foxydaisy

I'm starting the hunt for a new (hopefully better) job. My boss doesn't like me at all. I get little clues like the fact that he sent invitations to everyone in the office for his Christmas party. Except me. Even the temp who's been here 2 months went. AND I had to do the invitations.

Yeah, so, I'm fairly certain he wants to fire me. And I'm fairly certain it's because he's homophobic. When I first started working here, he was really friendly to me and made small talk all the time. Then, one day he got really cold and overly professional, and it was around the time that it was starting to be more widely known around the office that I was gay.

I'm trying to dot every I and cross every T and not give him an excuse. I'm being a perfect fucking employee, and he still finds reasons to complain to my manager about me and have her come and talk to me. Like, he doesn't want me using the computer at all for personal reasons while I'm working. I'm a receptionist. I sit in the lobby by myself all day and answer the phone. When there's no work for me to do, it's boring as hell. Fuck it, I thought, so I won't use the computer. Whatever. He's the boss.

So after two days of no computer use except on my lunch break, my manager comes in and says, "Um... you need to not go on the internet." I told her I hadn't, and she said, "Well, he said something to me about it today and asked that I talk to you." He saw me using it on my lunch break and yelled at her that I couldn't be on the computer.

<deep breath>

FINE. No computer at all, even when I'm off the clock. It's their computer. Whatever.

Another thing was the fish. Poochie bought me this pretty little betta in a bowl for my desk at work. He was deep red, in a tall vase with black pebbles. Very classy looking. I set it all up, and all the salespeople and customer service people came in and ooo'd and aaah'd over it. Then, when my boss walked in, he got upset that I had brought a fish in and had a huge meeting about it. He said I had to take it home because, "If I let you have one, I have to let everyone have one."

There are only like 8 people who even have desks in our company. And they all keep little personal things on them, like photos of their kids and stuff. I don't have anything personal on my desk because I'm in the lobby and I want it to look neat and professional. But, I can understand where he's coming from. We can't run a successful business with EIGHT FISH all over the place! It would be CHAOS!!

Then, we were going to be closed for a week for the holidays. My manager asked me when I started working here, and told me, "Well, I can't give you full pay for the vacation, but you'll at least get something. I need to look it up, but you'll get partial pay."

Cool. Every little bit helps.

Then, two days before we leave for vacation, I see him in her office arguing with her about something. A little while later she comes out to my desk looking really upset. She says, "Jess, I have some bad news. We can't compensate you anything for the vacation time. I guess the policy is that you have to be working here a year before you get any paid vacation time. And we're going to be closed for two weeks now."

Two weeks. No pay. They tell me two days before we close.

She said, "I would advise you to open an unemployment claim for the two weeks." Then, very carefully, she says, "Between you and me, I really like working with you, but I do want the best for you. You should start looking for a job in a bigger corporation. Somewhere where everything is written down."

So I don't think there was any policy. I think he just didn't want to pay me anything.

Poochie says if he does fire me that I should talk to a lawyer. I don't know, though. I guess the only thing I can do is try and find a better job and hope he doesn't can me before that happens.