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Worked for a company for almost 20 years. Got put on a support team where I quickly became the senior man. The company screwed up, got sued and whacked with a multi-million-dollar judgment. So they had to lay off. Out of a 10-man team that was already 2 men short, they cut another two. Then they took away the on-call incentive and created a primary/secondary structure where you were on call primary one week, secondary the next. So you were on call a third of the time. And since most of the junior members didn't know squat, you got called even if you were not formally on call.

One night I had just managed to get my son to start on his homework and the phone rang. It was work, and they were asking me a stupid question that any first-year tech support could have answered. I blew up and told them to do their homework, call the right person, and leave me alone.

A week later, I was fired.

When I told the director that I was not "on the clock," his response -- and I am not making this up -- was "If we call you at 3 in the morning on Christmas, you are required to answer."

I moved, found another job, and am now making more than 3 times what I was making there. That place was a discount hell-hole. And I heard every one of the lines in this article there at one point or another.

Glad you were able to move up and out. My worst experience was with a electronics recycling and reselling company. They employed a personnel strategy that WWI generals would appreciate.

Hire lots of cheap temps, work them to the point they would quit or do something to get fired, and replace. I was one of the few full timers. I was never a temp, I filled out an application and was hired. I was supposed to be the head of refurb and repair and get a cut of the Ebay sales.

The head yo yo came from St. Louis and told me point blank in the presence of witnesses that he set me up to fail. It was a 3 man job. I got one person off and on. Also he told me to push capacitors in and mark them fixed.

His boss was even more bizarre. One time he IM’d me about a large flat screen TV to list and sell. It was in Kansas City and I was in SC. He chewed me out saying I was incompetent and the like for daring to contradict with facts. I even got the person out there to chime in and swear it was in KC but to no avail. I gave up.

The others made him look fairly tame.

I quit once but came back to finally do what I was supposed to do all along. That lasted a couple of months. I wound up quitting again. I went the contractor route. It was feast and famine but generally a better life. 99% of the time I was treated really well.

All that contracting finally led to a full time job at a manufacturing place out in the woods. After 5 months as a contractor, I was hired. My starting salary was a little over 50K and I am more or less 3rd in command. All I have is my A+ and 6 class crash course on PC repair 14 years ago. My Microsoft certs died a long time ago. No one seemed to care when I had them.