I've been shocked in my career in the UK by just how much founders will rip people off on equity

In basically every UK startup I've worked at they've done 1 or all of the below:

1. Offered options in numbers with no valuation/percentage of ownership. "We offer you 40000 stock options!". When asked to clarify numbers, they delay and never tell you. Inevitably they have a value of a few pence each

2. Withdraw options unilaterally when you leave the company with no option to exercise

3. Never get round to filling in the paperwork so you never actually receive them

I was _shocked_ when i worked for my first US startup and they just...gave me the options. And I could exercise them whenever I wanted. And they expired 10 years after I left the company