I've been talking these days with some friends of mine who are searching for a job and they basically told me two things. One is that the market is getting worse and that is harder to find a role these days. There are only a few opportunities and basically in every job, there are hundreds of applications.
The other thing that they told me, and i didn't hear from 1 person, is that the Hiring Managers or the CEOs or the Founders are asking for crazy things. Ofc that is something natural to happen in Greece, since the vast majority of laws and regulations are pro companies and the few that there are pro employees, basically never apply due to high corruption levels everywhere, including the justice system.
So the companies are taking advantage of the corruption and the fact that a lot of people have a need to find work and gain some money to survive. At the same time most of the people are afraid to sue them or even tell them "go @@@ yourselves" as they think that they will never find any other job.
So the first story comes from a friend of mine who had an interview for a big corporation. That friend is living, let's say in another city. The first interview was remote and in general, the position was remote. For the second interview, they basically forced her to travel to another city where the company's headquarters are located simply to have a 1 hour interview.
So she would basically have to pay for but to come and go and travel 8 hours in total, just because the CEO had the mindset of, "i will only see everyone onsite". This would be a red flag for me and i wouldn't even bother going. Anyway, so my friend went there, had the interview and during that time they informed her that she will have to work sometimes, longer hours without getting paid extra. To add to that, he said that during deadlines, she will work on weekends, again without pay.
Next story, which is worse than this one, and yes, it can be worse, goes like this. A woman was having an interview for a part-time secretary job at a gym chain. The owner of the gym whom she had the interview, was a woman also. The owner asked her, whether she was okay with the salary and hours, to which she said yes. She asked her why she is looking for a part-time job and not a full time.
She replied that her main job is an accountant but she is looking for an extra side job to increase her income. Then the owner said to her, Then you can also do the accounting work needed for the gym, with the same salary. Then she went and and ask her woman whether she was married, to which she replied that she was recently married.
The woman asked, Why does this matter and What kind of question is that. The owner then replied that she will be honest with her, that she doesn't want a married woman because she will have a kid and then she will pay her for a year due to that. Fun fact, the woman wasn't planning on a kid but even if she did, imagine how racist this is, especially coming from another woman and especially in Greece which we are ranking top in low fertility rates.
We keep on hearing that there no equality between women and men in the working space and that men are sexist and things like that but in my experience the vast majority of the people who have a high-level position are like this. Doesn't matter whether it is a woman or a man, they treat others like nothing.
Honestly speaking everyone should learn about this gym and their mindset and lose each and every customer, only this way they may learn to behave. On the other side the world is such a mess, that if let's say the woman publicly said that story, the gym owner could sue her for destroying her business and for lying. In other words go figure, only word of mouth in these cases can help and people standing together, because honestly even if most people would listen to that story, they would still be going to this gym.
What are your thoughts on this?
Do you have any similar experiences or stories?
Posted Using INLEO