Myntra exploiting their Designers
After reading the recent #Amazon post and people being truly open about it. I'd like to highlight what me and my Myntra colleagues at the same level faced. The level of emotional and mental harassment I went through was extreme. 9-5 extending till 9am to 11pm, i.e 12+ hrs everyday with no incentives, often my manager would ask me to connect at 12:30 a.m. assign tasks and say, complete this atleast by morning. Even on days when we're in-office till 10:30 at night working on displays and whatnot, after completion they'd say now go home and work on concepts, which is insane, work when? Most often our weekends would get consumed in work too as there's always, always something urgent everyday to prevent you from taking offs. It wouldn't be coming off as a surprise if people are saying they haven't slept for 3 nights straight, because they'd say so have I. All that at a package of 5.35 LPA, it's ridiculous.
One thing I really hated during WFH days was MEETINGS DURING LUNCH/DINNER TIME, after a few weeks when it became repetitive, I started saying, but it didn't stop as they would smartly schedule those at pre-lunchtime so no one can deny as it's not lunch yet, then it'll stretch till 3 or 4. Then after a point I started bringing this up in mid conversation in meetings saying "Is it alright if we continue this post lunch? I need to go have lunch" and the same will happen during dinner. They'd say "go quickly have something and connect afterwards".
No appreciation for all the hardwork, sleepless nights. So, started keeping healthy boundaries, politely refusing to work on weekends, letting her know I've appointments or I'm cleaning my room or doing laundry today which they used as a way to gaslight me by saying "you disappear on weekends, what's wrong with you now, you used to work fine, seems like you don't want to work here anymore, please be there this weekend and do this". I was still committing to their 9-5 stretching till 8 evening tho.
Hearts out to you for hustling so hard. Keep priorities right and always ALWAYS aim for a balanced life. Value what you do and more than anything value yourself. Things are going to work out. Cheers and hope things better for you.
Thank you so much. I feel seen and heard after such a troubling and tiring time of my life. I actually did aim for a balanced life, and apparently Myntra was supposed to have that, but I guess they're all just good at pretending and faking. For some time I thought it depends on whom you're directly working under than on the organisation, but at the same time I also think, isn't the management too a part of what makes up the organisation, so whatever pressure that's coming to us is coming ultimately from them. So I don't know, maybe the company culture is itself messed up and like that, because no one is listening or addressing the issue as people continue to leave. As I tried to speak up and highlight the issues in feedback meetings multiple times, but most often I was cut by my own manager, even in front of HRs, my manager would say stuff like "we also work like that, after office hours, on weekends, during our initial days we used to work even more, close to 24/7, we're not even expecting that from you" and the HR Person remained silent the entire time, so the human resource clearly knows it and does nothing about it.
Well well it was time for me to leave anyways. But it really took a lot of courage to finally quit.
But this time I had decided to prioritise myself over anything else. So I did.
Modern slavery. Please quit
Yeah I know right. I've now. I reached burnout, and was unable to churn out productivity, they brought me to that point. I couldn't even take a leave when it was required and needed the most, even when I was not well and dead sick, I remember forcing myself to work because the task at hand needed to be sent on priority. I remember my manager calling me again and again for it knowing I was sick.
Brother you are awesome. You have great days ahead waiting for you
This is terribly inhumane. Can you confirm if you were part of the Creatives Design or UX design team? Haven't seen this happening in UX team in my personal experience.
I'm afraid I can't.
I'm afraid I can't confirm the team however I'm glad it's nowhere near this toxic in your team.
Across a couple organisations I've worked at I've seen the design team to be one of the most burdened and understaffed.
Been guilty of asking the design team to work extra as a product owner too 🙈. (Nothing close to this extreme although, we have a caring culture at the end of the day). Felt bad for them but I had it cut out from my seniors too.
Here too it was heavily understaffed and underpaid to the point where I had no one to delegate work to, so basically I had to work even in worst situations because taking a leave would mean completing ongoing and future tasks of the day prior to taking a leave.
It's great that you care and are concerned about your team and designer working with you. I wish everyone understood this, and respected (if not rewarded) people's hardwork and efforts.
Design is after all a creative job. And burnout kills creativity.
That's brutal. Please take care.
This kinda work can eventually get to a person. Know a guy who similarly worked this hard for a couple years until he got blood pressure.
Thank you I am now taking care only.
Oh god I can truly empathise with him.