The Mental Toll

Yashi Jaiswal
7 min readSep 21, 2024

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With the EY news making rounds on the internet these days, I am reminded a little of what I faced in my first job. For most of the people who are willing to read ahead, let me tell you it’s a grey one.

It was July 16th, 2022, when I was introduced to the corporate world. It was my first job, and I was so ready to give my best and learn whatever I could.

Basically, I joined as a trainee for a convertible role. The money was good, no doubt. It paid my bills and more. I think I will always be grateful for that.

It was a team of three where I was the trainee, then I had a reporting manager and the team head. I was 22 at the time.

How do I begin this?

Okay, I guess I will proceed with situations.

Situation 1: The Shoes

It was my first week at work. The three of us in our team were in the meeting room, and I was wearing a shirt, pants, and shoes. The team head said, “HR ne bataya nahi hai dress code?” I tilted my head down and looked at myself, and said, “Sir, formal hi toh hai.” The reporting manager filled in with “Yashi, shoes ke liye keh rahe hain.” (I was wearing sneakers, and they wanted proper formal shoes, I guess. Not an issue, but the team head should have straight up stated it no that don’t wear these shoes).

Situation 2: Hi Sir

I sent an email to my MD and CEO writing “Hi Sir,” and my team head came to the floor and asked me to come into his cabin. He made me open the email I had just sent. He said, “Kisko mail bheja hai abhi?” I said, “MD Sir ko.” He said, “Kya likha hai, padho.” I read the email. He said, “‘Hi Sir’? Who writes ‘hi’ to an MD?” I said sorry. He said, “What’s his designation in the company?” I said, “Highest.” Then he said, “What’s yours?” (I accept the fact that I might have been wrong, but there are ways to explain, no? But he chose “highest” and “lowest,” nice).

Situation 3: The expectation of early arrival and sitting till late

My team head came in early and left early, as in by 6:30 PM, which was the time when our 9-hour shift came to an end. However, my reporting manager sat till 8 PM. Now, the team head expected me to come in early, and the reporting manager always expected me to stay till late and kept all the meetings with me for 7 PM. (As they say, most productive hours!)

Situation 4: Salary Bifurcation

I was asked about my salary in the cabin of my team head by him and in front of a colleague from a different function. When I said nothing, he exclaimed my salary and then mockingly asked me to list all the tasks I handle along with the percentage of salary I deserve for it. When the percentage exceeded 100%, he laughed and asked if I was even worth my salary.

Situation 5: The Topper

I scored the highest in my grad and received a medal for the same. However, the same did not happen during the PGD. My team head always brought this up, saying, “Where’s the topper of your PGD course? What is he doing?” (I have no idea, why on earth it mattered to him?)

Situation 6: The Weekends

I worked every single weekend for 11 months (my tenure). They used to call me up on festive days at 8 AM and asked whether the social media post was taken live or not. Not just this, I used to prepare a report twice with all news related to our work incoming from 7 states. This took around 2–3 hours every day, and then another set took an hour, and I had to do this even on weekends.

I was told to learn Assamese so I could translate the local newspaper clippings that came from Assam and spend no time using Google Lens in translating them all one by one. (How thoughtful!)

Situation 7: The Anniversary

I took 2 days off for my parents’ wedding anniversary. We had a function at home, and we came home around 5 AM in the morning after the function. I woke up from the call of my reporting manager at 10 AM saying, “Yashi, report aapko hi banana padega.” The same report that required 2–3 hours of work and then another 1 hour for the set of news that came in by afternoon. (I was on LEAVE, and even then it looked like I had NO option).

Situation 8: Late arrival by 2 minutes

One fine day, I reached the office at 9:32. As I was punching in, both the managers were there. The team head said: “Ye koi time hai aane ka?” (in the reception area where others were present too). I said, “Sir, 9:32 hai, I am late by 2 minutes.” The reporting manager barged in saying, “Arey… Yashi, aap upar jaiye, main aapse baat karta hoon abhi.” (Upar as in we had offices on the ground floor and then 4th; our team used to sit on the 4th floor).

Situation 9: Gadhe se Ghode

My reporting manager said, “Yashi, Gadhe se Ghode ki Daud abhi bohot door hai.” If you got that, you must know by now who he was referring to as Gadha. He added, “People here are below average, kisi se baat mat kiya karo.” (I am pretty sure both of them were!)

Situation 10: Portfolio

I was asked to show my portfolio. I opened up the work I had done for Ola Cabs (this post has over 7 lakh organic impressions and even got me an interview at Ola). My team head said that he thinks people who do these types of work are morons. He did not pinpoint me exactly, but he said that he finds people who do such work are morons.

After this, he asked me to play my podcast. He heard one episode, and the instant it got over, he said, “Yashi, band kardo.” (I only wonder if this is how freshers should be motivated. I guess subconsciously, I took it too seriously and gave up on it. I should thank him).

Situation 11: Team of 2/2.5

I have heard my managers saying to other colleagues, in front of me, that we are a team of 2 or sometimes 2.5. I am told by one of them, “Aap yahan meri wajah se ho.” (How bold of them!)

Situation 12: The Grievance

I sent an email writing my experiences to the grievance email ID. A week after, I was told by the HR (lady): “Dono ka naam nahi lena chahiye tha.” Anyway, the committee has been set up, and the MD has read your email. We will have a meeting with you. After a week, the meeting with the grievance committee was set up.

The same HR lady started MS Teams recording, saying, “We are recording this.” I was telling them all about what happened in the past 10–11 months. When the meeting ended, the same HR lady said, “Oh, I forgot to press the record button.” (What a generous way of telling me that we don’t give a fuck about this). She further added, “It’s okay, I have taken down the pointers, and if there will be something else, I will call you again.”

The Resolution

After a week, I was called by the Head (HR) stating that it is me who had taken things in the wrong way. They had discussed this with my managers, and both of them said the same thing: that it’s her who has taken it all wrong. They had no intention to make me feel that way. (So cool, no?)

Then he proposed if I would like to work with some other team, maybe HR? (Why would I, man? That’s not my qualification). Also, no sorry. Nothing from my managers. (What purposeful use of the grievance committee, man!).

Now, I will come to stating what I faced on those days.

I had sleepless nights. I was scared of entering that cabin. (The cabin of the team head where most of the incidents pertaining to humiliation and taunts took place). I took no breaks at work except for lunch because they used to call me up if I would even be in the washroom for 2 min. Waking up from the call of my manager on weekends.

Bumps on my forehead. Workplace anxiety. And the worst ones? An episode of sleep paralysis and then irregular periods for once.

Mind you, I never experienced any of that before this. (That was the end of my decision-making).

I tried mending things for the longest time and always tried to put my best foot forward. But over time, I realized that this TOXIC environment was not going to change for me and was affecting me mentally and physically. (The total travel time was 4 hours a day, most of which was spent standing in suffocating metro and changing metro lines twice).

When I discussed this with a few people, they said, “Ye toh sab jagah hota hai,” “Sabke saath hota hai.”

I replied, “Hota hoga, mere saath nahi hona chahiye.”

Aur nahi hone diya maine!

I joined that place with the intention of becoming more self-confident, but over time I realized that I had become the least favorite version of me.

I had always wanted my first job to be memorable; it sure is.

(Oh, just so you know, my tenure as a trainee ended in 6 months, and I was converted into a full-time employee. I left that place without a job in hand).

Super proud of my decision. I should have left it earlier!

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