I quit trying to work my way up after already taking a pay cut on my last gig and having my job silo'd and my wages garnished for the increased child support my ex used for cigarettes and trips to California.

I don't know how many times they asked me to continue doing my vacant manager's open job after he left before they hired someone to replace him. They could have just started fucking paying me since I was qualified and already doing the job, but the government would just take it anyway and probably buy my ex a new car with it to take our nearly adult children on joyrides.

I'm from Canada, and I never could have predicted the level of systemized abuse that I would endure in the US when I moved here. Maybe not every country's corporate landscape is as toxic as here in the US but after working for a large well-known American healthcare firm which now has offices in London and elsewhere, I'll never go back into the corporate world again.

I started my own LLC for security consulting and decided early on that we will never have employees beyond the two founders. Everyone will be hired on contract with zero assumption that anyone will ever stay permanently or retire.

I'm not gonna be a corporate daddy, shelling out salaries to keep people comfortable. Contract only - if someone can't think ahead to renegotiate or find other work beyond that, I don't need whatever skills they have to offer otherwise.