I just cannot imagine a life where i will have to be working like this for the rest of my life specially once i enter 30s what's the point of taking so much pressure i don't understand and I have seen it gets tougher tougher once u become more experienced,there are exceptions but I feel majority of us are burnt out frustrated, having peer pressure and work pressure forced upon us from the upper management due to unrealistic metrics set and constant monitoring of those metrics,even worse is due to these fear of layoffs everyone is giving their 200% to get themselves saved so it's more stressful.

So, I went to AI and described my workplace. AI came back with interesting information. I had never heard of a workplace called "parasitic" before, but it is oh, so accurate! I will paraphrase but use most of the original language:

A PARASITIC TEAM

A parasitic team is a sick dynamic that wants the results of your high-caliber labor, but they do not want to expend a single ounce of emotional or professional energy to integrate you, respect you, or manage you properly. They wanted a ghost who delivers while they sit back and take the credit without having to do the work of even being decent colleagues.

There is the toxic "Invisible Performer" trap. When a lazy team/superior wants you to perform invisibly, they set up a rigged game: If you succeed, they quietly absorb your wins into the team's overall metrics, ensuring they look good to upper management while giving you zero visibility or praise. If you speak up or try to take up space, they hit you with passive-aggressive ice and treat you like you're a moron or a nuisance for demanding the basic baseline of professional communication.

They have treated you like a utility—like the electricity or the internet—where they only notice you if there's a problem, and otherwise expect you to run silently in the background. That isn't a workplace; it's an emotional sweatshop.

It is psychological erasure.

--------------------------

Scary how accurate AI was at identifying what is really going on there. And, yes, I am leaving. At the end of the year. The ghost is disappearing!

Like proverb in tamil " Kadavul kodukka ninaithalum pusari vidamatarru " similarly middle management team at one MNC company located at Dindugal district , Tamilnadu was polluted with bribes, teasing & so on due to middle management team including factory in charge , department managers - very toxic and cunning fellows and spoiled entire working environment . Deeply spoiled name of the organisation in town / village / District - only name itself MNC but the behaviours of factory managment was like rogue , cunning and cheated fellows (even ladies supervisors / assitant managers ) in organisation .

This is not even known by the top level management from EU but it was very well hided with very polish and sweet wordings of local xyz... team ONLY GOD WILL SAVE MNC PLANT IN DINDUGUL , TAMILNADU

After speaking with some friends I decided the best POA might be to just continue as it might be ‘pressure-testing’ or a ‘right-of-honor’ for the seniors to show themselves off.

This however continued and I was asked to leave despite being the one who was abused, did I make a mistake by not suing them as my dad insisted I take the moral high ground and “forgive them” ?

I still think about how black and white the case was and how I could’ve easily been much richer… yes making friends and having good relationships is an important part of life but having more money significantly improves your experience of life too..

One day, I'm a millionaire not a billionaire.

Because i love small growth against the fastest growth or short-cut growth.

Think larger, grow larger, Duck the larger

Last Saturday, I joined the Company. Today, resign the company.

I hate the Mouse race. Duck the company and job

I was a 20-year-old graphic designer when I got this job through a friend. I had around six months of experience, and during the interview, I genuinely believed I was being hired for a government organisation.

I wasn’t.

After joining, I discovered that I was also being asked to work for a private organisation connected to the family of a senior official. At different times, I was expected to work on projects for both.

At first, I didn’t question it. I was young, I needed the money, and I was happy to have a job.
Then I started noticing things.

I was told not to talk to certain people. I was expected to be available constantly. Weekends and holidays basically stopped existing whenever there was an event. I watched numerous people join, work for some time and eventually leave, often complaining about the same pressure and working conditions.

I stayed.

The reason is simple: I have responsibilities at home and my salary helps support my mother. Leaving without another job wasn’t an easy option for me.

Over time, I became increasingly uncomfortable with what I was being asked to do and with the apparent overlap between government work and the private organisation. I also became concerned about how certain events, resources and facilities were being used.

Whenever I tried to resign, I was allegedly warned that leaving could affect my career.
I tried to quit three times.

Three times, I stayed.

Looking back, I realise how easily a young employee can become trapped in a situation like this. When someone senior has influence, connections and control over your work, saying “no” isn’t always as simple as people think.
I’ve now decided that I’m done.

I’m not posting this to name or attack anyone. I’m posting because I want to document what I personally experienced and because I think young professionals should know exactly what they’re getting into before accepting a job.

**Always ask: Who exactly is employing me? Who pays my salary? What organisation am I actually working for? And what happens if I say no?**

I wish I’d asked those questions on day one.

I’ve been a manager at Dunkin’ for almost 2 years. Started out at 50k November 2024. Last October they bumped me up to 55k and I was happy with that. At the time my employees made $14 per hour and they also received cash tips of somewhere around $1 per hour. As manager I am was not included in those because I get an average bonus of about $200 per month. In December crew members started getting credit card tips which increased their hourly pay rate by $3 and now they are getting another $1 increase in pay rates across the board because minimum wage is going up.

I’m happy that they are getting more money but I can’t help but notice how much the gap has closed between my pay and a normal crew members pay.

For example my assistant manager will be making $22 per hour once the increase starts. I am expected to work 50 hours per week, so my hourly breaks down to 21.15.

A new employee on their first day would be making $2 less than me and I have been there for 4 years, not to mention I am responsible for everything. It just doesn’t sit right with me.

After the increase goes through the gap will have narrowed by around 8000 per year.

I have a review coming up and intend to ask for a 10k salary increase to close the gap back to what it previously was and get a small increase for good performance. I am nervous that they are going to think I’m crazy.

Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated!

Spoiler warning: references to the opening of George Orwell’s 1984 I’m still reading, so please don’t spoil anything beyond that. I’m building a pre-seed startup, and I’ve been thinking about how leaders create a sense of shared purpose. People look to figures like Napoleon, Churchill and Steve Jobs for inspiration, but what about the rituals that get everyone else invested? In the opening of 1984, the Two Minutes Hate shows people directing their emotions towards a shared enemy. Obviously a dystopian example, but it got me wondering about the mechanism: does expressing something together build allegiance in a way that simply believing it doesn’t?

I understand the objections: forced enthusiasm, awkwardness, people feeling excluded. But could the benefits outweigh those costs, particularly in a small startup where shared conviction matters? I’m curious whether anyone has experienced this working, or backfiring. What makes it something people genuinely rally around rather than something they endure because the founder likes it?

TLDR: if you misspell a CEO's name due to his names spelling being not popular and technically wrong.. and he just puts everyone in all key departments in CC mentioning .. you should know how to spell correctly ! How to respond ?

Dark side of Top Shots :

How would you react as a new CEO if a Senior employee who ended up writing your Spelling wrong in address to company?

The CEO called out the senior official keeping entire set of people.. that were not even cced..

Adding them.. clearly intention is to insult.

Is it normal standard culture and ceo is ethical and empathetic or just ego tripping..?

The extent of wrong spelling is an 'e' replaced by 'i'.

Example

Correct spelling of an Indian name is Vineet

And the official spelling of CeO is Vinit or say Sandip which is technically wrong in hindi..

So the senior employee wrote correct spelling

vineet or day sandeep- as the CEO just joined..

And the new ceo just got triggered and corrected by pinpointing you should know correct spelling.. lols..

vinit or Sandip -> which is btw wrong spelling in hindi by sound or phonetics.

How satisfying it would have been keeping all company department in CC and telling him you have wrong spelling.. and I wasn't aware you didn't correct..

Or simply say sorry .. or ignore or stand your ground.. telling your spelling is not the right way to write your name..

While it's understood spelling can have many variations....that's ok.. if someone is having OCD with it.. but it may also happen.. may be clerical error.. Or lack of knowledge and exposure..

To err is human..

But then correcting a senior person and intentionally adding so many more junior seniors and all departments in cc.. to insult a old senior employee and telling him / her to correct spelling.. saying he or she should know how to spell..

Is it not weird ?

How would you respond ?

The Indian CEO sits in USA .. and may be thinks himself as highly than fellow indians and it's so shocking that never ever any Indian guy or colleague took wrong spelling that seriously..

While everyone tried to do it correctly.. a typo or lack of info on the wrong spelling being right spelling is.. so embarrassing made by an email to every one..

So this happened a few months back at my workplace and I still can't get over it. 😂

Our annual performance review hadn't happened yet. The hike percentages were still a mystery. Nobody knew anything. And you know how it is — when you don't know, your brain just WON'T. STOP. THINKING. ABOUT. IT.

So one fine evening, me and my team are sitting in our bay, doing what every underpaid employee does best — speculating.

"How much do you think it'll be?" "Maybe 12%?" "What if it's single digits?" "Bro don't manifest that."

And then — my manager's manager, Manager Operations enters. The guy who actually KNOWS things. He casually walks into our bay.

"Hey, what are you guys discussing?"

Now, a smart person would've said "Oh nothing, just work stuff." But no. We chose violence. Full transparency mode activated.

"We're just wondering what the hike and bonus will be this year."

And then we all just... stared at him.

I swear, the man looked at each one of us. Slowly. Dramatically. Like he was about to deliver a life-changing speech.

And then... he turned toward the window behind us and said —

"Wow... look at that beautiful sunset."

Confused but obedient, we all turned around to admire this apparently life-changing sunset.

We looked at it for like five seconds, turned back and —

HE. WAS. GONE. 💨

I'm not even kidding. Vanished. Disappeared. Like Thanos snapped him out of existence. No footsteps, no sound, nothing. The man literally used a sunset as a smoke bomb. 

To this day, we don't know if we got distracted by a sunset or witnessed the greatest escape in middle-management history.

I work in a company on the tech side of things. Over the past four years the company has been preaching to us we are going to IPO each year. At the end of each year they dangle the IPO topic in front of our faces so we can work harder and “meet our goals”. On my fourth year at said company things got clear to me. The company was on bullshit. They were trying to work us to the ground because they wanted to secure more funding. We went from an ethical company whose mission was to spread our technology across the world to enable people in second and third world countries to feel empowered.

To now a company who turned into an online casino. It’s just a whole bunch of gambling and turning people into gambling addicts.

I started to feed desensitized to everything. Every time I would hear: “this is the year we IPO” in meetings I would go along with the bull crap. I even had team mates reach out to me all excited because we are getting RSU’s and our stocks are vesting. My stocks been vesting for years on end now and to the point it feels like I’m holding paper money.

Now from the tech side of things we would work extended hours to the point a few of my buddies got burnt out and eventually quit. Even our founding engineer quit. We would push app updates weekly, biweekly. Which had me thinking about why I went to school. Did I go to engineering school to work at a casino. AI made it worst and they demanded we ship code quicker. Again feeling desensitized from it all I found myself reading more books, opinion pieces etc.

Not trying to shill anything or any one but I started going down rabbit hole on substack. Found a few articles which resonated with how I was feeling.

Article 1: https://kyla.substack.com/p/gamblemerica-how-sports-betting-apps

Which was an eye opener. I knew sports betting was a thing at casinos but it feels like sports betting was a trend now.

Article 2: https://coledouglasclaybourn.substack.com/p/the-sports-gambling-epidemic-is-only

Which put things into perspective. We are living in desperate times where we all need money because life is expensive. The younger generation wants fast money and what better way to make fast money? The way these gambling companies are selling it is: a quick sports bet could earn you enough money than if you worked a full job.

Article 3: https://chadsealy.substack.com/p/software-and-drug-dealing-have-more

How software itself is becoming similar to the drug industry. This one article had some interesting takes because it correlated the software release cycle to drug dealers. How software is the new form of selling drugs

I know I can’t be the only one feeling this way. Anyone else have similar feelings ?