This is a take that wont be taken well by many but the best of folks are really hard to work with. They see things differently and want things to be done their way. Best example is steve jobs.

Recruiter

We always aim to get into the best colleges of our country and dream to be the future leaders of large organisations.  But I have realised one thing, no amount of top tier education guarantees prof...

We always aim to get into the best colleges of our country and dream to be the future leaders of large organisations.

But I have realised one thing, no amount of top tier education guarantees professional behaviour and a good team building culture.

Do you also agree with the same?

Toxic Bosses

Marketing Manager

Toxic Bosses- Grapevine

Welcome to Confessions's Private Community

In my corporate experience, I have observed two kinds of leaders - 1) A hard task master, very high on IQ but more often than not low on EQ and 2) High on EQ, above avg on IQ. I as a manager/ leader fall under 2) and usually get work done without authority but I do experience at times, some peers and reportees taking advantage of my behaviour

 In my view, anecdotally I see type 1) leaders succeed more in corporates even if it comes at the cost of facing flak/hate from directs/indirects. One of my previous managers was unpopular for his toxicity but somehow I kind of built a decent bond with him. Once over drinks and dinner, he candidly told me, I'm not here in this organization for making friends and I'm here only to get results and he did deliver on results every year.

My question is, can type 2 leaders even climb up the ladder specially where cut throat competition exists. Sometimes I do feel I need to be more like type 1 leaders obviously not at the cost of toxicity - disrespect, shouting etc. 

What are your thoughts?

Task Master vs Empathetic leader

Program Manager

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

“Toxic culture is important for a successful startup” - Acid

Product Manager

Recently whenever I come across any post on GV asking about the culture of a particular company people generally point out it to be toxic... Even in big companies like Swiggy, Upstox etc.
Are there even any good product companies in India with decent TC + WLB + Culture??

Is a toxic workplace becoming a common thing??

Welcome to IT Company Discussion's Private Community

आज मेरे मैनेजर और उसके चमचे दोनों रेले दिये गये, मेरे टीम और लीड के द्वारा (we never create any toxic environment always ready to fight)

Frontend Engineer

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

Toxic bosses can also teach us something

Software Test - QA

Hey Viners, would like to know your prespective on the situation that if you face a bunch of incompetent colleagues who dont take their work seriously and the manager constantly asks you to maintain quality because of your seniority and you end up cleaning their work, how do you handle it ?

Few Incompetent colleagues

Create a toxic work environment for them that they leave themselves ☺️

Corporate Strategist

Software Engineer

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

There is one guy on my team who handles feedback so poorly that they engage in narcissistic tendencies. I've seen them bootlick the right people due to their closer proximity and utilize crony wordplay to show that they are harmless. When in fact they try to advance their own agenda to further their own gain. Every company on their resume is a checklist and the megalomania in them is palpable. 

Unfortunately most people on the team are too naive and won't realize it until it's too late. Which means by the time he is done using everyone else, he will bounce and do it at their next company while completely f'ing over their current coworkers.

Anyone had a similar experience?

[Story] Is one of your coworkers a complete sociopath?

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

To all the people here, I have observed way too many posts on salary checks based on experience.

I can pretty much guarantee you, your salary or pay doesn't depend on your years of experience. Your salary or pay depends on these factors primarily -
1. Location of the company (city / country)
2. The impact you have created in past (very highly dependent)
3. The impact your hiring managers believe you can create once you are on boarded (again, very important)
4. The kind of company you join(can they afford to pay high salaries)

That's all that matters! There could be definitely more factors, but these truly are major ones!

For all those who are doing salary checks across their years of experience, figure out if those are really unique years of experience or doing same thing year on year! 

For those who think some people are overpaid, or people this young shouldn't deserve this salary or that these people just got lucky, that's not the case.
When you are good, you make your own luck!

Next time you evaluate your salary, see the impact you have created. Then figure out what you should earn as a salary for the impact you have created and ask for it! Higher the impact, higher the reason for great pay!

Anyone agrees?

Setting the record straight!

Consultant

- Remove people from Townhall meet because there camera is not switched on.

- Do an app revamp because he gets cognitive overload, and not users.

- Forces decisions without an objective measurement for outcome. 


Guess, who!

How to be a toxic founder?

Software Developer

Hello all! 
I am working as HR Head in a growth stage startup in Bangalore. So many people here talk about compensation, culture, growth etc. Happy to answer questions related to HR/Culture/Startups.

People & Culture Manager

Just now I was reading a post that a person has to forcefully resign due to a toxic manager/work environment. Shouldn't there be a movie 🍿 about toxicity of office managers, as there was 3idiots for choosing career. Like how employees get treated in banks (that video which went viral, manager yelling at an employee), another example when an employee stood up against his manager (order swiggy par karo jake), there are so many examples. My team and I also face a hell level of micro-management daily but no one speaks up about it. I tried highlighting it to my manager and team but no benefit. In my company, even if you make an HR complaint they are helpless and reroute you to the manager only. I think it's the same for others as well. Any opinions?? 

P.S. Not saying every manager is bad. I have worked with some great ones as well.

Toxic Work culture!!

Operations Analytics

How many of you see incompetent leaders in TCS. They are nominated either on incompetence but superb in ass-licking or acquaintance of someone. Pls comment.

Incompetent leaders

How do you deal with extreme work pressure and a toxic working environment.
I'm just done with my current company the culture is so toxic that people are leaving left and right. Dev's are working even on weekends and are denied leave. If anybody raises their voice then disciplinary action mails are used as a threat.
Office politics and salaries getting hold. 
It came to a point I'm ready to resign without any offer in my hand and maybe Month's carrier break to work on myself and keep myself sane.

I want to know how you keep yourself sane and keep up with this shit show. 🙏

Toxic work culture

I am a 6 yrs experienced Software developer and part of a mid-stage startup. This is my third job; I have been working here for 3 years. I was involved here as one of the core engineers at the start in developing the overall platform, After that, my growth as an engineer stagnated for 2 years . 

Constant importance and priority are given to business requirements and hacky work getting pushed to production in the name of fast iterations and business impact every week. 

My engineering manager lacks proper engineering skills and doesn't respect engineers even after their impact on the company and constantly keeps saying the engineering team doesn't contribute to the revenue of the company despite us pushing work that improves business positively. 

Last year around November, around 80% of the engineering team was subtly suggested to start looking out for work (basically a soft layoff) because management was too scared of a social media backlash

Due to all this,2 years' worth of technical debt has accumulated on the overall codebase and apart from giving justification for every code improvement that we try to make there, we still have to work on business/product requirements. 

My growth as an engineer has stopped and I am worried about missing out on the latest developments in the tech industry, especially with AI in the picture, and want to make my skillset somewhat AI-proof. I have come back to hands-on coding this year , so that's a positive start. I am considering taking a 3-4 month break after resigning from my company to study, develop side projects, develop a portfolio etc

Has anyone else been in this boat ? How did you come out strong?

Side Effects of working at startups

AMA about what actually goes behind those rangolis in the HR dept and work that better compensated people in HR do.

HRBP AMA

Human Resources

Somehow in india all the product startup’s have adopted the most toxic and worst translation of what it’s being like as a product manager and engineering management. Both these roles have become nothing but fear mongering, power grab, and most being extremely bias towards almost everything. 

So your success is very much dependent on how your manager is and the opportunity that they provide. So if you want to avoid toxicity sooner, it’s the right step rather than stick and fail in the long term. Once again, I am talking based off of my 10 yoe. You may have a different experience and I’d definitely wanna learn more.

Toxic Leadership in Engineering and Product

Engineering management is pure dumb in India for US product companies. Non contributing managers and directors who won't even pass design interviews. These are parasites who'll latch on new host, one of the reasons keeping India down and also talent leaving

What's in it for you?

1. Learn sql, excel, data, structuring etc.
2. See real life impact of what you do everyday
3. Problem solving - Find some of the most unique problems (never solved before) to solve Contribute to the evolution of the nascent at home service industry.
4. Meet some of the smartest and dumbest (largely limited to contractual resources) people to work with
5. Preferably try to get into the repairs (AC, Appliances, Electrician, Plumbing, Carpenter) vertical to meet some of the smartest and most grinding folks in business roles in the company
6. Meritocracy - Be ready to work hard and smart to stand out due to steep competition (Work life balance will be impacted)
7. Customer obsession - even the founders still go for customer visits along with the service professionals
8. Team management/Leadership - Learn to manage service professionals and less educated entry level employees at an early stage of your career

Cons.
1. Leadership - high pressure form of operating
2. Work hard/Play hard culture
3. Pedigree (IIT) bias - Significant wait before establishing credibility/building trust of leaders on you if not from the top colleges of India
4. Don't get into city management roles if you want your career trajectory to include analytical learning

Business role at Urban Company

Strategy & Operations

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.

---

Is this toxic work culture or I am overthinking

Not a great culture, also you don’t have to give the actual reason, instead say due to some unavoidable work or family health reason you will need to wfh. Its a good way of seeing what kind of employer one is, when they also treat urgencies like that. Indians feel they need to give a detailed explanation as to why they deserve wfh or leave, whereas in international companies, you just have to inform the manager.

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