Having a little kindness won't hurt

Georgewong123 — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 08:39:47 +0800

Hey guys...

Want to share a little bitter experience over at this company which I have served.
I am still a bit traumatised over this experience nonetheless, I am recovering still...

Sorry this seems like a story telling, but I just want to get this out of my chest because it has been
bothering me for quite some time..

Here goes...

I started working in this Startup company in June 2018 as Sales. This is a Tech Platform company
for advertising. Everything was going smoothly, since I am the only Sales Person in the company.
With my 7 years of experience within the advertising industry, I am able to manage, present and handle
clients pretty well.

On a day to day basis - I do cold calls, 2-3 meetings a day, sending out 6-7 proposals per week, do follow
up calls, manage existing client's campaign, spending time with colleagues, complete my sales report, etc.
I am a dedicated, hardworking, likes to take initiatives at work and passionate in my job, or else why do I
want to work in this same industry for more than 7 years. I am happy with my job, meeting clients,
managing their advertising campaigns and so forth.

I've even done some of the Sales Presentation Deck, Sales Tracking, Sales Database... I was told that
there is another team to do the Sales Proposal before I join, but after I joined, I had to work on the proposal
instead. Therefore, going out for 2-3 meetings per day, come back to office around 5pm to work on
proposal till about 7pm-8pm most of my day.
#OT #WorkLife #AdvertisingLife

I was even told before joining, that my work time is flexible. I am able to work from anywhere I want
unless there is meeting in office. However, it isn't the case too. I am a 30 year old adult, and as a sales
person, sometimes I may schedule a networking tea with some of my industry friends. There were times when
I was in a meeting at 3pm, the boss will text me to ask me to come back to office after my meeting.
It was ok for me to go back to office after my meeting at 4pm... when i got back, the boss only spoke to me
for 15mins - asking me how did my meeting went and thats all. There was a time when i schedule a coffee session
with an industry friend, because he wants to introduce me to a Business Owner. I usually put my meetings in
google calendar, so that my boss knows who am i meeting. While I was on my way to meeting, the boss text me
to immediately go back to office, I texted her to say that I am on my way to a meeting. She asked, is that meeting
important or is she more important. Unfortunately, I had to inform my friend that i have to attend to office first.
Once I am back, the boss only spoke to me for 15mins, about a client issue which can be address with a phone call.
#TrustIssue #ToughLife #WeirdBoss

We all know there bound to be problems at work, when there is a problem with client, we need to find a way to solve it.
There is a huha with a major client, as a Sales person, before we make any decision, I will seek my boss advise before
making a decision on how to deal with it. What happened was, the boss helped me for a bit and then leave the rest
to me to deal with. With my experience, I dealt with the issue as professional and righteous way possible.

There is a case when we lost a client due to price war, I couldn't do much about it.

Here comes the interesting part, one day, the boss sat me down with other colleagues. And asked me what is that
huha issue with client all about. While I was explaining - not even half way through.. she stopped me and said I am not
answering her questions. Then, she said, why did I loose a client... I said it was due to price war.. She said I almost lost
another client too, but i mention to her, that the other client come back and spend with us. She then SCREAMED
at the top of her lungs as if like she wants to stab a knife on me... She said - DON'T SAY ALL THIS IS MY CLIENT, IT WAS
NEVER MY CLIENT TO BEGIN WITH. ALL THIS ARE COMPANY CLIENT WHICH I HAVE LOST THEM.

I had to endure a 30mins of screaming, lecture, demoralise me in front of other colleagues.
Mind you, I did not loose any client except for that one particular client wants a too low price. If I have lost all of the client,
how the company still sustaining till today.

After that, she gave me my appraisal form and i saw all was checked was - I did not do anything at work. Even my common
sense is rated number 1 (Least common sense I had). I have all my meetings recorded down in my google calendar, proposals
being CC-ed to boss, etc. Like i said, I am a passionate and hardworking person and I have worked for Big Corporate previously.
The reason i joined a startup is because I want to share my experience and knowledge to help smaller company to grow, I want to
contribute more clients to the company, improve their service to client, share my knowledge on how bigger corporation solve issue
and try to see which solution fits this company. Bigger companies are so stagnant but a smaller company is more fluid and have
bigger space to grow. I like to see growth, i like to see the harvest of my hard work.

This is my first time in history that I am being treated this way.

The way I was demoralised, dehumanised, screamed at has taken a toll on my mental health. I had high blood pressure, insomnia,
anxiety and wasn't able to talk to anyone for a week after this incident.

I am not sure, but I think there is no legal action that can be taken for mental torture. I just want to pour out how this has affected
me quite badly. It shattered my self esteem, self confidence and i start to stutter while talking, though I am trying to heal day by day.

I know other people has gone through worst than me, that mine was perhaps just a small bump in a worklife experience.
I am just unable to deal with my own failure, although everyone has been telling me that it wasn't my fault at all. The bosses are just
trying to demoralise me, they probably see the pleasure of taking someone capable down.

I urge companies and people out there, to give a little more kindness. If the company wants me to leave, they can just be honest and tell
me that I did not do enough and I need to leave. I don't understand why must they use such ugly and threatening tactic to solve
this problem.

Hope I can get some closure by spilling out how i feel here.

Thanks for reading and Take care everyone!

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Having a little kindness won't hurt