The most ridiculous piece of corporate jargon still haunts me
So I joined a big tech org as a fresher. Initially, they had quoted a massive CTC when they came for placements and later justified 80 hour weeks citing "ownership" and "leadership principles".
I felt there was no integrity on their part and decided to leave the moment I joined. Now with eight months, I had delivered major features, and I was exhausted While serving my oncall rotation, a family member departed and I was devastated. I couldn't hold my tears back and wanted to take work from home for a few days. To this, the manager denied at first. Then he said I could take leaves but my promo doc would get delayed. After further persuasion, he said, I would have not be meeting the core principles and I would have to be put on a PIP for not showing enough ownership. The HR was no good either, big tech bureaucracy! They tried to break me every way possible when I was completely devastated. I somehow held myself together and completed my deliverables after which I was relieved of my duties.
Fast forward to 2 years, I had applied for a senior role at another high paying place, they had a promising team. The hiring manager and my old manager were batchmates apparently. The hiring manager reached out to my old manager for my review (without telling me). And the old manager, as expected, gave a very negative review saying I lacked backbone.
Thankfully, the new place looked forward to hire me given my expertise in system design. But how low do you have to stoop to ruin someone's career over forced attrition quotas and be so insensitive all along.
I am pretty sure, he did the same with another dev who was keen on internal transfer, asked for their documents and later ghosted. The skip level there was a friend of the manager.
It's been worrying me for a while, so wanted this out once and for all.
Now that I am a tech lead, I give balanced feedback because i have learnt that people who probably do not thrive in toxic oncall environment might do brilliantly in other setup. Who are we to judge?
P.S. If you are ever in position of power, be neutral and empathetic to your juniors. Kindness goes a long
"We have a high performance culture", "perform or perish".
or Any fart that come out of the leadership's mouth.
Exactly. "High performance culture" is just another way of saying they expect you to sacrifice your personal life and sanity. It is just exhausting.
My first lead told me at my face - Jab dimag nhi hai to dimag mat lagao !! I was a fresher at that time. With having just 3-4 months of experience. That shattered my confidence.
7 years later I am in a env where my lead regularly compliment me regarding my technical and professional skills. Realized later than a shitty lead / manager cannot decide your future . Introspect & improve . That’s it
Very good if you haven't turned toxic yourselves. Every successful person has good people behind his her success
I had been through a similar situation and the ex manager ruined multiple background checks where i clear all interview rounds also and then got shunned due to his inputs, but the point being I made it finally to a much better place than what i had signed up for.
Always treat work as a secondary, life as primary is what i have learned
I can never understand the stupidity of hiring managers to reach out through personal connects to get feedback. It puts the employee in a very bad place. Went through this personally. Didn't get hired and got a bad rapport with VP ultimately leading me to resign few months down the line
Name the org and your manager name and his linkedin id so people knows who they should not trust.
Just be yourself and trust the process. I started a software for a shopkeeper on road. And later worked with different countries and travel for work. It is just be yourself, you are the one who can decide about you.
What jargon?
Definitely amazon lol
