I Thought I’d Landed My Dream Job. I Was Shocked By What My New Boss Wanted Me To Do For Him.

I made my way through the small law office, picking up rogue staples embedded in the worn carpet fibers 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 morning, I sat at a small desk next to a wall of filing cabinets. I was never prepared for the emails that awaited me, one of which read:

Alex,

Do you remember what I told you yesterday about how many canned Coke Zeros should be in the refrigerator at the end of the day?

Sadly, I can still remember the correct answer: eight. How dare I — the marketing director— forget to stock the correct number of sodas in the company fridge? How would we ever acquire new clients without completing such a monumental task?

Alas, there was never a shortage of absurd emails in my inbox, the majority of them scolding me over one ridiculous “slip-up” after the next: not cleaning his glass that he left on the kitchen table, buying him the wrong-sized container of milk, and leaving behind a few shreds of paper after taking out the trash. (He even taped them to my laptop to make sure I saw them. How kind!)

And, of course, there were the daily walks to the nearby 7-Eleven, where I bought a grown man an unhealthy amount of candy. It was a five-minute walk — too much of a pain by car because of the impossible downtown street parking — and his sweet tooth reigned supreme even in the face of a thunderstorm (RIP, favorite heels).

Worst of all, there was always the promise that, eventually, I would start working on projects relevant to my now-irrelevant job title. All of the errands I ran, all of the trash I took out, or pages I photocopied were allegedly stepping stones to my role as a marketing director. There was also the assurance that the corner office, used for storage, would soon be mine — after I cleaned it out, of course (being able to clean “my office” was a privilege I had to earn).

At the time, I needed that job, no matter how much I despised it. I tearfully vented to my friends over happy hour drinks, cringed at the sound of my morning alarm, and forced myself to be polite to the condescending, anal-retentive boss I loathed. I daydreamed about quitting every second of every day, but hadn’t yet lined up a new opportunity.

In the end, though, it didn’t matter. I made a fateful mistake one cold night in November, just a few days before Thanksgiving: I forgot to grab his personal mail, which needed to be dropped off at the post office after I left for the day (at 6 p.m., mind you). I raced back to the law office the second I realized my mistake and found him standing at my desk — not to reprimand me, but to fire me. (First the wrong-sized milk, then the shreds of paper on the floor, and now this?)

I’m embarrassed to say I cried — not because I was sad to lose the job I hated, but because I was now a jobless 25-year-old with rent to pay. Worse than that, I felt humiliated. He berated me upon my termination, claiming that I purposely did not do my job correctly, and eventually tried to stop me from receiving unemployment benefits. (I won that battle.)

But here’s the thing: If I had applied to be his personal assistant, all of those tasks — no matter how mundane or belittling — would’ve been expected. I wouldn’t have questioned why I was stocking Coke cans or cleaning up after his messes. I would’ve despised it — but I would’ve accepted it.

Of course, I wasn’t hired to be his personal assistant. I was hired as a marketing director … who never got to do one iota of marketing. I was fired for a job I had never signed up for, and yet it was still a crushing blow to my confidence. Was I really as inept as he made me feel? At the time, it felt like I had hit rock bottom — fired for my so-called incompetence, barely scraping by on unemployment payments.

But in the ever-poetic words of my girl Taylor Swift, “karma is a god,” and it came around just when I needed it. A former employer heard of my predicament and offered me a new position — and the experience was one of the most rewarding working environments I’ve ever been a part of.

Reflecting on that initial marketing interview today, I still kick myself for not noticing the burning red flags. Sure, we talked about my marketing experience, but something felt off. He was more interested in my personal life, never asked for specifics on how I would excel in the position, and gave me a completely irrelevant writing task. (And, in retrospect, the salary was laughable for a director role.)

If only my naive, younger self had recognized the scam when I heard it.

Over a decade later, I still think about the man who scolded me for leaving his dirty dishes in the sink or told me I should be “embarrassed” after struggling to assemble a FedEx shipping box. (“Wow, and you have a college degree!” he mocked.) The experience still comes up in conversation every now and then, mostly by empathetic friends who occasionally wonder, “Remember when you worked for that horrible lawyer?”

The question isn’t do I remember, it’s how could I forget. Unfortunately, with a boss like that, you never really do. Much like dealing with a high school bully, you can never truly shake how you felt in a situation like that — worthless, embarrassed, and self-conscious — and, for me, it was a critical lesson in the importance of kindness, empathy and plain old human decency. But, if anything, the whole experience made me appreciate the incredible bosses I’ve had since — the ones who lead with respect, cheer for your success, and appreciate your effort, no matter how small.

In the grand scheme of things, my time in law office hell may have been just a blip on the radar, but it was one of those life experiences that still lingers in the back of my mind, waiting for the opportunity to sneak into the forefront whenever it can. And it does, but in the moments I need it most: when a co-worker makes a mistake, when a friend says something they don’t mean, or when my kids get embarrassed. There’s no way I’ll ever make them feel bad, humiliated, belittled or any other way I did back then (not if I can help it, at least) — and that, I think, is a damn good way of making the best out of a bad situation.

If only my defeated, younger self knew at the time how good things would turn out.

So, let me just say to all the true leaders (and overall good humans) who strive to lift others up instead of tearing them down — especially those who’ve helped me get to where I am today — I’d clean the kitchen or go on a candy run for you any day … just not in my favorite heels.

Alex Vance is a freelance health, parenting, and lifestyle writer and editor in Virginia. Her articles and essays have been featured on Parents, TODAY, Fortune Well, PS, BuzzFeed, Motherly, and more. When she isn’t working, she and her husband spend most of their time wrangling three very energetic (and adorable) daughters. Check out her Authory Portfolio to read more of her latest work.

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