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The original was posted on /r/antiwork by /u/Fishon72 on 2023-10-23 00:01:34.

I was hired at a furniture consignment store in October of 2021 and was fired in May of 2022. I found the job on a local craigslist ad and applied, did a working interview, and the owner was exuberant with my performance and hired me at the end of the day for $20 an hour.

During the first few months I made some observations. The owner was a husband and wife team 70 and 66 years old, respectively. Their desks were positioned in the middle of the store, classical music and opera played all day. They only sold "FINE furniture" acccording to husband. I noticed that Husband started drinking white wine starting at approximately noon every day. They harped on how important it was to be skinny as a fucking swizzle stick, it's all he talked about most times and how the real pandemic in the united states is obesity. He bought a new item of clothing from the upscale thrift store next door every day, usually a new dinner jacket. They went to dinner at various country or yacht clubs almost every night. Appearance was everything to them. Wife wore only McLaughlin shirts everyday. Husband judged every one that walked by the store making all kinds of inappropriate comments about colored girls that would be going into the nail salon all day. When the big mover trucks were scheduled for a big delivery to the store from a residence and they didn't show up on time, he would say about the drivers, "they're on black people time." Like, what the hell is this? I was so fucking embarrased. For HIM. I would have quit the first time I heard this bullshit but I have a disabled son and this is a good wage for where I live and my skillset.

I took most of my orders from the wife. After a couple of weeks her true colors started to shine...she would demean me in front of customers or call me over to ask me a question in front of a customer and then literally wave me away with her hand and tell me to get back to work. She never lost her temper, she could be brutally cold and rude and do it all in the most couture tone, like she was talking to a puppy. It was total crazymaking behavior. I have has realtionships with DIAGNOSED narcississts and she took all of that to a whole new level. She was insufferable. She took great pleasure in talking down to and demeaning me and all the other employees who came and went during my tenure there.

What wife didnt tell me when I accepted the job is that she was going to pay me as a 1099 employee. There was one other person working at the store at that time in the beginning. He had a van and did deliveries of furniture and other items for customers and the customer paid him directly. He still earned a wage from the store for hanging artwork, helping move furniture, and the like. He was making over $100 an hour at times. He was also 1099'd. She just handed me my first check at the end of the first week with no withholding. I was already afraid to say anything because I needed the job so badly at the time.

Prior to this job I didn't know anything about furniture or how to take care of it. They trained me how to do everything, using all of their tools/equipment. I saved every single to do list she ever gave me. I took pictures of every single check and stub and filed them away in chronological order. I had a feeling I was going to need them someday...shit was getting abusive and stressful after about 3 months.

They fired the delivery guy and a new guy came and we were like brother and sister immediately. Still to this day. After a few months, we'll call him Jack, I was walking by him in the very large showroom and I hear him going "HEY...come here!" from behind a dresser. I walk over and he asks, "have you googled them?" I was like "Them. You mean the owners?" He has this look of sheer delight on his face, he too had been the brunt of wife's cuntics. "OMG," he said,"they've been to prison and ESCAPED."

Got home that night. Sure as shit there they were, Chicago Tribune article from the 90's. He stole everyones federal withholding and spent it on, you guessed it - wine, cashmere sport coats, luxury items. The IRS busted him, convicted him, and sent him to minimum security for two years. He walked out of minimum security, she picked him up with plans to run to Palm Beach. US marshalls busted them in a little motel in Illinios and he served the rest of his time in maximum. Dont know what happened to her.

During my almost nine month employment I suffered a lot of mental and emotional abuse from her. It was like being in a narcissistic relationship and the honeymoon phase happened once a week, then she would gaslight me again, over and over, ad nauseam. All of the stress was causing what I thought were mini heart attacks or perhaps MAJOR palpitations. I was sitting in the break room one day talking to her and the whole room started spinning. I dont mean a little playground at recess kind of dizziness I mean like hardcore spins like I dont know which way is up, im going to fucking puke. It would last a couple of minutes. Then random nausea. Then this strange sound sensitivity kicked in at one point, followed a month or two later by this aural tinnitus and ear fullness. I called the ambulance from the break room when the vertigo attack happened. Wife turned on this fake bullshit concern and escorted me to the front of the store to meet the med unit out front. At that time I thought I was having a cardiac event, I was terrified. Halfway through the store she asks me if I can call 911 back and ask them to come to the back door. SERIOUSLY.

After the symptoms started becoming insane on a daily basis I really started dreading going to work. I usually arrived an hour before them, opened the store, turned the music on, blah, blah. Then one day I come to open the store and I have what I now know is a drop attack. I fell. Like I was slammed to the ground. It was over as fast as it started. I picked myself up, i was uninjured, luckily. When they arrived for the day I had a talk with them. I said I need to take a break and see some doctors and figure out what was wrong with me, I really need a week.

They didn't object. In fact, Wife had said a few weeks ago in the break room when it was just the two of us that "if I wanted to go take a break and go camping with my husband for a week that would be just fine, we will be just fine... just like we were before you were here" and then she flipped her hair and walked out of the room. So when they didnt object I felt a great relief. I spent the next week going to the ENT and being tested. Brain MRI. CT of the right ear. Caloric and VNG testing. They found 42% vestibular weakness right side.

This was the beginning of what was to become full blown Meniere's Disease and it has only become worse since that time. Stress is the #1 cause of attacks for most Meniere's sufferers.

The night before I am to go back to work I'm hanging out with the hubs and my phone rings. Its Wife. I answer and she proceeds to tell me that I am fired, and that "I made Husband VERY ANGRY." She gave no other reason for firing me, in fact she talked about how they had already found a replacement for me and how excited she was about her. Fuck her.

The story doesnt end here. Because I'm not stupid, I immediately wrote the IRS and filled out the appropriate forms to throw them under the bus. They had no right to claim me as a 1099 employee, and I intended to prove it. That was the easy part, I had kept every scrap of paper that she ever wrote on and handed me, and every check stub and physical check. Nine months later the IRS came down on them and made them pay withwolding on me and everyone else thats ever worked for them. And you can bet your ass that I reminded the IRS of who they were.

Do you know how fucking sweet that was to get that letter in the mail? Now I'm going to get a few thousand back on an amended return.

Hahaha. I probably cost them tens of thousands. Now she can't fire people willy nilly anymore. AND she's gonna have to carry unemployment insurance and whatever else.

I couldn't file unemployment because I was a 1099 employee. Now that I have been assigned as a W2 employee by the IRS can't I now legally file for unemployment for the tenure of my employment?

That would be great beacuse I'm now fully disabled because of Meniere's Disease and waiting for a SSDI/SSI determination.

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for your replies.