I started my career on the media owner side.
I was 100% not the very best at my job, from memory my attention to detail wasn't great, my excel wasn't great, I didn't work quickly enough and I was working with colleagues several years older than me in a position one level below them.
For context, everyone in that company had been referred into the company from other media owners. It was a cosy little cabal. I had applied and gotten the job via the website (which is a miracle if you know the company I'm talking about).
I take full responsibility for this that the output was not good enough and I hold my hands up here. However, I did not like the fact I was treated like the below for no reason at all
During my torrid time at this company. The following happened:
- I had managers publicly tear my work apart and completely re do it outside of the scope of the corporate branding (really they let us do this)
- I was constantly just told off, berated and put down privately or in public settings but the public ones were always subtle digs non stop over time
- I was publicly berated by someone who is an MD in front of everyone on the sales floor and he decided to loudly proclaim "you're just a monkey and im the organ grinder"
- I was subject to all kinds of complaints in meetings because my laptop was open even though I was fully engaged in the meetings at work
- I was never given feedback at all and then in my review I had 1 manager give me positive feedback and 2 other managers (With more political clout) absolutely berate me and tear me to shreds and give me all kinds of bad / negative feedback that took me by complete shock I almost started hyperventilating after I left the meeting room
- I worked a merciless amount of hours during my performance improvement plan and the work actually did improve a lot and then I was let go
- Offices are open places - this was definitely common knowledge, I do not understand why not one person at any time bothered to even check how I was doing or what was going on
I could go on and on by my memory is blank as I have never really spoken about this out of shame and embarrassment.
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'm doing quite well in my career - if all goes to plan I should get a partner level role in 2-3 years. I can also tell you this:
- At the first large agency group I worked at 100% of my direct reports were promoted at least one level
- At the second large agency group I've worked at 50% of my direct reports were promoted at least one level
This means I am roughly 50% likely to get you promoted if you report to me. This is driven by the fact I do not want to be like any of the people I had to deal with at work in this role. Nor do i want to each anyone junior to me that it is OK to behave like a complete asshole
I am 100% against this behaviour that is protected by a culture of referral, politics and genuine lack of human decency.