Just as an aside, it's kind of weird to read these tales from a European (Norwegian) perspective. Doing something like they did to you would be highly illegal here. Nobody would even bother trying to deny you your earned vacation money, and if they did you would easily get it by court order.

In Norway they can't fire you without giving you a mandatory notice a _month_ in advance (or more in some cases.) But this goes both ways though, and you can't just quit without giving a notice first.