Unfiltered Story #314476

Between my junior and senior year of college, I took an internship at a small startup. At the time, it was only supposed to be over the summer, and there was literally only one employee in the whole place – a man who was two years older and just as green. The owner, while well-meaning, is a bit of a flake and left this guy straight out of college to figure it out. As predicted, he burnt out 18 months into the job and quit.

In hindsight, I should have left then. It was my first semester of my senior year and I was a mere contractor. One of two. The other was a salesperson, Belinda, who was a walking red flag and seemed unable to hold down a job for more than two years due to “personality clashes” that were never her fault. People were just intimidated by her, you know?

Nevertheless, I stuck around and was offered full-time employment after I graduated. Where… I found myself as the only employee…

Despite this, I mostly worked under her doing “technical non-technical” tasks. By that I mean I would use my barebones knowledge of the field to come up with marketing material despite producing absolutely nothing of note and the fact that she was allegedly in the field for 15+ years and her connections were one of the reasons she was hired in the first place. I learned a lot of new skills, but it was not in my field and oftentimes I found myself solely doing her work. It was a clusterf*ck.

However, we managed to squeeze by and within three months we had two technical contractors – two men getting their PhDs. A year later, we hired another full-time employee and had two eager interns who wanted to be hired on when they graduated. I was even moving away from solely being the “Sales & Marketing” director’s personal monkey and actually using my degree! Things were looking pretty good.

Then the global health crisis hit and everyone went to working remote. Belinda had a freak out and the carefully crafted façade of an ignorant old lady who didn’t realize she said hateful things and whose heart was in the right place began to crumble. My health took a hit mentally and physically from her abuse. She began to actively sabotage me by using the pandemic to isolate me and make it impossible for me to get my work done.

I came very close to being fired in August 2020.

Not that I cared. I was contemplating driving my car over a bridge on the way home every day because she would spend 8+ hours a day verbally abusing me from 5 am to 9 pm. As far as I saw it, there was no way out. No one was hiring and she had made it clear even if I did managed to get an interview, she would ruin me. I would never work in industry again if she had anything to say about it.

By mid-August, another coworker (one of the PhDs) had noticed my slip in performance and insisted that he start coming into the office with me. Prior, only I was expected to be in the office so Belinda had an easier time of getting away with her abuse. He really saved my life and eventually became my manager.

December 2020 bonuses came out. I received an $800 bonus that I really didn’t feel like I had earned after spending 6 months an anxious mess producing no discernable work after three years of producing very little discernable work. It did not matter that at the same time I had eaten thousands of dollars for this company by paying for company expenses out of my own pocket. (Belinda also made me feel like crap any time I sent an expense report so anything under $50, I let go.)

Luckily, or rather unluckily, Belinda decided I didn’t earn it either and suspended my payroll for the week so it didn’t go through. Truthfully, I didn’t feel I had the right to this money as I had cost the company so much, so I never inquired about it and let it go. Despite desperately needing it.

For all of 2021, I alternated between working my butt off out of sheer anger and determination to prove to her that she was the problem. Luckily, armed with a supportive manager, I was able to knock the socks off of the owner and he was very pleased with my work. I managed to earn a promotion a year after he was close to firing me for underperformance.

Still, my finances took a bit hit because with it came paying to “undo” the damage she done. This meant doctors’ visits for my high blood pressure – including one ER visit due to a blackout – , psychology visits to be diagnosed with PTSD and medication to treat it, and, of course, bi-weekly therapy sessions.

It was expensive. Especially when up to this point I had been coping by spending money and had a small online shopping addiction on top of expenses like a new AC in the middle of summer and college bills piling up. For a year straight, I had spent my paycheck before I had even gotten it. That added its own amount of stress.

It felt like I was spending more money than I was making just to be “ok”.

So when I found out that this year, I would be getting a bonus and that it would be double what was last year, I nearly cried. I suddenly became debt-free. That money really helped finalize the reset of all the damage done in 2020 and managed to get me on my feet again.

The moral of the story is, no matter how perilous it looks and how much you don’t think you are worth it, it only takes one person who believes you are worth it to make all the difference.