About 3 years ago I used to work as a videographer doing social media content for a 7 figure company. I was paid roughly just better than minimum wage and was cranking out (at one point) 50 videos a day. I was freelancing and was on a loose contract. I was desperate for the money.

It was an insane amount of work and however I managed to do it for 6 months is beyond me, especially for how s****y I was paid.

The office was an incredibly bitter and snide place and it was clear that management would purpolsely stir s**t to watch staff fight as a form of entertainment. I kept well away from it but it was incredibly stressful on top of video work.

After about six months I pitch to the higher ups that my videos are making an insanely positive difference to their sales (I showed them graphs of interactions and direct links to sales on the website via my content) and asked for a pay rise. I compared my ideal salary to others in the industry and made a big deal about how it would still be less than I should be paid however I still wanted to continue working for them. I was fired hours later for, and I s**t you not, not "pulling my weight" as well as not having the desired effect they wanted on social media.

I was fuming and now unemployed. I struggled for months to find any other job.

Today (years later) whilst browsing a very old Google drive account, I found that said company was still using a folder I created and owned. They were mostly active in the files containing templates, adjustment layers, presets, and even video that I all created. Over 18 people were actively using it daily to continue with their social media campaigns. This was a cloud service that I was paying monthly for as I wanted extra space for my work.

This is my drive and my work. I own it. So I copied the file as a local version for myself and then deleted the online version. Tomorrow they will wake up with none of their video assets (including things they were working on).