Career Help and Advice

I am naive like I said, and when people act nice, I think they are nice. I always thought they were a good people, a family owned business and that being able to actually "know the person who signs my check" was a great advantage over working for a big company. But there are no benefits. This company is weird, it is like a vampire that sucks in naive people like me. I'm not the only one who's life is going down the tubes trusting these people.

There is a slim chance that they might be planning on giving me the salary they gave my coworker, so that is the only reason to stay now, but I'm going to have absolutely no feelings for them from now on.

Thanks for the link. I'm going to dedicate all of my attention to negotiation tactics and interview skills now. No more being "nice" and assuming anyone else around me is nice, I'll just be a douche bag and then I can go through life being pleasantly temporarily surprised whenever I see someone being nice.

Oh yeah the guy who got laid off got a job that paid about $25k more per year on top of his severance check and vacation pay (Edit: his new job is a programmer position that is doing nothing except what I taught him how to do). So yes knowing how to schmooze is important.