Media House encourages bullies in workplace!

Yeah, I mean it. So I was in between jobs couple of days ago and was offered a ‘Marketing Manager’ role for a famous media house. It was a remote role with 1 week of onboarding in Bombay. The interview process was mid level difficult but smooth. Just before releasing the offer letter, the HR called me and told me that due to some strategic decisions, the role will be consultant for the 1st 3 months and post that based on performance it would either be full-time or an extension in the contract.

I spotted the red but I was in need of a job and gave them a benefit of doubt. I accepted the offer. 2 days later, I flew to Bombay and they paid for the whole travel + accommodation. As soon as I entered the office, I started noticing gigantic red flags. I will list them down.

1. They were making an app for the GenZ which later would be used by the Big company that had recently acquired them. They wanted to do the bare minimum for that app. The mission of the parent company and this media house was poles apart and they did not want to acknowledge it.

2. Everything was outsourced! GTM, app development, brand positioning, brand launch, app launch, PR, every goddamn thing. It would have made sense if they’re outsourcing partners for the brand look from a creative pov but it’s an in-house app and they thought that none of them, coming from FAANG background, was capable enough to propose a solid GTM. (Laughing and crying both)

3. Communication was just debating. In my short stint of 2 weeks not a single component was closed. Every decision they made in the morning stand up was revised at least 3 times by the EOD. As a result, app launch got delayed, no locking on brand launch + positioning, and no GTM.

4. The parent company was developing the app with their own team. This media house was just saying YES to everything the product team was saying. I asked them for a ‘product note’ to which they said, ‘we don’t have it. RN, we’re getting delayed so you please check the product spreadsheet and make it yourself’. I was NOT A PRODUCT GUY, ffs! However, I did it. The product team liked it but the media house C suite did not. I ended up laughing secretly at their circus.

5. Even though they were reaching out to multiple agencies for GTM, they did not have their contact number. When I was asked to reach out to them on call, I mentioned it. The COO said, “email them and get their number and then call them. “ I told him these agencies were not responding to the email. He asked me to keep sending them messages. I was like WOW, such a strong leadership quality.

6. Here comes another interesting part. One of the agencies agreed to do the brand launch, app branding, and app naming thing. The names the suggested were not liked by the GenZ crowd of the media house. We asked them to change those names with proper feedback. I was asked to share the feedback with them in exact language as the GenZ cohort mentioned, and honestly, those were pretty brutal. I did as the CEO asked me.

7. Now this founder of the agency had a massive fragile ego. The next day we suggested couple of names from our day and got no response. I again called him as my CEO asked me to do. This time his man screamed and yelled at me at top of his voice. My only fault? I told him whatever the status was I had to update it to the CEO as she was my boss. That got into him and he thought I meant to complain against him.

8. He told me things like, “I have done business with big companies and I’m doing this only because of your CEO. Otherwise, I would never do business with these companies. I just came out of a meeting and you are asking me to drop a response right now..” blah blah blah. I asked very softly to lower his voice because it was extremely rude, aggressive, and scary for me. I mentioned multiple times that there was no need to yell and scream at me as I never meant to complain against him.

9. He did not stop and raised his voice even higher. After I disconnected the call, I escalated this to the CEO and the COO. This COO told me to handle it myself. It was not his concern and asked me what was the solution. He said that he had no time to sort these things, and he only wanted a solution. The CEO asked me to calm down and said they would talk to this agency’s founder once they shared the proposal with us.

10. I was like what???? That founder of the agency misbehaved with me, verbally abused me, screamed and yelled at me, told shit things about your company and now you do not have the spine to stand up against those?? Spineless! And that audacity of the COO who was not man enough, I believe, to stand up against something that was utterly wrong.

What I realized was they they encouraged bullies and did not a damn about their employees. That is why the rating on Ambition Box is 1.9. They had the audacity to allow and stand the misbehavior of an external vendor towards their employee.

I was shivering. I was scared. I locked myself up in the bathroom for 10 mins. Came back, left my laptop, pack my bags and left. Luckily, on that day I was supposed to fly back to my hometown. I went straight to the hotel, checked out, and went to a cafe. I resigned over an email. Nobody reached out to me. It has been 5 days already. My ID is still there. Such a sh*tshow!