It was hard for me; many sleepless nights are thinking about surviving with this low salary alone. I asked my boss for a raise; I was fired for requesting a raise. It was a dark time for me; I'll struggle if I must, just for the sake of my beloved family.
Was there shouting or name calling involved?
Although getting fired for something like this implies you are already on thin ice, and you basically pushed your luck.
All respect to the op though, these companies aren't your friends, and the very second you have a better opportunity you need to take it. By far the best experiences of my early adulthood was getting fired, I learned at a young age to not feel any loyalty to these companies. They don't care if your wife, or your kids are sick. They don't care if you need HealthCare coverage to keep living, they only care about the bottom line
Take care of yourself, and save your money.
LA is a horrible place to live , had I been 19 today I'd end up on the streets since housing is so much more expensive now. Stop thinking about what "society" will do to solve homelessness. Garcetti has no real ability, nor will , to fix LA. Leave while you still can. I had to estrange myself from my family , but hell. I went from 25k in credit card debt to 40k saved up. When I moved to Chicago my cost of living dropped by 30% , I had an amazing partner and for the first time in a good while felt hope. I can't express enough how horrible LA is.
Leave now !
Cars add an extra 300$ to 700$ a month . Most people just can't afford it so they live very precarious lives.
What was not ok was the second founder of the company, who was a dictionary definition of "expert beginner", who was unable to accept other views except his own, and gleefully used his power to enforce his views. I ended up working against him in many places, initially with the full support of my team and manager, but then something flipped and I was going against him alone.
That's the only job where I regurarily woke up in the middle of the night to a work-related dream and could not fall asleep for the rest of the night. I used to take pride for being flexible and not lashing out at other people just because I was having a hard time. But everyone has a breaking point, so I became inflexible and lashed out at people.
I hated who I had become. I was eventually sort of fired from that place, and have worked in several good places since, but I will never forget that... that feeling of the tribe I used to trust turning against me.
As a child? Being in love. Circa 15 y/o. No male role models in my life, neglectful home. A recipe for disaster.
Thankfully, I figured all that shit out. IMHO Took longer than it should have (given an optimal setup and looking at my peers), but we all have to play the cards we're dealt.
1) Went from being a contractor on a good day rate to being forced into being an employee (IR35 for the UK readers)
2) Taking a 13% pay cut
3) Due to point 1) I have zero money going into my business account
4) The business owes the government £16k
5) Due to 1), 3) and 4) I need to pay back money after tax to my company
My main challenge is if I want to go back to contracting properly I need to change roles. After three years of trying to build a startup it is hard to walk away...
Adulthood is troublesome as well for me, but it isn't the most stressful so far. It feels like a never-ending ultra marathon on crutches. And that's ADHD for me. Making my life harder for no real benefit.
I have good grades; I created many side projects during my college days, but I still wonder why I can't get any offers. I don't know what to do at that time.
Backstory: 4 of us joined to make a product. 2 of the 4 people had the idea and invited me and another guy to join them in making it happen. All cool.
Except that I didn't quite like one of the 2 'idea' founders. Objectively he's a great potential business partner, has a ton of ideas etc - a hustler type, but he has some character traits that really get on my nerves.
Ex. tyrannic way of suggesting changes + all of the decisions eventually have to go his way. You can fight it, but it drains so. much. energy. Micromanaging tyrant would be a good summary.
Anyhow, I knew this but still went in after disclosing my concerns to the other 'idea' founder. I was confident that I will find a way to work with him, and actually made a challenge to myself to at least use the situation and learn how to handle that kind of people. But long story short, eventually the friction made the partnership too uncomfortable + the product failed (technically his fault in the marketing department), so naturally our contact dissolved away.
I still think I could handle our conflicts (while coding the product) in a better way, but ultimately the biggest benefit I got out of the whole ordeal was honing my bullshit alarms and detectors. Also improving in saying no, but that's still quite a long way from where I'd like it to be.
If I was purely interested in development/software I probably wouldn't have wanted to work there.
Says who? Except their PR and HR departments of course...