I made my way through the small law office, picking up rogue staples embedded in the worn carpet fibres and praying I didn’t miss any. I quickened my pace and kept my eyes forward as I passed my boss’s office, but was quickly stopped by three simple words that, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t make my skin crawl: “Alex, come here.”

I closed my eyes and threw my head back, taking a breath before peering around the door frame and offering my most convincing smile.

“Yes, sir?”

He shuffled through a stack of papers on his desk, not bothering to turn his head in my direction as he said.

“The next time you get me candy, you need to buy a bag with a resealable top. When I took the bag out of the cabinet, candy spilled everywhere,” he told me.

He finally stopped what he was doing and looked directly at me, which I assumed was a warning to take what he had said seriously.

“You need to go clean it up.”

I’ll never forget how I felt in that moment: deflated, belittled, confused, pissed off. It was bizarre enough that he sent me on daily 7-Eleven trips to buy candy, but demanding that I clean up the mess he made? I felt like I was starring in a bad sitcom — and not the so-bad-it’s-good kind.

Truthfully, I shouldn’t have been surprised, not after the horrendous few months I had already spent working there. But this was a new low, even for the man who forced me to pick staples up off the floor.

If only my timid, younger self had the courage to quit that very second.

My marketing experience led me to a local law firm in 2012. I was lured into a marketing director role by a smooth-talking, 60-something-year-old lawyer with a crooked grin and seemingly pleasant personality. The pay was decent, the work sounded promising, the office was a five-minute drive from my apartment, and I was excited to help grow a small, close-knit business.

I showed up to work on my first day eager to flesh out a new marketing strategy, but was met with a few “other” tasks I needed to complete first. Unfortunately, I soon learned these weren’t just extra tasks in addition to my job ... they were my job.

I had fallen for an employer bait-and-switch — and by the time I realized it, it was too late.

I wasn’t hired to work as a marketing director, though my boss never actually admitted that. Of course, he didn’t have to — the “work” was evidence enough: cleaning the company kitchen and bathrooms, doing his personal grocery shopping, collecting his newspaper from the office (even on weekends), fetching his lunch, spending hours filing papers, driving his wife wherever she needed to go — really anything that benefited him (while destroying my soul in the process).

Each........

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