My time at the company allowed me to witness a lot of turnover in positions key to the business. Over and over, the same issues occurred with upper management’s communication, and I saw important duties shuffled around to people who had not signed up for it. Over time, I recognized it was partly due to upper management’s reluctance to trust ideas that could introduce positive change, though they easily gave into aesthetic changes that didn’t cost too much money.
The idea of work-life balance gradually revealed itself to be a joke. My field is demanding in terms of deadlines, but my department itself set an unhealthy example. Upper management once jokingly said to me that my department was “competing for who could work more.” That isn’t a positive to me; that is toxic and not indicative of quality of work. I put in a lot of effort for responsibilities and initiatives in an out of and beyond my job description, and it was selectively recognized. When I was set to grow in responsibilities and on a path to a more advanced position, my boss threw me in the deep end and did not give me enough guidance or prioritize it when I explicitly said I needed a mentor figure (they had too much on their plate to do that for me). So I floundered and was met with little help even when I attempted direct communication to improve my work.
When I experienced harassment, I took my issue to HR after a lot of consideration. I explicitly stated that I wanted to talk about my concerns for the record in case the situation escalated, without any resultant action. Immediately, things were out of my control without my permission. Names were immediately passed to the company president, CEO, and my boss. This compromised my privacy and resulted in my boss, my harasser, and HR all invalidating and diminishing the situation. My boss asked me why I hadn’t come to them, as if I’d hurt their feelings. My harasser yelled at me while my boss looked on and only intervened after several accusations and harsh words made it out. HR made me fill out a form full of language that was traumatizing and pigeonholed me. In a one-on-one my boss asked me in a wounded tone why I had not taken the issue to them but to HR, then explained to me their learned gender dynamics in the workplace to avoid future situations like what befell me.
After I went to HR, I felt like I could not fully contribute at work anymore. Nothing changed for my situation, and the toxic model of overworking continued. My boss suddenly gave me a raise and said they “had no idea I was severely underpaid” for my position and gave me a significant raise (almost 20%), when it is impossible to say that because I had biannual reviews when they talked about my salary. It felt directly related my HR issue.
