It’s true what they say, not everything that glitters is gold. More often than not, it’s just party glitter that’s blurring your vision. This is usually the case for big international organizations with a ‘cult-like’ public brand image that lures us all into wanting to be associated with what from the outside looks like an amazing dream place to work. In my case, it wasn’t even a place I had dreamed I’d work. It felt more like a detour along the way that even I knew I couldn’t refuse. It offered the opportunity to travel, exclusivity and access to events I didn’t even have an interest in, a chance to interact with celebrities and other important people, and an exciting possibility to work in a place I assumed would be an authentically creative work environment because it was full of young and black creatives.
But, what they sold me in those final interviews was the chance to work in a place that is run predominantly by black directors and managers. This was a novelty for someone who’s only ever worked in agencies and companies that were spearheaded by white founders and creative directors, where black creatives had very limited room for growth within those hierarchies unless they were unicorns. So, I thought this place was going to be different because the people at the helm looked like me, and therefore understood the struggle of being young and black.
The best thing about it was also that the opportunity came at a time when I was feeling restless and looking for something disruptive to get me out of my comfort zone. And this was definitely going to do just that since I wasn’t going to be confined to my desk all the time – but I should have guessed that if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. In my defence, the company has such an allure and glamour about it. It’s a nostalgic and iconic brand that still reminds me of my childhood, but it also embodies the signs of a brand that has all the flash but none of the essence on the inside, including an attractive leader with a charismatic personality.
I was so excited to join them, even more so when I realized that during my first week the team was going away for a weekend for the end of year function and team building – not a bad week to start. I love travelling so this got me excited about all the free work travels that were coming. Admittedly though, even on that first trip, the red flags were starting to rear their ugly heads but I dismissed them with… “What company doesn’t have its flaws” and “you can’t please everyone all the time.” This was because employees were asked to send their leadership questions anonymously so they can be addressed and issues around misogyny and a lack of gender diversity within the leadership team were raised. True to the cause, the charismatic leader gave answers that allayed my fears and promised that they have plans to make changes – as a feminist, I wouldn’t want to work in a place that doesn’t prioritize gender equality. In retrospect, I was blinded by the excitement of FINALLY getting to work in a company that was led by Black and Brown people (unfortunately, they were mostly men).
Read – Your Life, Your Canvas – An Article by Gitari Nyawira, Kenya
The first 5 months felt like a dream, I literally couldn’t believe I got paid to do the job I did until the exhaustion started to hit and I woke up to the reality that I worked a 9 to 5 job (sometimes did evening events after work), 5 days a week and was expected to attend events on weekends and still function at full capacity. I was doing a job that was meant for more than one person. Those parties and the allure of access and exclusivity wore off very quickly for me, with the realization that my weekends were not mine. Other stuff also started to creep up, being hit by the reality that I worked in a toxic work environment where colleagues couldn’t even trust the person next to them to not throw them under the bus.
I began to experience anxiety because I’d wake to a million WhatsApp messages every morning because another “urgent” thing happened and everyone was in a panic at 11 pm while I slept. I had to constantly be on edge because now I might be in trouble for being asleep instead of being responsive at an ungodly hour. At some point, it felt like we had “urgent” meetings every day because another thing that could have been prevented with better leadership and planning wasn’t. All of the stress was compounded by the fact that our team had a manager who wasn’t managing. Under her leadership, the team was always in crisis due to her poor planning and inability to execute the work she was hired for. So to avert her failure, she treated her team of grown-ass adults like children that needed to be scolded because she was failing.
When did I know I needed to walk away?
Well 10 months in, I wasn’t able to see my family for extended amounts of time. If I wasn’t working on weekends, I would be too burned out to exist. At this point, the mere thought of going to the office filled me with crippling anxiety. I was doubting my capacity to deliver work, questioning everything I did, and making mistakes I shouldn’t have made.
The most sobering part of that experience was that my manager was young, black, and a woman. It was difficult to understand how she could treat the team so dismissively with her autocratic style of leadership. Up to that point, I had always thought that having someone who looked like me as the lead would be life-changing (for the better), but she turned out to be the worst manager I’ve ever worked with. Even just writing this brings back to the surface those awful feelings.
I was discouraged by a few people about leaving 10 months into a job, cautioning that it would look bad on my resume. They advised me to finish the year at least but I didn’t even care at that point. I resigned without a backup plan after exhausting other options like bringing up the issue with my manager, talking to HR and going over our manager to talk to our MD. I exhausted all the options that were available to me, to no avail. When we complained, we were asked to be patient with her while she found her feet since she was a few months into the job. This meant us doing her job in addition to ours while she treated us like we did nothing all day. In the end though, I chose my peace of mind. She did ask me to stay when I resigned and even offered to move me to a different department, but I knew she was a symptom of a much bigger cultural problem within the business. I couldn’t be a part of a place that enabled and rewarded behaviour like hers, because, in reality, she wasn’t the only manager who treated her team with such little disregard.
For a long time after I left, I didn’t want to say out loud that my manager was actually a bully because I know how hard it is to find Black women in managerial roles in big companies like that. I cringed at the thought of describing another Black woman that way, but the reality was glaring. She was a BULLY.
I learnt from that experience that jobs will come and go, but my well-being should always be a priority. In the end, I was in a fortunate position to leave my job and take a few months to recover while doing freelance work for a while. Eventually, I was lucky enough to find a permanent place in another organization where I don’t feel like work needs to be my whole life. I learnt a lot from that experience and kept it moving. Now I appreciate just how important it is to have a leader whose style of leadership fits with your needs as a person, as much as the job description.
Coming to terms with the fact that what I thought was a dream job, was just a job that haunted my dreams. Realizing that in reality, the idea of the job was more exciting than the job itself. There was such a big divide between what the job role promised, and the actual day-to-day experience of it. It wasn’t my dream job, it was just the allure of a cult-like brand that got me. In the end, my perception of the place and the culture it promised didn’t materialize. I didn’t feel any more empowered there than I did at those predominantly white agencies. What they promised was a marketing ploy – because although it ticked the right boxes as a black organization and run with women managers, it wasn’t that much different. It was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I didn’t take the time to interrogate whether what I was told about the organization was really representative. I wanted to believe, so I went in blindly. All the external glitter turned out to be broken glass shatters on the inside. I am now at a place in my life where I found fulfilment. I now understand that I can’t outsource my peace of mind and that no job can give me that. My feeling of fulfilment now comes from the inside.
Published in the November 2021 Edition of the WSA Magazine
