We had our first meeting as a team, the topic was really interesting and each one of us were pitching their idea. My turn came and just when I started to speak, Mr. Lala cut me off and didn’t let me present, “Samrat! Why don’t you tell us what you think?”, I looked at everyone else in the room and they were all shocked but no one spoke a thing. I thought it was a one-time thing and I decided to ignore it. As we were walking outside the meeting room I overheard Mr. Lala as he had a really loud voice, “So Samrat! You got lucky with her yet?”. “Sir! What are you saying?”, said Samrat. I was burning inside and I looked back at him in anger. He shamelessly acted as if he didn’t say a word. I knew he was trouble that day and we had one bad fish in the pond. There was a really strict business conduct rule set by the company and yet he seemed to not care a dime for it, I was the youngest employee in the firm and was really scared to go against the wind. In every meeting, he said inappropriate things, didn’t let work conversations happen, picked up fights and almost never let me speak. The other senior veterans of the company who were in our team took a stand at times and that was when I got to share my views. With every passing day, the environment in our team was becoming unhealthier and our manager who was supposed to moderate our discussions was never present in our forum.
For an assignment, once a well-experienced woman professional was added to our team. She was pregnant and was about to go on maternity leave in the next two months. Mr. Lala didn’t spear her too and taunted, “Some people take salaries here to deliver a baby “. The lady had a breakdown that day, went to her reporting manager & resigned. Mr. Lala was given counselling by our other teammates to not be so blunt & disrespectful “openly”. The environment had become hostile. The one thing I didn’t understand was why was Mr. Lala being tolerated so much? he was testing everyone’s patience. One day I was working late and sadly I had to collaborate with him for a task, he came to my desk. “Hey, Samrat! It’s 5:30 pm! Go and meet your girlfriend. Shivangi, you get up, I want to see your code, let’s see how much brain you have”, said Mr. Lala as he started to pull my chair. This was it and I had tolerated enough. “Sir I am a well-educated & qualified professional, if you have your doubts, kindly reach out to the campus hiring team for details or Mr. Shekhar Chaudhary”, I said. “As far as my code is concerned I’ll get it checked by Mr. Deepak and he will send it to you”, I ended the conversation, shut down my PC and went out as it felt unsafe being around only him & Samrat on the entire floor. All this was slowly affecting my confidence, no matter how much I tried to stand firm, I felt alone.
The very next day, during our daily meeting, “Shivangi! I checked your profile on a professional network, you are an Electrical & Electronics Engineer, and despite your gold medal remember that this is an IT company which means it’s for Computer Science professionals. So, you will have to show me each word of code you write”, said Mr. Lala. Samrat was a Chemical Engineer and many had graduated from diverse streams in that room. Mr. Lala himself was a physics graduate. “This is getting way out of hand now Lala. That’s enough. I have been tolerating all this since almost a year now. I just can’t be in the same room as you anymore”, said Mr. Deepak and he walked away. It occurred to me that it was July 2017! It had really become almost a year since he made that first cheesy comment at me. Mr. Deepak gave me the strength to get up and walk out too and I did. I decided that this behavior of Mr. Lala had to be reported to at least our manager Mrs. Pranathi. I scheduled a meeting with her for the first time. Two hours later we met and I told her everything he had been doing since I joined the team & how it was affecting my mental state. “I will definitely speak with him, but you know what Shivangi? As a woman if you want to work, you need to succumb to male ego at times and satisfy it”, she said. I had never heard such a piece of advice in my life! neither from my parents, nor my professors nor the executives at work who had groomed us. I was deeply disappointed with her. I didn’t reply to her regarding this and came out of the meeting room to find that Mr. Deepak was quitting his 20-year-old job. Our team internal affairs had now become public, everyone was trying to cool him down and then I heard from someone that Mr. Lala was Mrs. Pranathi’s distant relative and had criminal charges against him filed by two big organizations for patent theft before Mrs. Pranathi hired him three years ago. As expected out of her, she didn’t do a thing and acted blind. Ah! I knew that my meeting with her was a complete waste and might even backfire. What a horror it was!
The society perceives that appointing a woman leader is something which will empower the other women employees in the firm, but sadly that day I realized that not all woman leaders believe in the equality of the sexes and the fact that they are female by gender doesn’t make them sensitive towards others of the same sex. It was a huge myth.
A week later, Mr. Shekhar Chaudhary scheduled one on one meetings with all our individual team members. We saw hope and we thought the news must have reached him too. He asked for a detailed description of events and when I was explaining to him my experiences, I broke down into tears unwantedly. The emotions came because I recalled how joyous, confident & cheerful I used to be when I had joined the firm. I had worked hard for 8 years to be where I was and remembering my hard work, I couldn’t control my emotions. Mr. Lala had publicly taken the freedom to belittle my achievements.
“I know you, Shivangi. I hired you! I have seen how you learnt the technicalities much faster than all the freshers & you know you did. Things have been bad and you should have scheduled a meeting with me earlier and told me, maybe this stage wouldn’t have come. But it’s okay, you are just a little bird who needed a good environment to fly. You regain your confidence now. You are one of our really sharp hires and I feel you have great ethics which can make you a great leader in management as you’ll progress in your career but remember one thing - leadership needs you to be resilient & it’s time you start inculcating it by not giving importance to people who don’t matter in your journey. Even I struggle every day and tell this to myself”, said Mr. Shekhar. I thanked him and walked out feeling motivated. He was the only one I trusted to do justice. He finished up interviewing our whole team. Mrs. Pranathi and Mr. Lala were now under scrutiny and they came every day to work with fear on their faces. We all continued to work despite the background happenings.
Two weeks later we received the most catastrophic news, Mr. Shekhar Chaudhary was no more. He passed away due to cardiac arrest. The moment this was announced, I was shattered. It was for the first time that I felt the pain of losing a mentor and it was heartbreaking. We were all in shock and hours later we found out that he got a stoke while arguing with Mrs. Pranathi & Mr. Lala. We spotted them laughing together in a corner because now they knew that no one would testify against them. The employees didn’t dare to open up to anyone except Mr. Shekhar as they had mortgages to pay & feared to risk their jobs. They both looked at me with a grin. The entire organization had changed drastically since we had joined, it was said that the company hired a lot of people in a hurry in 2016 which proved to be bad hires responsible for ruining the company culture. Corruption had become unbearable and every day a new story surfaced. Mr. Lala was promoted despite the petition from an entire department of 500 people & Mrs. Pranathi shifted her department. “Don’t think that everything will be smooth. The person in Human Resources & whoever will come after me will end up being my ally in some way”, she whispered in my ear as she moved out to another floor. That moment I felt I was living in hell.
They said toppers were highly ambitious and eventually ended up leaving their jobs for pursuing higher education. Was it true? or were they left no choice? Why would a student who had studied like crazy for a minimum of 8 years want to again participate in the race for getting a score in an entrance examination, going through group discussions & selection interviews? Aren’t they emotionally drained enough before they joined their first jobs? Toppers are mostly those who have sacrificed their childhoods for their career. When their future is shown them to b
e ugly, would they stay? If they do, their years of toil goes in the drain, they lose themselves and many times go into clinical depression for not being able to live the way they didn’t sleep a night for. They are like a seed who just needs a single ray of sunlight to grow and in pitch darkness, they die. I was officially the 85th fresher out of the 100 who had joined them in 2015 to resign over a period of two years that day.
6
Initially, it seemed like the right thing to do. Pankaj had always told me that it wasn’t so difficult to get another job once you have a renowned brand attached to your resume & I had told the same to my parents after I explained them the entire chain of events which made me think of taking the courageous measure, an hour before I had put my papers that day. My father sounded skeptical but my mother was confident of my plan & even tried convincing my father. After all my exit formalities were over, the reality seeped in. I was suddenly in the middle of a huge world full of people minding their own lives & had to carve out my space in it. I had no direction. “Pankaj! You always said it was easy to find another opportunity, right? Would you come to our usual cafe today and help me?”, I asked. We met and for 30 minutes he told me just motivational stories of exceptional individuals who lived in a different era, which made no sense in uplifting my current state. “Pankaj! Which platform were you talking about that day? which helped all your friends?”, I interrupted his narration. “You’ll have to try everywhere! It can happen in any way, start today”, he said. It was heartbreakingly vague & gave me no idea of what I had to do. I now started to doubt if I got influenced by the way my “friends” around me painted a false picture of them living in a beautiful world? I felt like I had made my way to Utopia by doing good deeds for years and one day when there was less water, someone planted the thought of having a much prettier and perfect landscape outside the tall gate. It made me think a lot about what there may be and yet another day when something wasn’t right in paradise again, my inherent inquisitiveness made me leap over the wall. The tall metal gate was guarded & closed behind me while I was left alone in between a large hot dessert, unprepared without even a bottle of water. I had been tricked.
I couldn’t have allowed myself to stay in that state of mind for long and had to move towards a mirage. It was joining an online community of professionals, promoting engagement & work collaborations. I was browsing through the site when I found a high achieving MBA graduate from one of the top 5 institutes in India, who gave up his starry position in one of the most sought-after companies in the world, to start his own technology venture - Aman Raghuvanshi, my college senior. There were articles on his profile where he had spoken about the thoughts which encouraged him to begin a new journey. I was instantly full of respect, his brave decision somehow made me feel there were other bold professionals in the world too! I had a really positive image of him after what he had done years back when I was being casually bullied by his friends. I sent him a connection request and then to a few other professionals too, who were working in my field of interest.
A day later was 10th September 2017 and my 24th Birthday. I got texts from Preeti who was now married and Anushka who was in between cities in the US, because of her job. We all had become busy in our lives and now none of us spoke about our intricate life details. That year I had no idea if I wanted to even celebrate, although my parents flew down from Delhi and Pankaj arrived at my house for dinner. The entire evening Pankaj seemed to have no sensitivity to the turbulent times I was going through, “Don’t worry, keep trying! One day you will make it”, he just said this one line and continued with his regular chit chat about his life, which was going extremely well as he had received three big promotions in just two years. After he left, I could see that my father was worried. “What are your plans to revive your life back?”, he asked. “I have joined a few portals, trying to search a good opportunity there”, I replied. “It has been 10 days since your last day at work! What are you doing ever since?”, my father added angrily. For the first time in years, I heard this tone of his voice. “Dad, I will make it back, I just need to keep trying”, I said. “If you would have listened to your parents & not Pankaj then you would never have been in this situation”, said my mother. “You agreed that day mom!”, I exclaimed. “It was because you manipulated me into believing that and I had to agree because you caused a panic”, she added. I felt devastated and ran back to my room.
I had told my parents about all the real turmoil’s I had faced which were factual & not framed, they were backed by proofs. The mental toll it had taken on me since a year I had been working in my new team was tremendous but intangible. They just couldn’t understand any of it and thought it was Pankaj or one of my jealous office mates who deluded me into doing so. Leaving the job which was causing me deep pain each time I entered the premises was my own decision to guard myself & not let it cause further damage. I did have an unreal rosy picture of the reality outside, given by Pankaj & my other friends at work, which if wouldn’t have been the case, would have just made me stay a little longer, search a new opportunity in parallel and then shift. But what they couldn’t understand was that I was being suffocated there slowly by toxic people & their confidantes, their intentions were only getting nastier. What if in that window they would have managed to kill me by choking me on my own aspirations & confidence? It wasn’t a regular situation in which I could have acted like every professional who switches a job.
Later that night before going to bed, I was pleading the universe to make someone understand my real emotions - I was the one worst affected by my own choice, it didn’t bring me any joy which neither my parents nor Pankaj or anyone who saw my stable face understood. *Hey! Happy Birthday* - my phone shined with a text, Aman had added me as a connection. I thanked him with a smile on my face, it felt nice thinking of someone who had overcome a huge hurdle in his life to gain success. His journey gave me hope. *I noticed your profile, are you waiting to join a new workplace next month? *, he asked. *Actually, I am looking for one:)*, I replied. *Send me your resume, I’ll see if we have any role which suits your profile*, I sent him the resume which I had kept ready, instantly. *Great! I’ll come back on it*. Things at least started to move & I became really optimistic about the power of that portal. That night I dreamt about making an endless journey towards the light at the end of a dark tunnel & woke up with a jolt the next morning.
My parents were being really sweet to me, I knew they wanted to make up for what they had said yesterday night. “We are with you Shivangi! Don’t worry about anything”, they said. I smiled and had all my favorite dishes my mother had made for me. Just when I received an invitation for an interview at one of the most innovative Robotics startups in India. I told my parents and started to prepare rigorously. Two days later, it was time! My first interview since I graduated from college! I reached the reception and was asked to proceed inside in a minute. A really pretty girl greeted & escorted me to the conference room. As I walked through the office I couldn’t help but notice small robots being tested and an engineer who was programming & checking the movements. She knocked as she opened the door,” Oh yeah! Okay guys make the changes we discussed & we’ll test the prototype again tomorrow”, said Aman. Two sunny guys came out with a beautiful drone in their hand & smiled as they went by me. “Hi! Come on in, have a seat”, he said. I went inside & noticed an entire board full of sticky notes. “Okay, I’ll give you umm let me check… 3 minutes to convince me about how you can be an asset for us?”, he was looking at me with a stern face. I was just about to start reciting my well-prepared answer. “Wait, before you begin let me tell you, if I get bored in less than 3 minutes, I’ll get up and walk out”. I couldn’t control my grin, maybe because I was a really big fan of dark humor. “Why would you go out?”, I asked. “You know! I guess you’ll get the message”, he answered roughly. I just couldn’t control my laughter, “I’ll try my best”, I said laughing. I saw a change in his eyes, “What’s funny?”, he asked in a pleasant voice. �
�Nothing at all!”, I started by explaining the skills I possessed & then quickly moved on to suggest which departments I could fit in well. He hadn’t left! “Interesting”, he gave me 3 logical reasoning questions dealing with management to solve. Twenty minutes later Aman brought in his colleague, “Shivangi! Meet Nishant, he’ll be taking the next round for product R&D, good luck!”, he said and left the conference room. My interview was around product design & went on for an hour, it was grilling. “Thanks, Shivangi! We will contact you after discussing internally”, said Nishant. I came back home and for the first time, I had no gut feeling if I’ll make it or not because the rounds & their reactions were difficult to gauge. The next two days, I didn’t hear anything from them but on the third day I got a call from their HR regarding an offer! I took it and joined work a day later.
The startup environment was way different than a multinational! The people here were really self-driven & extremely motivated. I had begun to enjoy the little nuances but yet I felt lost. Somehow, I wasn’t able to connect myself with the job profile. A week passed, I was pushing myself to like the work and stayed back late. The last employee left, I had to leave too. I started to pack my stuff. “Hey! You are still here?”, asked Aman as he came to my desk. “Yeah, was just leaving “. “Do you know of any nice Italian restaurant around? I am still exploring the city since we expanded here from Delhi”. “Yes! I do know one, just around the corner”, I smiled & started to hurry. I didn’t hear a response for long. I turned back to see him looking at me anxiously. “Would you like me to take you there?”, I asked.” Cool”, he walked past me. I took him to one of the most famous Italian restaurants in Bengaluru and the ambience was phenomenal. We ordered their signature plates of pasta. “You aren’t happy, I noticed it this entire week. What’s wrong, are you doing okay?”, he asked. This was the first time anyone asked me how I felt, knowing his journey, I knew he could give me a real insight. I opened up & told him my entire dilemma that night. As I answered his comeback questions, I realized that I was inclined towards management. “You should take CATT”, he said. “Don’t you think it’s really less time for me to prepare? Just a month and a half!”, I replied. “It’s up to you! How you manage your time”.
Through Lemons & Peaches Page 6