Mom vs. Manager: The Unexpected Lesson That Saved My Career

Imagine a company where the only soundtrack is the toxic symphony of politics, ego and denial. You're not in a high school cafeteria. Here , manager has a first-time experience and chooses to weaponize it against you. This, my dear reader, is my story. A story steeped in humiliation, but also one laced with resilience. I've always been known for my ability to bring people together, nurture creativity and drive progress. However, the toxic environment I encountered was getting toxic day by day. It was a place where basic feedback was met with resistance and where the QA has biggest ego. I raised the issue, with the manager, but instead of addressing the problem, they launched into a political circus, blaming me for the chaos. My voice, my logic, my experience - all dismissed with a nonchalant "You're wrong, again." never faced this with my ex-colleagues before this from all previous companies though they were from tier-1 colleges and hungry to learn, grow and very humble when it comes to giving and taking feedbacks. It's a humbling reminder that genuine leadership and the ability to accept feedback are the foundational pillars of any successful organization. My journey through this toxic symphony has taught me valuable lessons about the importance of creating a positive and inclusive work environment. It has also fueled my resolve to keep pushing boundaries, even when faced with blatant indifference and deceit.

Hey guys Got Piped and laid off by my toxic manager giving bullshit reason. The manager was giving random excuses when i asked in details. Anyways toxic people will do toxic things only. On the top of that phonepe was giving PIP to reduce experienced people and was hiring junior engineers to reduce costs. Finally got a job after few months of efforts. Not that great but I am feeling great to get out of that toxicity. I am feeling better since I left phonepe. When I call my friends back at phonepe, I see them casually mentioning there is too much work I will do on weekend, will sit at night. That's how overworking in normalized. I was also doing the same before and didn't think twice how much I am working. I Will keep on preparing and would not leave my future in hands of my future or any manager from now on.

I will go first, it doesn't matter if you really work hard on a project, in the end only result matter, no matter how much efforts you made for it

Looking for genuine and non diplomatic answers since it will be anonymous. It is upto you to reveal the name of the company you resigned from. Lets discuss!!! I will go first - I quit my last organisation (a famous UPI company) in 2020 because, they still are in old technology. No cloud computing, no kubernates, no terraform. Their entire baremetal infra are in 2 DCs (Mumbai and Bangalore). Leadership ideas are outdated. I was very much bored and looking for a change.

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’ve been insufferable at work since 2-3 months now. Total time at my company- 6mo 21 days. Profile - Product Management My engineering team seems to be taking no ownership and always have their brahmastra ready that it didn’t come from product’s side. QA again is so great that I have to sit and thoroughly test each release end to end. My manager- he’s quite interested in taking my career fwd as a project manager. (I am not) He’s a total asshole and is quite concerned with start dates and end dates of tasks ( mind you, I am not the one actually writing the code but somehow the dates are my responsibility). He totally micromanages and somehow keeps blaming me for each small thing. Examples: - My engg team isn’t taking ownership: “you aren’t keeping them motivated enough” - This isn’t a last minute change : “Do you attend standups? You aren’t communicating well” - The QA tested and approved it, hence we released it. : “But did you test it? “ - Here are the release notes. : “This looks too jazzy, did you copy from GPT” - Here are the release notes. : “This looks too basic, did you not copy from GPT” I could go on forever. Gust: I am quite unhappy and is causing me unnecessary stress everyday. Also I don’t feel there’s a solution possible

Symptoms of being ‘too nice’ to people at work: - Overuse of gratitude words like Thank you, please, could you, kindly, etc on all forms of communication at work. - Registering your reactions like thumbs up & clap to literally every chat message in slack/teams/discord channels at work. - Praise excessively on meetings like retrospectives, etc. - Replying ‘thank you’ to every individual person who wished you or congratulated you for some occasion, especially in WhatsApp groups. Have you ever introspected why you are ‘too nice’ to people instead of just being ‘nice’ to people?

Hey guys, i am going to be a manager for the first time in a company that i have been working at for 3 years and I have people joining me from monday.. any tips for being a good manager?