You Are Spring

I am challenging myself to write daily for the next week (7 days) and post whatever I write on this blog. Today, I want to write about my previous work experience, the second one in my career, and why I quit after two years without another offer lined up. 

On 24th July 2024, I met my team virtually for the last time. A lot was building up to this moment… the moment when I finally took that long breath of relief that it was over. That the next morning I didn’t have to wake up and look at any of these faces anymore. That I wouldn’t have another morning where I wake up with my heart beating in my mouth and an overwhelming amount of dread. 

I started working in this organisation (not taking any names) as a sales/marketing associate. The company has a female Founder and works on gender-compliance laws and DEI in workplaces. A significant focus of the organisation was on improving company culture. The team was small when I joined — a total of six people including me and the Founder. Two more people were due to be hired in the next couple of days of my joining. Things were quite relaxed until the first three months or so when one of the existing employees left. After that, I started working closely with/under the Founder.

I will try to structure the events as a proper narrative of my experience and less as a rant.

Behavioural Characteristics of the Founder

There is this incredibly famous saying in the corporate world that employees quit their managers and not their companies. When you micromanage employees, curb their creative liberty, not trust their experience, question their decisions and actions, and lack compassion and empathy towards them, it is unlikely that your employees will want to work with you for a long time. 

A leader should bring the team together and be able to hold them together too. That does not happen when you humiliate and demean your team members in front of each other. Yes, constructive criticism is inevitable, and so is negative feedback but there is a way of communicating and dealing with an employee’s not-so-good days.

When you blame the company’s lack of business and stilted operations on a single employee, you don’t grasp how businesses work very well. Or even if you do, you are not ready to accept and admit that just one employee could not bring the downfall of your so-called business empire. Tough pill for leaders to swallow but an organisation’s success is because of its employees and its failure is because of the leader.

As a leader, when you ask your employees to justify the salary that they are getting paid, you are reducing them to their monetary compensation. Now, in a strict corporate sense, this seems okay as this is exactly how organisations view their employees. But as an ‘industry expert’ who ‘advises’ organisations on how to improve their company culture, this is hypocritical.

What else is hypocritical?

There is an undeniable surge in organisations becoming inclusive, caring more about their employees, offering a healthy work-life balance, and intending to become a ‘people-first’ entity. Naturally, these organisations need experts to advise them on human behaviour, preferences, laws, and regulations. You would think the ‘expert’ would be practising what they preach but the truth is far from this assumption. We would constantly be belittled and called incompetent. Our experience and skills would be questioned every single day.

While the Founder was out there advising other companies on inclusive leave policies, inclusive hiring, and so many other buzzwords, she was doing everything in her power to make her employees’ lives a living hell by:

• Forcing employees to work 14 to 16 hours every day due to her lack of time management and committing to unrealistic timelines for the clients.
• Expecting the team to work on weekends thereby not respecting their time.
• Micromanaging their work and constantly stalling the approval process resulting in a delay in deliverables.
• Using passive-aggressive communication to give feedback that confuses employees on what exactly needs to be done.
• Providing no clarity on business objectives and goals that leaves employees struggling with prioritisation and commitment.

These are my general observations on her behaviour with the team and her attitude towards the business.

My experience

I was a sales and marketing associate, yes. But this is a huge umbrella to force all the work I was doing under. Essentially, I was responsible for generating inbound leads, writing content for social media channels (LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter), newsletters, blogs, website, product notifications and copies, and awareness and training programs. I also wrote content for clients’ awareness-building initiatives which could be posters, decks, booklets, or infographics. I also designed this content visually and made creatives for newsletters, social media, and blogs. The content I created also included animated videos for which I wrote scripts and made the videos as well.

I was also responsible and accountable for converting leads and generating revenue. I also delved into client engagement and retention, established feedback loops with them, and managed their accounts. I collaborated with the Operations and Dev Team to make sure that all work was aligned towards generating more revenue. Within six months of joining, I even began facilitating awareness sessions and training programs for clients. 

This has started to sound like my cover letter. But believe me, I was doing all of this and more that I can’t list singlehandedly. Whenever I would ask for help, someone to help me with content would be hired. However, none of the employees who were hired would stay for more than six months. As a result, I would be back to square one. Even after spending so much time on training or conducting endless KT calls with new hires, a few weeks or months later, all the work would come back to my desk.

Concluding Thoughts…

My decision to quit was a difficult and privileged one. I was only able to quit once I had enough savings to last me for at least six months while I took time off, relaxed, and figured out what I wanted to do next. In some ways, I believe I perpetuated the toxic culture the Founder built. By working long hours and on weekends, by turning a blind eye to her attitude, and by painting a rosy picture of our organisation to the world, I complied with all her unreasonable demands.

The last few months of my unemployment have been delightful. I have not felt this kind of peace and contentment in the last two years. And while I am worried about finding another job or a stable source of income, I know I will not compromise on my boundaries, values, and principles anymore. 

For some time, working so closely with the Founder, I did see a mentor in her, I did see her aspirations as mine but the thing is that I was just another employee at the end of the day. I could have worked my ass off for her for the rest of my life and it still wouldn’t amount to anything.