A few months ago, I disclosed that I had left my job.
I was working for a successful startup that had all the perks. I was issued a $4,500 MacBook Pro, there was beer available at all times of the day and the office was located in downtown Ottawa. On my first week we did ax throwing as a team building activity.
There was about ten people working on our product, and only a dozen in our office. The rest were in Montreal, along with HR and higher ups, or other offices. When I was hired, I was told I was the first person they hired in a year and a half. Another team member was hired shortly after me.
The job was straight-forward, working on the API back-end for point-of-sale software. The workplace, unfortunately, was extremely stressful. The team lead regularly made condescending remarks to me. Questions were met with RTFM. The tickets that the team lead wrote were often just a single sentence and trying to get more info was like pulling teeth. He and his boss continually derided the competency of others. The team lead was unable to accept constructive feedback with his code or design decisions.
Things didn’t improve. In conversations with my boss, I was treated as if it was my problem. With HR and the rest of the office being in another city, there wasn’t any other path out of the situation. I gained 40 lbs in my eight months there just from the stress.
The other person who was hired with me quit on a Thursday. I quit on the Friday. I then found out that three others had quit over my team lead’s behaviour. For my last two weeks, the team lead stopped communicating with me and the other departing employee altogether. Job postings went up a few weeks later.
I took some time off after that experience. I drove across Canada and the United-States with a friend, camping along the way. I spent a week in Vancouver. I worked on my own projects.
I landed a job as an embedded software developer developing air traffic control systems. It’s been good. Everyone helps each other. My team lead facilitates development where he can. People’s diverse skills are recognized and valued. If there’s a lesson I learned during all of this, it’s to quit toxic jobs sooner.
And so life continues.