with zero resources or equity. On a Friday I found out the largest startup conference in Sydney was happening the next week. So I let the boss know I'd be going to that. No response. I went to the conference. When I got back to work they fired me for "not giving 2 weeks leave notice" as was in my contract lol. The story of how I got fired from the second job was even more sketchy. Involves the largest employer in the crypto industry. HR lied about giving me a warning about "behaviour" (never provided any evidence to the claim) and later admitted to having never contacted me. Small cartel of middle managers in a supposedly "decentralised company" fired me 2 weeks before a 6 month probation without any knowledge or consensus from my regional team or primary team. HR lady was fired 2 months later. They then strung me along for 2 months with a "soon to be proposed" rehire offer. Now they ignore my emails. Classy.
jaclaz 8y ago
I believe there are many, many "shades of gray", one thing is your case where the workplace became clearly unhealthy, another thing is : >I hated working in an open office and tried to leverage my post-dental-surgery fragility into a private office or the right to work from home. And actually have the - fill the gap - (courage/guts/impudence/insolence/crazyness) to actually write about it. "post-dental-surgery fragility", come on ...
brookside 8y ago
> Clearly a safety and health issue. Why clearly? I like standing up to workplace nonsense as much (or way more) than the next guy/gal, but seems rigid to refuse to code from a different room for a day.
- SmallDeadGuy 8y ago
  From OP's wording, I assume "cram everyone" means that there wasn't actually a good amount of space for people to work in there and it'd be detrimental to everyone. I certainly would be rigid if I went from working at a nice large desk with multiple screens to sharing a 16-seat boardroom table between 20-30 people...

monochromatic 8y ago

Was this the episode that got you fired?

tru3_power 8y ago
Hah. I hope not. If more people stood up to these things they wouldn’t happen so often.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
paulie_a 8y ago
Years ago I had a meeting with my boss about an "incident" and flat out said I told a coworker to go fuck themself, twice and I wouldn't apologize for it. And then asked for a 20 percent raise. It was completely justified and my boss knew it. I also got the raise. Gp is right about wage slavery, sometimes people actually need to stand up for themselves.
treelovinhippie 8y ago
Nah they eventually got me on a technicality. 3-day per week gig, but they kept pushing me into doing a 5-day week. I was the "innovation manager" funded by a government grant. So I was a one-man show expected to build, market and sell new profitable internal startups with zero resources or equity. On a Friday I found out the largest startup conference in Sydney was happening the next week. So I let the boss know I'd be going to that. No response. I went to the conference. When I got back to work they fired me for "not giving 2 weeks leave notice" as was in my contract lol. The story of how I got fired from the second job was even more sketchy. Involves the largest employer in the crypto industry. HR lied about giving me a warning about "behaviour" (never provided any evidence to the claim) and later admitted to having never contacted me. Small cartel of middle managers in a supposedly "decentralised company" fired me 2 weeks before a 6 month probation without any knowledge or consensus from my regional team or primary team. HR lady was fired 2 months later. They then strung me along for 2 months with a "soon to be proposed" rehire offer. Now they ignore my emails. Classy.

jaclaz 8y ago

I believe there are many, many "shades of gray", one thing is your case where the workplace became clearly unhealthy, another thing is : >I hated working in an open office and tried to leverage my post-dental-surgery fragility into a private office or the right to work from home. And actually have the - fill the gap - (courage/guts/impudence/insolence/crazyness) to actually write about it. "post-dental-surgery fragility", come on ...

brookside 8y ago

> Clearly a safety and health issue. Why clearly? I like standing up to workplace nonsense as much (or way more) than the next guy/gal, but seems rigid to refuse to code from a different room for a day.

SmallDeadGuy 8y ago
From OP's wording, I assume "cram everyone" means that there wasn't actually a good amount of space for people to work in there and it'd be detrimental to everyone. I certainly would be rigid if I went from working at a nice large desk with multiple screens to sharing a 16-seat boardroom table between 20-30 people...