It's not abnormal for contracts to not be renewed. They changed the law here a few years back and it was meant to protect the worker and give job stability. It actually did the opposite. You used to be able to renew contracts infinitely... Like, a person could be hired for 6 months and then just keep renewing their contracts over and over and work in the same position for years. But that meant that people never had a permanent position with all the benefits, etc... And the company could terminate you easily. They just could refuse to renew the contract and then you had no legal recourse for wrongful termination or anything, because they weren't FIRING you. They could just say they didn't have any work for you anymore. So they changed the law and it now requires the employer to offer you a permanent contract after 3 renewals. So you generally start with a 6 month contract with a 2 month trial period. Any time within that two months, either side can break the contract without notice. After that, they have to wait until the contract runs out to get rid of you, unless you do something awful like steal from the company. But they do have to give you an opportunity to improve if you aren't performing well. They can't just fire you. The idea of the permanent contract after three is that you've proven yourself by that point, so they should have already gotten rid of you if you weren't doing a good job, so they need to give you job security if you've done a good job. The reality is that a lot of employers don't want to have permanent employees, so they renew your contract twice and then tell you they don't have work for you anymore so they never have to offer you the permanent contract. I worked at the same company for 14.5 years and I had a permanent contract for zero hours a week. They didn't have to give me hours and I could block out whatever hours I didn't want to work... I could take 6 weeks of vacation if I wanted because I wasn't obligated to work a certain number of hours and they weren't obligated to schedule me. But they needed people, so I was always scheduled for whatever hours I made available. But I was the only person who had that contract. My third renewal hit just right that THEY HAD to offer me a permanent contract, but I had been working on an on-call basis and they brought in new management who switched the contracts up and got rid of the on-call system. But they couldn't force me to take set hours when I hadn't had that type of contract. They tried really hard to persuade me not to take a permanent contract, but instead to take a three month time out to decide whether or not I could work set hours. But that only benefitted them, because I'd be ineligible to work for three months and when I came back, I'd have to start over at the base wage, so I'd lose all the raises that I had earned, and I'd have to start over with three contract renewals before being given a permanent contract. I said no, I'd just take a zero hour permanent contract. I'm lucky I did, because what they did was just kept people for two renewals and then got rid of them so they could never build up time off, get benefits etc. And that's what companies do now. Wages are age- based per sector. A 16 year old only gets a couple euros per hour. A 17 year old a bit more, and so on, up until age 21, after which the minimum wage is the same within that type of job. So what companies do is hire 16 year olds, then renew their contracts for a year or whatever, and then when they get too expensive, they just don't renew the contract and they hire another 16 year old. If you are over 21, it's difficult to find a job that requires no special training/schooling, because employers don't want to pay more than absolutely necessary, and if a 16 year old only gets paid 1/3 of what I do, they can hire three 16 year olds OR one older person. The advantage older people have is that they don't have school, so they can work hours that a kid can't. But the system is set up to discriminate. This is my third job in a year and a half. The company I worked for so long sold out to a bigger company which then moved all operations to a different city over two hours away. They did it slowly so that hours were reduced drastically and people just couldn't afford to keep working there because they didn't get enough hours. Then they just closed the location and paid the few permanent workers left a severance. I had to quit a couple of months before they closed down because they were only giving me 4 hours a week and then they announced that they were scrapping the evening shift. We only have one car, which my husband takes to work during the day, so I couldn't work until evening. So I had to go. My first job after that, they only trained me to work the register, then used the fact that I only knew how to do the register as an excuse not to renew my contract. They had never placed me anywhere but at the register and I was told that's why I was there because most people don't like doing register and I said I enjoy it. But they didn't renew because I hadn't learned anything outside of that. The next job was at a toy store, and there was an incident just before I was hired. Anyone who worked the day of said incident did not get their contract renewed. That didn't affect me, but the company was owned by a retail group that owned several chains, several of which went belly up and one of which was struggling. They decided to sell the toy store chain to try to save the struggling chain. But in order to sell it, they had to get rid of the massive debt they had, and to make it look better, so they were closing a bunch of branches, cutting down on employees, etc.. So my job there was uncertain. Being over 21, I was way more expensive than they wanted. They got rid of the manager and told her they weren't going to renew contracts for anyone over 21. I actually heard HR say that. So I knew I wasn't going to get a new contract and I started looking for a new job right away. And I landed at THIS job, where they assured me that they desperately needed a good team who was reliable and would stick around. They've given me literally no other points I need to work on. I'm reliable, flexible, customer friendly, good with the register... My till is always correct. By all accounts, I'm good at what I do, just too much of a perfectionist to go as fast as they'd like, which I've worked on and I know I've improved. There should be no reason to get rid of someone because there's ONE thing they are less good at. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. I'm better at register than anyone else. So my strengths should be enough to compensate for the one weakness. But I think they like the new gal better, and she's only temporary to full in until Chantal is better and comes back, which we have no idea when that will be. But, I've already had a contract renewal once. They can only renew one more time before they have to offer a permanent one. If Chantal comes back before that, new woman has to go... Unless they get rid of ME so they can keep her on. But if they are going to get rid of me, it has to be when this contract ends or they will be obligated to offer me a permanent contract and they won't be able to keep the new hire anymore. So I think that's what this is...my contract is 20 hours. Chantal is 24, so the new hire has 24 because she's there to replace Chantal UNTIL Chantal comes back. But if they get rid of me, they also have more hours they can schedule. They weren't allowed to give me more than 20. They wanted two people for 24 hours, but regional said no. So Ramona got 24, I got 20. Then Chantal stepped down from assist. Manager and went to 24 hours and Ramona stepped up and went to 28, and I'm at 20, but working much more. By getting rid of me, they can keep the new hire at 24 and when Chantal comes back, she's at 24, so then they've got what they originally wanted. I haven't actually started looking yet because I want to see how the meeting goes in the week of December 2nd. I've only worked one day since the meeting where they said I have to improve, and Ramona said I did a good job that day. (I also did nothing different that day, so the idea that I'm usually too slow is bogus.) I only have two more shifts before the next meeting, one of which neither of them will be there to see how well I do. So they can't realistically judge how much I've improved. But by waiting until that meeting, I'll be able to tell more what the intention is. The one day I've worked, I did a good job. I "improved". I only have one more day to show them. If they try to pull the "unfortunately we don't see enough improvement" I'll know they are just trying to get rid of me and I'll start looking for something else. And I have enough time off built up that technically, I can give them my notice right away and not work another hour. I only have to give a month's notice and I have two months of time built up. So if they try to play dirty, I can play just as dirty and then they won't have me for the Christmas season and the manager won't get to take her vacation again because there won't be anyone to cover. I hate being petty like that, but I won't let them take advantage of me and then cast me out when they don't need me anymore.
We would have gotten our deposit back.
The final straw for me for not talking to my mom anymore was my mom and my grandmother's last visit here in 2019. My husband and son took my mom to the store or something and my grandmother told me my mother was hitting her. I did ask her if she wanted to move in with us and she said no. I wasn't surprised, since all of her family and friends were in Illinois. She told me not to tell my mom that I knew. I didn't, but I did report her to the local agency on aging and they opened up a file. Her behavior goes beyond holidays, too. There's too much to list and I've already written too much. lol
I didn't even meet her until I was 13. 
