Navigating the Corporate Jungle: A Journey of Struggles, Lessons, and Resilience

Do you remember your struggle days?

No one forgets their struggle days.

Can you?

I still remember each and everything. When and what happened to me. To run my expenses I joined a part time job after completion of my BCA. This was an OCR(Optical Character Reader) related job in a small organization. The project was related to making libraries online. So, the task was converting the PDF files into HTML files and linking them.?

I joined this job for 2.5k per month only. The project was completed in 3 months and there was no other project with that organization. But I learned about OCR and HTML. After that I joined as a computer teacher in a school in Palam, Delhi. I only went for one day and I left that too because it was very hard to handle little children.

I was appearing in M.Sc(CS) from correspondence but parallel I was doing some part time job to run my expenses because I do not want to ask expenses from my family. I always think that I have already spent too much money on my BCA course. Now, I have to run my expenses on my own.

I think having independent kind of mindset is a good thing. We should try to be independent as soon as possible.

I remember the days when I purchased my first motorola cell phone from my first salary. When we earn money and purchase something of our own, that feeling is amazing. After that when I started sending half of my salary to my family that was also an amazing feeling. When I used to go home I purchased something for my family members. The happiness on their faces was fulfilling.

Challenges

After a lot of struggles I joined an organization permanently.? From my very first organization I started facing politics at the workplace. I felt bad when I got to know that a person who joined my parallel was getting more than me. I was assigned as a trainer to provide training to him. I agree that we should not compare ourselves because everyone is unique in skills. But at that time I was not mature enough and I felt bad and did not like it.

But if you have skills and courage to take action you don't need to suffer in a toxic environment. I started applying for another job. I completed just 7 months in that organization and I switched my job in another organization.

That's the biggest benefit in private jobs if I compare it with government jobs. In a government job you have to face the challenges, you can't leave the job or it is not easy to transfer according to your choices.

But if you are working in a corporate job it's totally in your hands. When you want to switch or leave, you can do it easily. Just you need confidence and courage to take action. I did the same.

I joined another organization with almost a similar package but it was promised to me that after 6 months we will increase your salary. I am a person who lives with my own principles. I never think bad about others but in return expect the same.

I was not much aware of the corporate work ethics at that time. How corporate works. I believe that if they are saying they will do. After 6 months I ask to my boss that I have completed 6 months what happened.

I was surprised after listening to his reply and I understood that this is a real corporate game. I understood that if verbally someone is promising something that's not true until or unless you take it in writing. To hire you, HR or management can promise you anything and after you get hired you are not listened to at all.

I started my career with software service based companies. I couldn't learn much more in a service based organization. Most of the service based organizations do not focus on quality work. They just focus on delivering the project to the client. They don't care about the quality at all. I get a chance to work on various projects but I could not learn how to build good and scalable products in service based organizations.

Realization

I switched in to product based organizations in hope that there would be lesser politics in product based organizations.?

How foolish I was?

I joined one of the product based organizations in 2012. I am not saying that I did not get a chance to learn there. I proudly say that I learned a lot of things there but I was foolish that I was hoping that there should not be office politics.?

It doesn't matter if you are working in a service based organization or product based organization. Office politics is everywhere.

But it hurts when you are working a complete year in the hope that my hard work and dedication will be rewarded and it's not get rewarded. The same thing happened to me. Jabong was a startup and I joined there in its initial stage. In the initial stage there is a lot of work in startups. I get a chance to work on various modules and develop multiple modules. Even I stay 2-3 nights with my team. But I felt bad when my colleague was promoted and got a good appraisal while I was not treated like I did not contribute.

I was going to resign but before that my manager stopped me. He asked me.

Why are you upset? I told him and he requested not to resign. Then I directly talked to the CTO and made him realize that I really contributed a lot. Even he could not deny and accepted everything. He promised to talk to the HR and management. He asked me to come with him for a formality and talked to the HR.?

But you want to know what was the result. Nothing at all.

Again, I felt bad and decided to leave the corporate. But you know what. It's very difficult to leave corporate for a middle class person. I would say that corporations are only made for middle class people. I could not leave the corporate but I left the organization and switched into another startup.

Solution

Politics is the backbone of corporate. You can't avoid it. For introverted people it's very hard to survive in the corporate world until or unless you have the confidence to speak.?

I faced a lot of challenges during my 16-17 years of my career but I never gave up. I focus on my skills. This is the only way to survive in the corporate world.