u/julio_evov

Today I walked out of a very toxic WFH employment. I lasted only 5 months and decided to ghost because of reasons. No I am unemployed and uncertain pero para akong nabunutan ng tinik.

All this for a 8AUD per hour rate which they haggled from my original 12AUD per hour asking.

Long story:

I am an architect who applied and hot hired as an architectural designer by a small time builder in AU.

First bad experience:

My 12 aud per hour rate got reduced to 8 aud per hour during negotiation, i took the risk given it is a work from home job but we had an agreement that there would be a performance appraisal upon 3 months, and an annual appraisal as part of the benefits since the company offers no benefits, even leaves. Its a a no work no pay scheme, forced unpaid 2 weeks shutdown period by december, then initially no appraisal clause in the contract.

Second bad experience:

I asked for a contract upon onboarding but they said its still being signed. Fast forward to 5 months, i received a contract for signing with a very one sided clauses, favoring the employer (no appraisal as discussed upon negotiation, additional admin workloads indicated, client facing). 5 months delayed yung contract, yet they want me to sign it right away, i said i want to review it and asked for revisions.

Third bad experience:

First few weeks were okay, the 6:30 to 2:30 setup worked really well for me but the boss is the "ill blame you for anything" type. I was reduced to being a draftsman.

Case 1:

I initially designed a floor plan adhering to the standard space planning, au codes and regulations, then he will overhaul everything to his "standard" following a sketch he made, which is full of errors i had to suck up.

Case 2:

Asked me to provide an as built drawing based off a reference floor plans online??? This is the typical workflow for us then, get a reference floor plan image from a real estate listing online then trace it for asbuilt drawings then provide renovation proposals.

Which is okay to an extent, but he lashes out on me because there are discrepancies from my asbuilt drawings to their actual measurements on site.

Gusto ko nalang sabihin na "wala naman ako jan sa au para mag sukat" but i had to shut up, kahit na sinasabihan ka ng "you dont care about your job" "you should have known that" "im not paying you to not think"

Case 3:

Minor errors like mispellings or missed dimensions that escalates to a full blown degrading sermon.

I tried to explain to him that I am working alone and he is the one counter checking my work, errors like that are common.

Even explained to him that I previously worked with a team and I facilitate work cross checking. Even a junior architect checks or reads plans that I make to see potential errors, but he just said that we dont have time for that. And this is what drained me the most as it made me always question the quality of work I produce. The anxiety level went off the roof.

Last bad experience:

My laptop broke down due to some issues (randomly shuts down on a monday, then completely unusable by Tuesday) and I got blamed for it.

"Part of your responsibility is to maintain a working laptop"

"you should have checked on it after work time as it is unfair to me that I am paying you to look into this"

"You should have a second laptop for work"

This made me snap.

First they cut off my budget for maintenance. I explained that my 12 aud per hour rate covers hardware and software costs since they will not provide any.

Second, i am going to file for an unpaid leave to get it fixed on that day but i got a "we have so much work to do, you cant be filing leave always" ano gagawin ko? Hahahahaha

Third, require me to have a second laptop on hand? Not even on the contract. FYI one laptop for architectural works is around 100k php. Di nga covered yung current hardware plus operating cost ko sa rate na binigay sakin tapos mag require pa ng extra gaming laptop.

Tuesday, i went to a technician, one of my ram stick got fried, new ram is 12k. The whole day the boss is flooding and calling me with "hows the laptop" "whats the update". Even the PH tagapagmana calls and leaves me chats too "get the laptop fixed, he is very mad about this". Got so stressed i turned off notifs and did not answered any calls. Naka unpaid leave naman ako eh, and personal expense ko gagamitin for repair.

I decided to resign immediately as I havent signed the contract yet.

Wednesday, upon clock in - i no longer got access to my teams account. Napa WTF ako kasi i am planning to turnover files naman. I got 14gb of working files for 7 projects in my SSD, na di nila hinanap. Now they are still calling and asking for update via whatsapp.

Was it worth it? Maybe.

Today I walked out of a very toxic WFH employment. I lasted only 5 months and decided to ghost because of reasons. No I am unemployed and uncertain pero para akong nabunutan ng tinik.

All this for a 8AUD per hour rate which they haggled from my original 12AUD per hour asking.

Long story:

I am an architect who applied and hot hired as an architectural designer by a small time builder in AU.

First bad experience:

My 12 aud per hour rate got reduced to 8 aud per hour during negotiation, i took the risk given it is a work from home job but we had an agreement that there would be a performance appraisal upon 3 months, and an annual appraisal as part of the benefits since the company offers no benefits, even leaves. Its a a no work no pay scheme, forced unpaid 2 weeks shutdown period by december, then initially no appraisal clause in the contract.

Second bad experience:

I asked for a contract upon onboarding but they said its still being signed. Fast forward to 5 months, i received a contract for signing with a very one sided clauses, favoring the employer (no appraisal as discussed upon negotiation, additional admin workloads indicated, client facing). 5 months delayed yung contract, yet they want me to sign it right away, i said i want to review it and asked for revisions.

Third bad experience:

First few weeks were okay, the 6:30 to 2:30 setup worked really well for me but the boss is the "ill blame you for anything" type. I was reduced to being a draftsman.

Case 1:

I initially designed a floor plan adhering to the standard space planning, au codes and regulations, then he will overhaul everything to his "standard" following a sketch he made, which is full of errors i had to suck up.

Case 2:

Asked me to provide an as built drawing based off a reference floor plans online??? This is the typical workflow for us then, get a reference floor plan image from a real estate listing online then trace it for asbuilt drawings then provide renovation proposals.

Which is okay to an extent, but he lashes out on me because there are discrepancies from my asbuilt drawings to their actual measurements on site.

Gusto ko nalang sabihin na "wala naman ako jan sa au para mag sukat" but i had to shut up, kahit na sinasabihan ka ng "you dont care about your job" "you should have known that" "im not paying you to not think"

Case 3:

Minor errors like mispellings or missed dimensions that escalates to a full blown degrading sermon.

I tried to explain to him that I am working alone and he is the one counter checking my work, errors like that are common.

Even explained to him that I previously worked with a team and I facilitate work cross checking. Even a junior architect checks or reads plans that I make to see potential errors, but he just said that we dont have time for that. And this is what drained me the most as it made me always question the quality of work I produce. The anxiety level went off the roof.

Last bad experience:

My laptop broke down due to some issues (randomly shuts down on a monday, then completely unusable by Tuesday) and I got blamed for it.

"Part of your responsibility is to maintain a working laptop"

"you should have checked on it after work time as it is unfair to me that I am paying you to look into this"

"You should have a second laptop for work"

This made me snap.

First they cut off my budget for maintenance. I explained that my 12 aud per hour rate covers hardware and software costs since they will not provide any.

Second, i am going to file for an unpaid leave to get it fixed on that day but i got a "we have so much work to do, you cant be filing leave always" ano gagawin ko? Hahahahaha

Third, require me to have a second laptop on hand? Not even on the contract. FYI one laptop for architectural works is around 100k php. Di nga covered yung current hardware plus operating cost ko sa rate na binigay sakin tapos mag require pa ng extra gaming laptop.

Tuesday, i went to a technician, one of my ram stick got fried, new ram is 12k. The whole day the boss is flooding and calling me with "hows the laptop" "whats the update". Even the PH tagapagmana calls and leaves me chats too "get the laptop fixed, he is very mad about this". Got so stressed i turned off notifs and did not answered any calls. Naka unpaid leave naman ako eh, and personal expense ko gagamitin for repair.

I decided to resign immediately as I havent signed the contract yet.

Wednesday, upon clock in - i no longer got access to my teams account. Napa WTF ako kasi i am planning to turnover files naman. I got 14gb of working files for 7 projects in my SSD, na di nila hinanap. Now they are still calling and asking for update via whatsapp.

Was it worth it? Maybe.