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Journalism of Courage
One of the recurring debates on social media has been about the work culture in India. Many professionals have called out toxic bosses and workplaces. A Bengaluru techie, who joined a startup company as a junior data scientist, recently shared harrowing details of “psychological torture” his boss inflicted on him, making him land in a hospital.
In a lengthy Reddit post, the employee shared that he worked at the company for seven months and had to quit after a traumatising episode during a Google Meet with the CEO. He collapsed during the meeting as the CEO kept yelling. ” Survived 7 months of relentless psychological harassment at a Bengaluru startup where the non-tech CEO micromanaged everything, imposed unrealistic deadlines, and yelled constantly. Finally suffered a complete breakdown so severe during a Google Meet that I collapsed breathless and was rushed to hospital. Company and HR continued their vindictive behavior even after I resigned,” the post read.
According to the employee, the CEO had no technical background and often set “unrealistic” deadlines and changed project requirements at whim. “The CEO – I’ll call him Satan himself because that’s literally what he felt like – had zero technical background. Yet somehow, this man believed he was some kind of data science mastermind. He’d create these completely unrealistic deadlines from thin air, change project requirements whenever he felt like it, and then lose his complete mind when reality didn’t match his delusions,” he wrote.
Elaborating on the CEO’s “toxic” behaviour, the employee also claimed that he made him doubt his skills by targeting him professionally and personally. “For seven consecutive months, I worked 12-14 hour days. Weekends included. I took exactly TWO sick days the entire period. Not once did he acknowledge this commitment. It was always criticism, always fault-finding, always something I was supposedly doing incorrectly,” he shared in the post.
After many episodes of “psychological harassment,” the techie submitted his resignation. However, the torture did not end. The CEO began grilling him during a video call meeting, which caused him a “high-stress work-induced breakdown.”
“My chest started tightening, I began struggling for air, and I completely collapsed in my chair. Thank God, my mother heard the chaos from the adjacent room and rushed me to the hospital immediately,” the employee shared.
See the post here:
I had a complete breakdown during a work video call because my CEO kept screaming – still dealing with the trauma
byu/energized_maverick inIndianWorkplace
The post resonated with several Redditors who extended support to the employee. “This is literally the most horrible thing I’ve read recently. Such “CEOs” deserve to be sued. I have no idea how you managed to put up with this for 7 whole months. More power to you for your healing journey,” a user wrote.
“Good riddance. Hope you have taken a much deserved break. And sooner you should get better teams and environments,” another user commented.
