Obvious throwaway. The title isn't an exaggeration, it took me a lot of time to write and rewrite everything, I was banging my head on the desk every couple sentences. I know maybe the full story wasn't necessary, I intented it to be one paragraph at first, but I'm bad at cutting words. There are a lot of posts here and I bet this one is too long to get noticed, but I don't care at this point, I probably wrote this for myself.
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I'm 22yo, haven't gone to uni, I have been working since high school as a graphic designer, later moved on to mainly website design/programming. First I started as a freelancer, a project here and there, nothing major. Then I had to move out, because after my parents divorced my mom sold our flat and bought another one with her new boyfriend. I couldn't stand living with her anymore, prior to that she tried to throw me out twice anyway. Living with my dad wasn't an option because he was practically homeless at that point (and there are other causes too). I moved out at the last possible moment when the new owners were moving in, rented a flat and found a semi-stable job.
Now this is key - my new job was at a company which my dad in a way co-founded, or I'd say helped a lot when it was starting out, he had and still has a high manager position there, working closely with the owner. However, he is not, by law, a co-founder, he doesn't have a stake in the company, because when it was beginning, he was in deep financial troubles, so they agreed to unofficially split income. The company growth was kinda slow at first when I was still at school, but at the point where I joined it was already up and running, over 50+ people and a lot of money for everything, new employees and new investments. The job was paying better than any freelance jobs I could've found and I liked it quite a lot, also it felt friendly and safe, because my family (well, dad) was close friends with the owner and I've known him for years. What I did was to start my own single person company, because only then I could get financial help from local municipality, which I got and bought a new PC and other stuff, at that point dramatically needed to keep working.
I don't recommend repeating what I've done next: since there was a lot of money in the company, I was friends with the owner, I didn't sign an agreement, we just agreed verbally to an invoice from me every month.
After a year (so a year ago) I've asked for a raise, because I have learned a ton, got into more serious programming work and I started getting other offers. I realized I was severaly underpaid - and I was barely making ends meet, living on your own is way more expensive that I thought - I asked to match the average of those offers, the owner agreed to double my pay. First 4-5 months everything was fine and dandy, invoice payments were never late, I practically got the money on the same day as I sent the invoice. I cleaned up my finances, saved some money for emergency, set up a proper budget, bought a bit of BTC. Problems started just before summer, it was related to a huge multi-million investment made around the time I got the raise. My invoice payments started getting late and finally not at all. I panicked, started calling my dad and the owner, I had never been put in such a situation before. There was a lot of deception, "you're getting paid this week", avoiding my calls etc. Other people working at the company were being owed money too, but nobody (as far as I know) to such an extent as me, certainly not people officially employed, because that would be a legal disaster. I realized I'm last on the list to get paid, I talked to my dad a couple of times about maybe taking a loan.
I don't recommend repeating what I've done next: I was owing taxes, rent was late over a month, couldn't pay for utilities, so I've taken a huge (for me) loan. It was equal to 5x my monthly income, I took it in July.
It didn't last me nowhere close to 5 months, because my dad asked me to borrow him 1/5 of that sum and I was already ~1.5 month behind. Through that time only one monthly invoice got paid and I ran out of money in late October. I didn't buy anything what wasn't necessary with the loan, I can honestly say I rationed the money well, but it ran out. I kept talking to my dad and hoping he'd pressure the owner, he was critical of my attitude, telling me I should be grateful for the job and that I should be "loyal" and patiently wait, as everyone is, for the money. My dad is in a corner himself, he has no other option than stay with the company, looking for anothe job in his spot would be catastrophic, he has built a house near the company logistics base in the middle of nowhere. I was still on quite good terms with the owner for some reason, let's not forget he was our close friend for years.
It all sounds like a typical /r/personalfinance thread where people make every bad decision they can and I realized that even then, but dismissed it because I kept telling myself this situation is different, because my boss is a friend and the atmosphere was friendly. I got paid once more about a month ago, with a promise there will be more money promptly, but there wasn't.
Yesterday I got a text(!) from the owner saying he consulted with other people in the company that I'm not worth the money they "are paying" me and that we are ceasing our partership. Moreover, he said he would only pay me for up until October, because he feels like I haven't been up to much last month, which is untrue and a lie - except for all the small stuff people called me with and I'm not able to easily prove, I had at least 5 graphics projects with many iterations in November which I sent off to print by e-mails and I'm able to prove that. He said he won't accept my November invoice (I usually send the invoice around the 10th of the next month). I wasn't expecting that turn of events at all, but maybe I underestimated how bad the financial situation in the company is. I was the only IT guy, there isn't anyone except me even on the "I can google stuff if something happens" level in 50+ people company with two offices, I had a call almost every day with some trouble from people. Except for making the company's website and all projects of any kind, I chose (1920x1080, SSD and 12gb ram for a fair price yay), ordered people's notebooks and set them up, fixed computers, managed e-mails, did some networking and sysadmin work (nothing advanced), like setting up DDNS to access monitoring from outside, which no one else in the company had any idea how to do. It makes NO sense to let go of me, they will for sure pay more for outside help and will be forced to employ somebody else in my place, which is even more ridiculous.
Next loan payment is due in 3 days, I have no money, I owe rent, utilities, taxes, I have no job and turns out I was working for free since 1st of November, but nobody told me that. I took it all really hard since early summer, I think I might be depressed. I would never ever admit it to anybody, because it's "tough man" culture around here and I would be stigmatized as a pussy, but I seriously think I'm depressed. I have problems getting out of bed often, not to mention out of home, I haven't been this disappointed with myself and other people in my life ever. I had a girlfriend for 6 years, we broke up in early September due to multitude of reasons, it was the last person that was offering me any support, but in the months leading to that she didn't care too. I feel betrayed by everyone, I thought I approached everything properly, I budgeted my expenses, I don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs, I always spend money responsibly, yet I'm practically bankrupt and I owe a ton of money. I realize they're in the wrong and are supposed to pay my invoices, but I have no money for any lawyer, that company employs a full-time lawyer and other ones from time to time, I don't know how to do anything of that kind anyway.
If I was on the other side of this post I would have no problem listing all the mistakes I've done, I know I should have jumped ship as soon as invoices were getting late, I shouldn't have taken the loan, I should have signed an agreement, I should have been distrustful. The whole point is that I haven't done all that and I'm in a really bad situation, I don't know what to do, even if I magically found a job today I won't earn even close to enough money in time. I just don't see any solution, the thing which I could write on a post-it note and stick to the wall next to my monitor, so I could work towards something. I'm fucked
edit: spelling
Submitted December 07, 2017 at 11:37AM by dududer http://ift.tt/2ACannC
