Weekend Engagement Wk264: Unkind Treatment

Have I ever found myself being unkind to, or hard on myself?

Yes I have and it was a terrible experience. You know, all my life I had been someone who's so much in love with doing a corporate job even if I have so many things doing, I don't know the reason but I just found myself that way but my notion changed when I saw the other side of not having what you could call your own thing or building for others when yours is laying there dormant.

I once worked with a company for 3 years, it was a whole lot of efforts and passion put into working since it aligned with what I loved to do. From spending extra work hours and graduating to closing so late even if the street wasn't safe enough to walk out late. Closing at your actual closing hours even when you're done with your task is like you did nothing for the day or for the company because staying up late till late night only shows you're working.
Skipping breakfast or conversion to lunch, fine it's normal at times when you're an employee but it becomes abnormal when it's now a habit or routine and migraine now becomes your constant visitor not because you want that but because you had no option. Mentally abused because you would end up being yelled at and threatened with your job for one tenth of the times you're called to come on non-working days because of something out of job scope or something which is supposed to be done the new week if it actually popped up during the weekend.

All these and others were what I was always enduring as an employee who was always thinking about where to start from if I decided to leave my job because of the employer's toxicity without having another job yet even if I had my side talent/work as a drawing artist but to live a stable life in my dear country, you need to have a stable income but still, I worked faithfully and diligently.

But unfortunately, just like trying to walk in the dark from the picture above, the unknown fear occured. A friend of mine was supposed to have her wedding and I was supposed to be her chief bridesmaid but knowing fully well that my employer would want to call me on Saturday just to make me come to work unnecessarily, I informed him 2 weeks before so he can be aware that I'm not available to be called of which he agreed to and promised to make me close an hour before the actual closing time (though I doubted it). To verify that my doubts were real, the two weeks reached and the Friday was here for me to close from work an hour early but I wasn't allowed to instead I was told that I wasn't going nowhere as I have to be at work the Saturday I was meant to be a chief bridesmaid at my friend's wedding 🤦.

Stylishly and applying wisdom (Though it cost me some hours to waste because I was meant to travel) I had to get a colleague to stand in for me which my employer agreed to. The colleague did stand in and did what he was supposed to do since it was just to stay with the company's appliance repairer to check what was wrong and I was given reports all through the process and when they were done even as I was in the wedding but let's say my employer was just trying to be entitled to my whole time as his employee because things went the other way round. I met his 2 missed calls immediately being done with the wedding and I decided to call him back which he ended the calls, only to see a text message of being terminated from work and I requested to know the cause of the sms termination but didn't get a response. Let's say I was also tired of the whole thing even if that was the only stable source of income I had then but it was already tampering with my mental health so I decided to resign officially since it was a text message I received from my employer..... (Some other drama followed)

Though an employer may have the right to terminate anyone from his company because it is solely his, especially when it's a one-man business but I just felt it was so unkind to staff members who had invested so much into making their businesses grow and actualizing the objectives, not even in such manner at which it went.
Everyone is meant to be replaced no matter how massively or tiring they work as I was not the first or would even be the last in such situation with him but I had always wanted to leave peacefully with no drama attached.

At some point I was about to be hard on myself that should I have just gone begging and begging him all over again probably he would have reverted his decision but I took back the feeling because at the end of the day, it's about my peace of mind and mental health and losing that would still end up getting me replaced eventually.

But the only thing I kept thinking about is, do people talk about work toxicity or they are being silenced because of the fear of losing their jobs

I will be dropping my pen here on the prompt from weekend experience community.

Thanks for reading as always 🤗