How My Encounter With Two Toxic Employers At My Very First Job Made Me Detest Any Other Jobs

-It was 2018, I was just graduated, and also it was end of my semester; I started to prepare for further studies, maybe a Master's. But I was too dumb to realize that I lost my potential to learn and study anything from college (or) an institution.

After all those years, I knew the time I spent as a Bachelors's student in mechanical engineering was a joke, if not a lie because college taught me everything like how to do my own chores, how to keep up your friends and enemies close, and how to be a student without ever studying and learning anything in terms of the subject.

I don't know how it works in the western part of the world, as I am from India. My experience of completing a bachelor's degree is pretty much the same with every ordinary student here. In most colleges (Exempt IITs), we follow an outdated syllabus, students don't want to come to the class, teachers don't want to come to class, and most of us didn't give a f**k about what we were specialized in.

I don't blame the system (or) someone who didn't teach me how to face my life after graduation. I was asked to become a high-paying employee from my family, schools, and colleges throughout my life. But I know I wasn't disciplined, punctual, and talented enough to get any job.

But as I moved along, I had to get one to keep paying my expenses and stay financially stable all by myself. Therefore after six months into my life after graduation, I started applying for jobs. To my dismay, I landed interviews for free and paid internships.

How I landed my first internship, which began with a red-flag

Since I was a fresher with no experience and no mention-able skills, I was among those millions of undergrads who were jobless, and I had to live with that fact. I know some professional experience along the way can teach me better things.

In Dec 2018, I joined as a digital marketing intern for a small startup in Hyderabad, India. I took that job solely because by then, I had spent my savings and four months of my time on a course that promised me to teach digital marketing - which it barely did.

I had it enough, I was asking for money from my parents to live a life, and it was high time for me to take a job by the end of 2018.

As I applied for multiple jobs and internships, I landed few who asked to work for a free probation period (or) gave me peanuts instead of salaries. I applied for an internship at this X company in the thick of things, where I would work for the first time.

But as I was called for the first interview, I received a message from their team regarding the interview details like time, office address, and dress code.

I wondered why they wanted a dress code for a small startup brand that doesn't even own office space - yes, this X company worked from a commercial rental space.

I remembered that Monday where I woke to my alarm on time and dressed up for the interview. As I got to the location, I saw so many college dudes wearing their usual dress, and I assumed they came in for an interview for a different company, but we were all at the same place.

To my surprise, a guy precisely from the X company walked in after making everyone wait for an hour and said all of us could come in, one person at a time. At that moment, I realized how dumb I was looking because in my entire bacheloers I didn't wear any formal dress, and now I had my shirt tucked in.

I only wore it because it was written in the message that the dress code was mandatory, and when I asked about this to one of those college dudes. He replied, "Dude, this is just an interview for an internship and that too for a small startup, just chill out" (Yeah, they should've written it on the message too - chill out)

In came 'my favorite' employers

As I finished my first round of interview, I knew I would get a call for the second one because that particular job position was for a full-time internship and most of the college dudes who came in weren't available for the full-time work. To date, I still wondered why they came in when they didn't know about all the details.

In my first round of interviews, I was asked a few questions from a guy who took the HR duties and which was a 'red-flag' too. Usually, HR's don't deal with interviews until a guy/girl is finalized for the position. When they do, it's only to make sure that the new employee knows all the important job details like working hours, salary pay, and no. of leaves.

The first round of interviews was simple, and I answered all the questions, and not a single question was asked regarding digital marketing (or) marketing in general. After a couple of days, I got a call back from the X company, and I was called in for the second round, which became the last round.

I meet them only to get disappointed.

For the second round, I was directly meeting the two founders of the X company, who were my employers/bosses. As I walked to their office/cabin, there were two people in that office, and among those two people, one was the co-founder of the X company, an experienced digital marketer.

Right then, he asked me a few questions, some very basic and some quite hard - according to my standards and knowledge. After 10 minutes, my interview was done, and both of them seemed okay with me, and then they called in the HR guy.

As he walked in, he already had my offer letter ready, and in that offer letter, I was already assigned a salary. In the first round of interviews, this HR guy asked me whether I was comfortable with the salary in-between the range of 7,000 INR to 10,000 INR, and I said okay at that moment.

But during the second interview, when he walked in with my offer, the mentioned salary was 7000 Rs, and, honestly, I wouldn't say I liked it.

I told both my employers that I was okay with the salary range, but I didn't expect them to assign me with the lower end of the salary package without a second word (or) proper confirmation.

At this point, I had the offer letter in my hand, and I was disappointed with what I got (and probably I didn't know what I was getting into)

One of the employers convinced me into the work

As I raised my point regarding the salary, both employers and the HR guy talked me into it. I knew I would get angry at some stage, and somehow unprofessionally, I said in my louder tone that, 'I will not work in this way, and I am not sure about this salary.'

One of the employers who weren't into digital marketing started talking, and back then, I didn't realize that he convinced me to work with them by pointing out negatives in me, by saying:-

• You're a fresher with six months of the gap, so don't hope for a better one.
• You don't have the real-time experience to earn 10,000 Rs.
• Being a digital marketer, you won't get into MNC's without 2–3 years of experience at least.
• You specialized in mechanical engineering, which is entirely different from what you do now.

He made me realize that I was worth 7,000 Rs, and, like my good wisher, he bought me into this story where he(co-founder) started with 2,000 Rs as his first salary and founded this marketing startup.

I left that place telling them that I wasn't sure, and both of my employers gave one week time to decide on their precise salary package, and they assured me that I might be hired as a full-time employee after three months of internship.

That day I went to my room, and I slept on it. The next day, I applied for multiple other jobs and barely got any replies. After 3–4 days of similar rapport, it felt like water was going over my head, and I somehow had to earn money to pay off my expenses and start living on my own.

Finally, I took that offer and called the HR guy regarding this, and he told me to come on Monday and start working directly.

I worked at a place where no one else cared

As I went in for the first day, I was asked to learn basic stuff about their clients, and I was given a shared cabinet where 4–5 employees of X company were already working.

On the first hour of that morning, I was pretty silent since I was new to that place and looked at my computer. Meanwhile, some employees soon started talking with each other, and later they started shouting at both of my bosses.

I exactly don't know the reason, but four of them talked about leaving the company that exact day in a room full of seven employees. It felt weird when I overheard their conversations, and soon I realized that they were a group who didn't care about other employee's presence.

Apart from the employees, employers were no different. When I sat down to work on my 3 (or) 4th day, my employers started shouting against the same group of employees, and both of them warned each of those employees to work properly (or) else they were good to leave the X company without getting their salary credited for the current month.

This circus happened every alternate day and being at my first job. I felt very uncomfortable with this, and the chaos was so loud and dramatic that it split up this small office into two pieces (or) groups.

This meant to me that I had to work alone and eat alone at the office.

How the two employers dangled with my low confidence

I joined in the last week of Dec, and within the ten days of my joining, 2–3 employees left the office, and they all were digital marketers. The HR guy was asked to bring new employees, and I think he barely saw any results.

To my knowledge, the clients of X company were climbing upon them, and they wanted their digital marketing duties to be done. Therefore, I came into this equation, and by the way, within the first ten days of my work, I got the opportunity to get an earful from my bosses, and the kind of work they gave me was more than any intern could do.

The office was running out of digital marketers being a marketing agency, they had no other option, and they called me in for full-time digital marketing duties. When I first heard that my boss calling me into his office, I was expecting to hear any of the mistakes that I made, but they discussed handling their clients, and by the way, until that point, I barely touched any client's project.

But all of a sudden, I was given the responsibility to work on multiple projects, which meant that I had to work for at least 9 hours at the office and 3–4 hrs from my room.

It was worst for me because now I was doing a full-time job at less than part-time salary and back then I bought my own laptop to work which I was asked to bring in for my internship

You might be thinking that why the hell did I say okay to this, right?

Well, I didn't. My employers convinced me to take it; they promised me that they want to hire me as a full-time digital marketer after one month of my work at the X company.

I agreed to this because I was foolish, dumb, and easier to get away with back then.

How my employers made sure that I was taking the 'low-road'

Even though I was working 10–12 hrs for the company, my life in the office was still the same. I had no friends at work, and my relationship with both of my bosses was similar too.

At this point, I can't blame them all because the company was on the verge of losing clients, and even both of them worked day-in and day-out to keep clients in check but never credited me for any work.

Being a fresher, I was repeating some beginner-friendly mistakes, which happened every day, and every day both of my employers will slip in the discussion of my 'full-time' opportunity to make me go low and work hard for it.

Being a stupid ass I was, I worked enough hours to ask for more of the 'full-time payment,' but I didn't, and it was mostly due to my insecurities regarding my performance and the work that was put on.

To top that, my employers took advantage of my free work, and at this point, I understood that I let them took me as an advantage. While I was working hard, meeting deadlines, and understanding everything. They made me sit with them all the time and talk shit instead of doing the work. (I wasn't involved in their shit, though)

How I hit my 'breaking point.'

It was 45 days into my work, and I received my internship pay a couple of weeks earlier. But when I tried to put on a discussion about my full-time position. They either denied me that full-time pay (or) pointed at what I did wrong not to achieve it.

To my surprise, they came up with a new offer of 3 months, which was similar to that offer I got before going to the X company. Right then, I had it enough; one evening, I went into their cabin and had a hardcore discussion about their promises.

Even at this time, one of my employers started convincing me with their same bullshit, and right then, I packed my bag and called it off.

As I went into my room, my whole head was filled with thoughts like what I actually got in the last month and what sacrifices I had for the job. If somehow they would've given me that full-time position, I figured out that I would never do a job again (or) at least under those employers.

I wrote a resignation email the next morning, and they tried to reach me a couple of times. But after that, I heard nothing from them, and from that day onwards, I ignored getting any real jobs, and I spent six months trying to figure out what to do with my life.

I borrowed money from my parents, and I tried to do freelancing, learned new skills, wasted the majority of my time in bed, hoped for a loan to start a business, but after a year (or) so, I was again going for a job. Still, this time I was around with much better colleagues and employers.