I have a couple of these.

First one, I worked for a small engineering consulting firm. Maybe 8 people tops, including the President, who owns the company and our building.

We were renovating the second floor, and I overheard him tell his contractor that he shouldn’t put women’s restroom signs up, because only engineers will work on the second floor and therefore no women. I had an offer within 6 weeks, but disappointingly this did not slow the success of the company.

More recently, I left a position as the facility manager for a biotech manufacturer. My workload was immense, despite a <1yo child, and I was on call for emergencies 24/7.

Around September, I heard rumor that we were planning a plant shutdown over the Christmas to New Year holidays - this would give all manufacturing personnel a guaranteed 2 week paid vacation, while the facilities team of 20 people would be on vacation blackout and have the busiest two weeks of the year.

I brought up the rumor to my boss and begged him to advocate against it. He said he’d try, and within 24 hours told me that he decided to advocate in favor of the shutdown during that period because he doesn’t celebrate the holidays anyway and it’s a great time to get stuff done.

So I got to tell my team, who had family around the world and always agreed amongst themselves who got to travel and who stayed local, that nobody gets to travel for the holidays and we all get to work.

I got a new job very quickly, but unfortunately had to see the shutdown through and worked through Christmas. However, I took one tech with me and heard that the team dropped to under 8 people before we lost touch with current emoyees. They took my departure as writing on the wall and opted to get out before there was a repeat.