Work life balance

Recently the CHRO of my company called me into a discussion on improving WORK LIFE BALANCE. Wow. I just cannot understand. Look at this. 1. Most companies work 5 days a week. (Except retail operations). So you get 52 weeks x 2. 104 days. 2. 30 days annual leav 3. 9 days statutory holidays. 4. Operational holidays. 3. 145 days of 365 days corporate people don’t come to office. And in a hybrid format even more. It is these corporate vultures who want work life Balance. How can u balance your life if u r unable to do it in 145 days. So Narayana murthy is right - work hard like 80% of india. Who have almost no weekly off. Just saying.

For context: Weekends are off. So just fri WFH. This is a Series B startup. I am not even asking for a leave but WFH for just 1 day. I joined recently. The only thing I did wrong was possibly informing a little too late. Want to get opinion if I am overthinking or this classifies as toxic culture in startups where you are expected to push limits above and beyond regularly and sometimes weekends. ---

I am interviewing with an early stage startup in Gurgaon. As part of their leave policy, they offer only annual leaves which you earn at a certain rate every month. They do not offer any sick leaves or casual leaves to employees. Is that even legal? Have you heard of similar policies elsewhere?

Joined this organization as an SDE. Initially, had a great experience for the first few months, got to learn a lot. However, eventually, the management (co-founder) started showing his true colors where they would favor a few people who would say yes to everything the co-founder had to say, while others who asked for justification would suffer. One such issue is the lack of concrete documentation for policies, and surprise, surprise, the policies change based on the mood of the founders. HR, oh, where can I begin? I honestly haven't seen them work, other than salary processing, where they have outsourced their work like LinkedIn management and basic tasks such as wishing employees on their birthdays. This is perfectly fine with the co-founder, as he considers this innovative. Unnecessarily, we are forced to follow processes that hamper productivity, and we have to attend meetings for half the day. Still, they expect us to work for more than 10 hours when the salary is peanuts—hell, even peanuts are better; at least we can have them with alcohol. My learning is saturated, and there’s no zeal to learn as the manager and others demotivate you. The most frustrating part is the quarterly rewards, which make no sense, as the rewards are given to people who can appease their managers (confirmed). And now that we have increments incoming, they have all of a sudden started highlighting mistakes, finding mistakes even if they don’t exist. Like one such example was the co-founder asking us to write a script when the script was already shown, and asking for an update on a JIRA ticket when it was already given in the comments. They lost my respect when they started canceling people’s PTOs and disturbing people on their much-needed PTOs where they spend time with their families and unwind. The co-founder asks the PO to call and disturb the developer on their much-needed vacations after working for long hours and weekends as he wants to satisfy his ego.

Hey I have worked in 2 startups in my careers, In both places leave policies aren't that great. Just wanted to know what are policies in other workplaces

what is the best thing about working your company ?

Not sure how many anime fans are here, but I was recently watching this new anime called “Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead”, which basically shows how a corporate employee is so fed up with his messed up job, that the first thought he has, when zombie apocalypse hits is, “I don’t have to go to work anymore!”, and he’s out to do things that he always wanted to. Anyways, in the new episode, its shown how a toxic leader/boss/senior behaves. And man, was that so accurate!! It shows how these leaders make you work like hell, belittle you, and misbehave with you. Even if you think of leaving the job, they make you believe how hard it is to survive without your current job, and how the work you’re doing is nothing, and that you can be easily replaced. And in the end, after fucking up your mental peace, they will come and show a little bit of sympathy, telling they how they just push you for your own sake. Acting like some wise old “mentor you never had”. And you know, what the worst part is, since all your colleagues are living in the same environment, since everyday you go through the same toxicity over n over, it becomes normal for u. Your brain adjusts, and it seems to think that this is how the world is. Moreover, if you are a fresher, and you don’t have any prior experience of work culture, you seem to believe thats how work life is, and will always be. I’m ranting this out, since i wasted around 1-1.5 years of my life in such startup, and it wasn’t just the time that was wasted, it also took my passion, my energy, my motivation and my goal with it. To all the folks who might be in a similar situation, I just want to say, I know it’s hard and I know you probably can’t leave due to some financial situations or other issues. But BELIEVE ME when i say that nothing in this entire world comes above your mental health. Save that first folks. Be selfish, saving others can wait!