On Fire to Hire. On Fire to Fire. Ummm Sorry you are Fired!
Death By Shaming – Story of dark side of startup culture!
The only time I wanted to work in a start-up was for the compensation I was offered. And the chance to take a shot at leadership, pretty early in my career. Start-up world seemed dramatically different from the institutions I’d previously worked for. The dress code was far too casual, almost bordering on bohemian and I risked being labelled uptight with my penchant for professional dressing. The office was right next to a massive sewer that posed hazards of dangerous water logging and poor hygiene. The mode of meetings was mainly to walk up to anyone’s cabin, unannounced and sort out issues on the spot. There was a certain randomness in the way things were done that they called it agility. The culture generally eulogised the CEOs, Kavin and Dhravin, the two brothers who were the proprietors, like the next big things in the world of business. There was a distinct air of irreverence the leaders carried, coherent in their foul words and offensive body language, quite honestly, I found the conceit a little over bearing.
Brushing aside my initial impressions, I set out with an ambitious charter for myself and the organization. I was still trying to absorb the blueprint of culture and thought there was a huge scope to make a difference in the way things worked. It so happened one of the Monday mornings, Kavin called for an urgent meeting for something that needed immediate attention. A popular journalist had fired an email to Kavin, complaining of misdemeanour by a Public Relations specialist from the company. The tone of the email was accusatory, he was upset with what had just transpired between him and Jhanvi, the newly recruited PR expert in the marketing team. Apparently, there was a heated exchange between Jhanvi and the journalist on social media. It was to do with a story about the company that Jhanvi was trying to get published on his magazine. There’s a mad rush for media visibility in the industry and with the volume of content sequenced to be published, all media stories are timed and scheduled, so there she was, frantically seeking his time. But her attempts to get his time were not fruitful and what started as a verbal duel had now escalated into Jhanvi making uncharitable remarks on his upbringing, “That’s what your upbringing is?”. Period, the journalist sure was bruised with a comment like that, and fired an email that enclosed the screenshot of the dialogue between them.
The corporate – media partnership is pivotal to the publicity an organization gets in the media. So keeping positive relations with influential journalists becomes a matter of priority for start-ups that are jostling for media exposure amidst multitude of organizations that exist out there. The journalist in question enjoyed some personal equation with Kavin. With that context, the four of us – Kavin, Lavina – the outgoing HR Head, Marketing Lead and I, to-be HR Head, connected that morning and it was decided in a jiffy, with a majority vote, that Jhanvi must be ousted from the company. Having her would be a sure shot way to spoil the relationship firm enjoyed with this journalist as Kavin declared, “We cannot afford bad press at this juncture”. To top it all, Jhanvi was to be terminated the very same day, as the Marketing lead, her manager found this behaviour “unacceptable”. The thread of events that followed was linear. The decision was made, it was endorsed by Kavin, and well it just had to be executed, by HR. Torn with ethical dilemma, I cringed, is that how my first fortnight at work was going to be like?
That very same forenoon, Jhanvi was summoned in a closed meeting room. A ghastly silence filled the air. Jhanvi’s manager was connected on a call, much like a mute spectator. Lavina took charge of the conversation and broke the silence in the room by firing a volley of moralistic questions on the supposedly catastrophic event that had just erupted, “This behaviour is clearly unacceptable Jhanvi. We don’t stand for such values. Do you even realise what you have done? How could you have commented on his upbringing? Don’t you feel guilty making such remarks. We stand for a certain code of conduct; you have breached it”. Jhanvi retorted, “But I was trying to do my job. I was seeking his time for this story that I wanted to get published, but he just won’t make time. He got into a nasty contest and I could not help saying that to him in an angry outburst.” Lavina interrupted, “Are you sorry about your conduct?”. “No, I am not sorry for what I said”, Jhanvi took an adamant stand. Well now it was time to turn tables on her.
Lavina got straight to be the point, “You don’t even realise the impact of what you have done, you aren’t even sorry, this attitude is not going to take you far. It’s just not how things are done”. By now, Jhanvi, a twenty something girl was getting an inkling of what’s to come and looked harried, let down by the antipathy. As a new employee, she was vulnerable, ignorant of the power plays within and outside of the organization and easiest to eliminate at the altar of egos. Lavina continued lashing out, “Today is your last working day here. Please leave. Your email id is disabled with immediate effect. Surrender your employee ID card and return the company laptop. Manoj will assist you with exit paper work. You will not be entitled to severance pay given your misconduct. You may leave now.” All this while, her manager remained stoically silent on the call. By this time, Jhanvi’s eyes had welled up. I couldn’t offer her much, save some consolation and good wishes. I detested being the passive witness in that room full of toxicity.
The next steps in her ugly termination were gruesome. On Kavin’s behest, HR had to broadcast this incident and the consequential decision to fire Jhanvi to the whole wide company via a longish email! How draconian? We weren’t living in the era of megalomaniacal dictators who put people under guillotine at their own sweet will, whoever they believed was a traitor. This whole episode was beginning to feel like that. And I cannot imagine the impact this would have on an impressionable young girl who was being punished for trying to fight her way to get the work done. Jhanvi left the office the very same day. I was probably the last person she said good bye to that evening. The whole fiasco felt unfair, downright unethical, and all I remember is tossing and turning on my bed that night, unable to get a peaceful night’s sleep.
This incident opened up a can of worms – did she deserve this dehumanizing behaviour? Would it not break her spirit? Was what she did really criminal? Was there no room for correction? Did they strip her of dignity with that email? Did they snatch her right to privacy? Wouldn’t her future employment be jeopardized?
A few months down the line, it was time for her manager, the Marketing lead to face the axe, for whatever reasons. All I recollect is, him reaching out to me for some good willed help, but the decision had been made, of course by the top echelons of power, and it was fashioned in a lot less cruel way. After I moved on to another organization, I distinctly recollect receiving panic calls from a couple of sales leads for job placements, as the entire sales workforce had been massacred overnight, only a few quarters after it was created with a revolutionary mission! Powai, the suburb of Mumbai where I live is a hot bed of start-ups, but every now and then, the stories of merciless layoffs from the very same organizations make headlines.
Are start-up organizations fast becoming robotic Terminators? What are reasonable grounds for termination? How do we reclaim dignity and emotions in one of the toughest jobs of eliminating people? And how do we support the employee in rehabilitation? At the receiving end of a murky termination, who knows if Jhanvi was scarred by psychological trauma, or succumbed to depression or struggled with self-confidence in her next job.
Treat people as just that – humans with emotions. Ameliorate their ordeal by acting responsibly, deal with sensitivity, maintain anonymity, care to give severance or notice period, and offer outplacement support. It’s about time start-ups address the dark skeletons in their closet and cease this bloodshed.
Disclaimer: Death By Shaming – Story of Dark Side of Startup Culture has been reproduced from the Amazon Bestseller, “People’s Kafe – Stories of Human Emotions, Endeavours & Inclusion,” with kind permission from the author, Ms Priyanka Kumar. For more stories of empathy and positivity, grab a copy of the book on Amazon @ https://lnkd.in/ghHGUJC.
If you liked this story of the dark side of startup culture and the struggles that employees face with startup policies of speedy hire and rapid-fire, do share this with your friends and family. If you have personally experienced the dark side of startup culture, do mention the same in the comments section below.
Very insightful story! Clearly brings out the dark side of startups and their hire and fire policy!