Anonymous Toxic Workplace Stories are real and anonymous workplace stories. Gain unique insights and drama as we share firsthand accounts of toxic and traumatic work experiences. Discover the untold truths from employees who've lived through it all- as written by them.
Hi, I also want to share my story. I worked for a private entity as a financial analyst. When I applied for the position I only submitted in the degree they needed and didn't mention that I was a qualified Chartered management accountant. I didn't have the necessary 5 years work experience for a senior role so this was a way of me getting the experience. But I came from a prior company where I had some experience and I was looking for an opportunity to grow.
I got there and my line manager was extremely "nice" at first but then she found out about my professional qualification and then things went horribly. I never got any training for the job, I was shouted at in front of everyone (mind you I was in mid -management so I had a team of people reporting to me) there were instances where papers were thrown at me, I would get sabotaged at meetings where she would not inform me prior to the meeting and then humiliate me in front of senior management to show incompetence from my side.
Then she started threatening my job, telling me that I am still on probation and she can make a plan to get me "fired", or be put under performance review where the company can get evidence to get rid of me. This was literally in the first two weeks of employment. When she found out about my professional qualification, she had a whole breakdown where she was screaming at me telling me that she should not have hired me. Within a month I had my first mental breakdown. Then I reported this grievance to management and HR. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT THEY DID NOTHING ABOUT IT?? She Is sleeping with the right people that made my grievance case just to dissappear. yes they literally swept it under the carpet and I was expected to perform under those conditions. Mind you we are in an open plan environment and I'm subjected to this behavior everyday all day.
I would get threatened, that I will not go home until iv completed certain tasks, worked overtime that I never got paid for. I would have to be at work at 6am while everyone else came at 8am. Worked until boma 10pm, another time I remember I left work at 2am. So I basically worked from 6am-2am. No overtime. At one point I had 24 tasks to do and she wanted them at the same time. When you are trying to do one task, she starts demanding for the other one resulting in frustration and low performance because I was just all over the place. It got worse and worse, I sinked deeper into depression and anxiety.
Crying at work was a norm now. I would literally pray to go to carry me for the next hour cos days were extremely long. I got admitted for burnout, major depression and anxiety for 6 weeks, she told management that she did not know where I was and I did not get paid even though I submitted sick notes and had evidence of me communicating with her as my line manager. I worked on holidays and was not paid nor given off days. It got worse to a point where she asked security to escort me out of the business premises as an abuse of power. At some point I was even told that I don't even understand english and that she has to teach me the most basic thing of writing an email. My work got the worst criticism, this one time she told me that a report I had done was "too colorful" mind you, I'm an analyst, I had put in graphs and tables to show how the money was performing.
From there it got horribly worse as health wise I was a wreck. I was not eating, no quality of life, no sleep, I couldn't even do something as basic as laundry because I was so sick or I worked literally all the time. I then got pregnant, and lost the baby due to the stress. In January I fell pregnant again and lost the next baby again. Then I just started bleeding excessively where I was diagnosed with uterine fibroids due to the stressful environment. So the bleeding would give me anaemia and I explained to her that there were certain duties I couldn't do because I would forever be sick as I had low blood. After the 2nd miscarriage I couldn't take it anymore as I used to cry to my partner and my family that if I stay there I was literally going to die. I resigned.
After I resigned and serving my notice period I was accused of stealing, of causing certain safety hazards (mind you I'm an accountant, not a safety officer), I was accused of stealing money, just my name was in the red because she would literally drag my name down the mud. She would take whatever task that were not done, even though it was not priority tasks and literally send management emails of my incompetence. I was called to a meeting where all these accusations were thrown at me, I left my job at that point and I never looked back.
Since I left I am 1000000% better, iv sort of recovered health wise. That was the worst 14 months of my life. I kept hoping the situation would change cos I tried getting the union involved, I reported it to management, I even got a private attorney. All I can say is that corporate is very toxic and that company does not care about its employees. Mind you it's a huge company that many people would kill to work for. But now I'm at peace, I left with no plan, little work experience but I'm glad I didn't end up in a coffin. In that 14 months I got admitted 3 times in hospital. Had take so much sick leave because I was literally dying.