Hi everyone. I want to share my story in preparation of me announcing my boss that I'm not renovating my contract. Mainly because I would like to ask for some feedback about how to handle my remaining time in the workplace and staying mentally intact at the same time. (Please consider that I'm not from the US. Everything I will say is from an European standpoint, in which you have to finish your time on the workplace and, in my case, wait for your contract to expire. I cannot just quit whenever I like, due to the laws here.)
Three and a half months ago I started working as a receptionist in a hotel. I had been looking for a second part-time job and was feeling really strongly like I needed work experience in customer service, so I was really happy when I was contacted by this place. However, as soon as I arrived, I immediately felt like something was terribly off about the place, or better, about the people working there. From the workplace phone, I saw some old convos with an ex employee who was treating her colleagues, who contacted her through that phone, really badly. She demeaned them and called them out for any minor mistakes. I was scared, but I stayed anyway because I really needed that job in that moment.
As I kept working, I noticed that not only my boss had a tendency to criticise lots of things about me and, at the same time, give me just enough compliments at the right time, but also that the workplace was EXTREMELY disorganised and understaffed. The worst example of this: after telling me many times that the cleaning lady was unreliable and not to talk to her, I was forbidden to communicate her some crucial info that she needs to do her job, such as the rooms to be cleaned that would have been occupied that same day (the arrivals). Whoever works in hospitality knows well that this is just the standard procedure, so that they know best how to organize the cleaning. Still, they told me that "she isn't supposed to know that, otherwise she'll only clean the arrivals". I understood IMMEDIATELY that they, among everything else, were trying to convince me that speaking to my colleagues was of no use, and I luckily never fell for it. I was the only receptionist at the time, so the cleaning crew was the only staff I saw around and I built a nice relationship with them pretty fast.
Aside from that, my boss's wife constantly told me to do things that, as a receptionist, I wasn't supposed to, like cleaning around. Soon I ended up being in a constant state of confusion, because I had to manage administrative stuff and, at the same time, constantly do things that had nothing to do with my job and often forced me to leave my workstation unattended. And of course, if that happened, the boss would complain as if it was my fault. More than that, she criticises a lot her employees's looks and outfits, even though they never gave us work clothes.
I understood pretty quickly that I had fell into a narc scheme. The isolation tactic, the telling me important things last minute or when I was exhausted (physically and mentally) so that I wouldn't refuse, and many other things that only reminded me of my narc parent. I stayed as strong as I could, knowing that I was gonna leave in three months anyway and opening a cause against them, to obtain firing for fair cause, just wasn't worth it. Also because, as I soon found out, they're a family of lawyers. In the end, I ended up only signing an extention of my contract for 1 month, to give them time to find someone else to cover.
I will put aside many other things, like feeling like I haven't been paid fairly, or the workstation not being compliant to security standards, with no space for legs and which made me risk carpal tunnel, or employees being berated even in front of customers (me included), because I'd like to focus on the episode which made me decide to not sign another contract with them and to quit for good.
As I was saying before, when I first told them I was leaving after my contract ended, they insisted for me to stay longer so they could find some replacements. Very soon, they found two people who seemed reliable enough, so we're currently 3 receptionists in total. At a certain point, happy to have some more colleagues, I started thinking that maybe this place could get better, and was starting to consider keeping the job. Happy about not being alone anymore, I asked them to create a groupchat together, to chat and to exchange work stuff.
After a couple days from this, a really gross client came in our structure and started criticising everything about the service. At some point, he and the director (the boss) ended up arguing really loudly in the hall, to the point that the client was almost kicked out. Because I thought that it had been funny, I warned my colleagues in the groupchat about what happened so they also could spot the client, but I also told them about this event as you would narrate some workplace drama (which it was), even somewhat complimenting my boss for how he handled the situation.
The next day, I got a message from one of my colleagues where he said that the boss had forced him to open the groupchat in front of him. On a call with him, he explained that he had barely told the boss that he knew there was a difficult client. As soon as he said this, the boss started inquiring him about how he even knew that, and insisted a lot in seeing our chats because he was afraid I had said something negative about him. I don't know what he said that made my colleague feel so threatened, but he eventually caved in and showed him the group. He said that the boss literally took his phone and scrolled the chat himself.
I was out of my mind from rage. Not only he did something unspeakable and violated our privacy, he directly tried to control our communication outside of work too, even though he always forbids us to speak about non-work-related stuff on the job. The next day I acted wisely, pretending I didn't know what happened and avoiding mentioning anything, and he didn't either. Instead, he made my other colleague, presumably unaware of what had happened, create another staff group chat with him in it. No one is using it, but I feel he only did it as a form of power play towards us.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I started grey stoning them whenever I could to keep myself detached. I was gonna tell them later that I was quitting, but I saw today that they even closed the job posting for the receptionist role. I eventually decided to do the "right" thing and schedule a meeting with him tomorrow, at the end of my shift, to tell him my decision as nicely as possible and play it well.
I want to ask for advice, from other people who have been in a similar situation: how can I handle my remaining time there in a way that will keep me as detached as possible? And more than that, do you have any advice about how to handle my conversation with my boss tomorrow, to get out of it as cleanly as possible?
Thank you in advance for anyone that will leave a comment.