Toxic work environment + blatant corporate politics.
I had massive impostor syndrome when I first joined, and so I asked my team mates for help way more than necessary. Even as I grew more experienced, my team members still often got visibly annoyed, curt, or patronizing when answering my questions. My team members saw me as barely pulling my weight and as a slow learner and slow worker. While I saw them as unapproachable, having made up their mind about me on the bad first impression I made.
I felt stuck in this toxic cycle of either feeling judged for asking any questions, or being judged for not doing things exactly the way my team wanted it done. I always felt like I was walking on egg shells around my team.
This toxic work environment extended beyond just that. The departments have to share data for the company to operate, but these departments would only follow the proper data sharing procedures 80% of the time. So my team would have to follow up with them for the other 20%. Getting answers could take anywhere from a few hours to a full day. And there were always certain individuals who would consistently answer in a curt or defensive manner. Getting relevant information from other departments made me feel bottlenecked at best, and combative at worst.
I have great sympathy for the customer success team. The company’s high quotas and poor training program lead to customer success members being incredibly stressed out. Turn over rates were high. During my stay, I witnessed a customer success manager quit within a month of joining the company.
As the company grew, leadership wanted to increase the Glassdoor rating for the company. We were strongly encouraged to leave positive Glassdoor reviews. Hence the sudden influx of 5 star reviews from people in leadership/management, that would have you believe that the toxic work environment has been fixed.
The worst part of the job was the corporate politics. I was assigned to a manager who got easily stressed from increased workloads, and would take it out on others. I was the one most frequently verbally abused due to being the least liked on my team.
On my last month in the job, my manager bullied me openly in front of my peers in a group call. It was so degrading that I reported it to HR, and I believe this is what caused me to eventually be fired.
My team, either out of fear for their own job security or wanting to be on my manager’s good side, gave a milder version of events. The verbal bullying I had experienced was sanitized in the report to “Anonymous felt that Manager was raising his voice and being coarse”. While my manager kept his temper more in check afterwards, the atmosphere changed. I sensed that my days were numbered.
Within days, I saw that my position was open again.
On my last day of work, I accidentally received an invite to interview a candidate for my position. While the invite was quickly rescinded, I was able to dive in, and see that all past and future interviews for the position included my team mates EXCEPT me.
When I asked management why I was the only one left in the dark about the opening and subsequent interviews, I was given a non-definitive answer. By the end of the day all of my work accounts were disabled. HR called me saying that I was no longer with the company in “the best interests of all parties involved”. At no point was I given any warning, notice, meeting, or dialogue. It was humiliating to be terminated in such an unprofessional manner after giving months of my time to the company. So much so that I had a minor panic attack later on that day.
It seems like the company decided to have me replaced for reporting my manager. While a part of me thinks I am over analyzing things, the company’s decision to fire me the same day I asked about it has made me more sure of their true motives.
My advice for new hires: Be prepared to be stressed from a toxic work environment. Be prepared to be frustrated from subpar cross department communication. Be prepared to play corporate politics for your job security.
