Escaping the employer from hell

2 years ago, I was sitting atop a mountain, contemplating life.  Cheesy, I know, and not at all unique.

However, what was unique was the fact that at that point, I had gotten to said mountain by carrying a 40lb pack over 100km and climbing up about 10.000 feet of mountain.  Why pray tell would anyone in their right mind attempt to do this after never even having carried a backpack heavier than a bottle of water and granola bar.  Well, simple really.  I was bored.  As the cliche goes, an idle mind is a dangerous thing.  After building a career, having a comfortable life and getting over a traumatic short lived marriage, I needed a challenge.  Yeah, I suppose there were more reasonable ways of accomplishing this, but I'm not known for taking the easy way out.

After proving to myself that I could do something as absurd as carrying a backpack for a month in Northern Canada, I thought of other ways I could push myself without the need for "nature's toilet" paper or needing to make bear calls constantly to stave off bears.

Long story short, I thought living overseas would be a much more glamourous option.  I didn't put any thought into how it would happen and it turns out, I didn't need to.  Shortly after adjusting back to civilization, I was contacted by a recruiter for a large german company.  6 months after standing atop that mountain, I was living and working in Europe!

Moving to a new country is not an easy task. Doing it alone and in a language you don't speak is hard.  Doing it when things go sideways, is sheer hell.

Problems were apparent in my first few weeks at work.  From a delayed work permit (cause it sat on someone's desk) to not having a computer for 3 months (& needing to wait another 2 for all the right programs) to not having basic information about what was what.  When my boss said to me "Katherine, it may seem like we didn't want you, but we really did" I giggled and chalked it up to bad luck.  After all, this was a huge international company.  When my German colleagues would "forget" to speak English, I'd apologize for not knowing any German and vowed to learn ASAP.  Even though the "official" working language of the company was English, I wanted to fit in and be part of the team!  When I realized that by them not switching to English, I was missing really important info, I was concerned.  When they got mad at me because they claimed to have told me about the issue, I was pissed.

Despite all that, I made efforts to learn German and my colleagues agreed to speak in the company's working language for issues directly affecting me.  Yeah, so what if I couldn't partake in office niceties, at least I wouldn't be accused of not paying attention.   I raised these issues with my boss and my requests for German classes was met with "Well, THIS is your German class!" I even attempted to discuss this with my HR manager, but she was too busy, forgetful or stupid to show up for either of the 2 meetings she scheduled and held a grudge against me for not giving her a 3rd chance to reschedule a meeting.

Yeah cracks were evident from the beginning, but what do you do? You just moved your life across an ocean.  So I made the best of it.  When I realized that I wouldn't in fact be working on industry leading products and that a trained monkey could do my job, I expanded my social life.  After all, I had 6 weeks vacation and lived in the middle of Europe!  I started to hit a groove.  Sure, my job killed my soul every day and I had 5 minutes of interaction with colleagues, but I'd manage.

My breaking point came after the threat of legal action.  I went on a work trip representing said big international company overseas and it resulted in the national train company trying to sue me over the big international company's error.  Then I put my foot down.  NO.WAY.  I had had enough.  Not one of my managers nor the employee who booked the trip was willing to help me with the situation.  After sending emails to everyone and their manager, the situation got dealt with and the lawsuit dropped. 5 months later.  After that, I vowed middle of Europe or big international company, it didn't matter.  I would not and could not be treated this way!

Since I wasn't ready to give up the European 6 weeks vacation anytime soon, I considered my options.  I researched what options in my specialty field were available and like a lighthouse in the middle of a storm, I found the perfect opportunity for a different large international company in Switzerland.  That job was mine if it killed me! Well....little did I know that it would nearly try!

It turned out getting a different job was the easy part.  Leaving the employer from hell, was well, hell! You'd think that since I had "fallen thru the cracks" and had these endless issues there would be a reasonable reaction to me leaving.  Well, it was anything but. Even though everyone was well aware of the situations I'd experienced, me leaving would mean that someone would have to accept that I had slipped thru the cracks and if there's one thing I learned about living and working in Bavaria is that Deflecting Responsibility is priority one.

Before giving notice in hell, I verified what the legal resignation notice period was.  It was a full month's notice.  There was a blip in my contract that stated I had to give 90 days notice, but I foolishly assumed that law would precede contract and that was the company's way of making their life easier because which foreigner was going to take the time to consult the law.  After handing in my notice and stated my exit date, I heard nothing.  1 week went by, then 2, then a month.  Randomly, and I'm convinced because of the cumulative stress on me, I ended up in the hospital needing emergency appendix surgery which also infected some other organs.  While I was in the hospital recovering from the loss of my organ, my HR manager contacted my lawyer (which I had to take for other reasons but turned out to be the best decision I made) to say that my desired leaving date wasn't accepted and the earliest they'd "let" me leave was 3 weeks later.  Well, by this point it had been 5 weeks since I'd given notice, confirmed my start date with my new employer, gave notice at my apartment and now with the surgery, wouldn't be able to work for weeks anyhow.

My lawyer attempted to approach the hr manager with logic and reason, but logic and reason are not part of big international company's motto.  Despite the fact that I wouldn't be returning to work and that my doctor told me not to return to them after the surgery, I refused their non-negotiable offer and and basically told them in nice legalese, to take the job and shove it.  Well, even though it's completely acceptable in big international company's operating motto to treat an employee worse than shit on the bottom of a shoe and taking my experience and learn from it, they decided to sue me.

I should mention that I wasn't exactly the ceo of said international company. Nor was I even management. And since it had only been 15 months since I'd been there, it's not like we had a long standing relationship or that I had any industry secrets.  But, Katherine was bad and "didn't follow the rules".   Let alone the fact that any reasonable person would have bolted long ago or started counter suing them, we were now approaching putting out a cigarette with a fire extinguisher territory.   This. was. happening.  

The first step they did was trying to present me with an injuction preventing me for working for anyone else.  I didn't have this clause in my contract, so it was absurd.  But because I no longer had an address in Germany, they couldn't do anything.  The next step is they tried to email me with the injuction and I requested an extraordinary dismissal citing my health issues.

The next step is that they contacted my new employer with a later stating that they wanted to sue either them or me for damages relating to me not living out my contract.  Right.  Again, I could have been sitting on my couch in Nurnberg indefinately collecting full pay on sick leave, but big international company would rather have that then let me leave.  It makes no sense, why would you attempt to sue a trained monkey whom you wouldn't have gotten work from anyway.  My suspicion is that someone got wind of my experiences and started asking questions.  Instead of taking ownership over treating someone poorly, they decided to proceed with the German CYA (cover your ass) tactic of dealing with things.  

So here I am, in Switzerland, a sort of fugitive from big international company.  I'm trying really hard not to let the experience sour me and I'm at the point where I accept my German work experience as perspective.  Had I gone straight from Vancouver to Switzerland, it would have been too easy.  I wouldn't have known how bad things can be.  You see, I love my new job.  I love my colleagues.  It's truly an international company and the working language is English.  Yes, people talk in Italian, French, German and who knows what else daily.  But my colleagues know, accept and respect that the working language is as stated.  I'm not an alien or an outsider here, I'm just one of the crew.   I had a fancy new mac book pro waiting for me on my first day.  My mom says that "normal" is only a setting on a washing machine, but I dare say that it's been "normal" here.  The new big international company is aware of the situation and is fully supporting me thru it.   It's been hell yet mentally, I'm close to heaven knowing that I don't have to live in that situation anymore.   I did learn a very important lesson though: be careful what you wish for.  Or at least be more specific.