My four-year raw and emotional corporate journey — and the end of it.
Next time you feel you can't take it anymore, just know it will pass. And one day it will be nothing but a raw and emotionally immature Medium story. Trust me and read on. I'll convince you.
It was brutal. It was difficult. It almost seemed like it wasn’t worth it.
Part of me still hurts.
I was hurt.
Hurt by being brought in with a 20% lower pay, only to be bumped by 25% after a company-wide pay-equality effort — six months after my hiring.
Hurt to be seen as a nobody for 2.5 years and having people dismiss my experiences and contributions because I was “too technical.” A data monkey. Invisible, technical, as “all Asians are.”
Hurt by a manager that always canceled meetings with me. By peers that mocked me and accused me of being inappropriate.
That manager got fired. They brought another guy — a nice guy, but one day he became weird, aggressive, and humiliated me in a meeting with other 20 people. I brought HR in. They were great, supportive, listening, but then nothing got done.
My work was absolutely useless. A bunch of reports no-one cared to read or understood. I felt ashamed — I produced nothing, I knew it, and it hurt. I was working before at a family business, where the difference between me not doing and me doing was a weekend’s worth of revenue. Not in this big corporation. I was there to be a number, a paycheck, an inflation of the regional subsidiary. I was hurt.
But I coded, for hours, for real, for the first time. My Statistics and Probability books got put to trial. I was reading papers. The more complex things seemed, the more people liked them. I knew it was useless, but I wanted to learn. I wanted to prove I knew Math, Stats, and Coding.
I made an internal club of Science. We taught courses. We built training decks. Women in the company supported me, but my fellow club friends bad-mouthed me behind my back, calling me a fraud. I wasn’t a computer scientist enough for them or statistical enough. I was lonely. No boyfriend in sight, a broken heart, so I’d spend nights reading and re-reading probability theory until I finally understood it like the palm of my hand. It didn’t matter to my male science colleagues, though. I was still a fraud. But at least I got to know Bayes.
My city became darker and colder by the day. It suffocated me. I wanted to go. The company was killing me; I tried to leave. I got rejected for a job in NY.
Not all was bad. I met M, a gay co-worker. He was fun, nice, friendly, and I could grab a beer with him from now and then. I miss those times. I met E, and we became best friends, but it was too intense. Eventually, E broke my heart, too, because she needed me to be her daughter. And of course, there was J. J is still one of my best friends. J is reliable, loving, non-dependent like E. I can call her every day, or once every year, and we are still friends.
But neither of them could cure the deep holes I had inside of me — the pain, the frustration, and the heart-break in the past. And then I met A, a colleague from Mexico. I fell in love. I moved to Mexico City. They kept my paycheck, but the FX change helped me, so I had money. I paid off my credit card debt. I waited for A; I was there, I tried. I took crumbs of love, and my heart broke even more. I didn’t care — because it was A.
The company in Mexico treated me better. I did nothing of substance for six months, but we had free personalized breakfast daily and astonishing views from the DF. I learned Spanish. I learned it so well that people still mistake me for Mexican sometimes. I met M (another M!), and she became a friend, a mentor, and she pushed me up. Now I had responsibilities, real importance. But then A moved to the US, and he asked me to follow him. I found a difficult job in the same company in San Francisco. I didn’t want to go to the US.
But I did it for A, and he dumped me right before my flight. I was a “walking dead” in the office. One of my direct reports sent me a song on the day of my departure, so I could listen on the plane. The song said, “don’t be sad; we will miss you.” I cried. It felt like I could still one-day re-love Mexico.
The move to America made me broke again. I had to pay 12000 USD that I didn’t have to settle in. 2019 was spent paying off debt. The job was not terrible this time. It was de-humanizing.
I was responsible for settling disputes between two antagonistic groups. I got yelled at every hour, humiliated over email (with lots of people in the thread), and morally harassed by my manager, who insisted I had a “mood and tone” problem. I started to have sleep problems and engaged in compulsive behavior. I pulled my hair out and bit my nails until they bled. I cried every single day.
I started praying again. I called first upon my grandparents, and after upon God, the Virgin Mary, and St. Francis. They listened. At the darkest hours, I would lock myself in a bathroom cabinet, and St. Francis would hold me. He told me to be strong and that I didn’t deserve any of that. He was with me the whole time, and on a few desperate occasions, I felt the Virgin too. I would wipe the tears, go back to work.
I met S, who is Muslim. I guess I met Allah — and I am convinced he and God are the same. She was also praying for him in the bathroom, and through that, we bonded. She is the purest soul I know.
T was reporting to me, and he was a fortress. He was a poor boy from Jersey, and people sometimes treated him like trash. But he was strong, and that inspired me. I kept going, hiding tears, because if he could do it, so could I. I met L. We became friends much later, real friends, and she is now a shelter for me. She felt hurt there too. And they hurt her more when they laid her off with no warning.
I was strong, resilient, fair. My job yielded results, and people were able to work together. They were yelling and humiliating me instead of hurting each other. And that allowed them to proceed with actual work. I was the janitor, but I fixed what was broken. At a high cost — a cost that only I felt. Eventually they opened a position for someone to be my boss. They forbade me to apply. In spite of having created the function all by myself, I was still too much a technical Asian for a fancy Senior title.
I met J. J was a friend, then a lover, then we got married, and I got pregnant. I missed half of it — I was in pain, I was paranoid, I was sucked by the horrible job and its scars. I still am. J deserves better — he does. I am not 100% here, and he knows it — so why does he accept it? And when will I be here?
The company laid off the division. L, S, and T got sacked, as I mentioned, but I moved to another division in time. I felt mean. And bad. I saved my ass only, as I always have done it in my career. Why couldn’t I save theirs too?
The new division was a bit better. People were young, inexperienced, a bit workaholic, but the yelling was over. I was done, though. I didn’t care about probabilities or Science, or the company. I wanted to die because while 2019 was over, my mind was still stuck there. J put me in a psychic ward in January.
I spent the night there. I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him, and the scar is forever here, but I can understand. I was suicidal, depressed. But the only thing that would cure me would be an apology from every person that hurt me in 2019.
St. Francis inspired me to seek wisdom and generosity, not to demand apologies. He even apologized to me on their behalf. But that wasn’t what I needed.
My wedding was in February 2020. Before the lockdown — immediately before. I bought a dress, did my make up, signed the papers. But I feel I wasn’t 100% there. The scars of the company ran deep, ran strong, ran forever. When will I ever be 100% somewhere else?
In October 2020, the marriage papers came out. I could now move companies — before I was stuck in that one because of my visa. I applied for a job. They loved me but didn’t have roles. I cried a whole night. I applied for more jobs. I got more offers. And then the first company came back — with an offer, with money. This time, I negotiated 2.5 x my pay. My self-esteem wasn't good still, but I was done being walked over for the time being.
I got myself a financial advisory. Now I had money; I could invest, no more debts. I sold my stocks of the old company — got a good capital. I signed the offer with the new company. I felt bad. But should I feel bad? I was never important to my company. I never held strategic information. I was a nobody and they treated me as such. A nobody is just a number, so I guess I can go anywhere.
I prepared my successor. I wrote goodbye emails. I detached slowly. I spent a Friday wrapping up everything, and now I will just be on-call for two weeks. I’m actually going now.
And now, I feel powerful. I feel hurt, but I forgive it all. It’s over. This was my hardest test so far — and I passed. I didn’t kill myself. And I am sure that now I can handle every hurtful thing, every punch, with more easiness. St. Francis is with me.
And so is J, my friend, that got a dream job elsewhere.
And L, that got sacked but now has a job she enjoys.
And S, that is starting her own business in her country.
And T, that moved to Amsterdam to start a new job too.
E, my ex-friend, is also doing great, with a fancy banking job. She looks beautiful, as well.
M is now enjoying a sabbatical.
We all survived. With more or fewer scars, we all did.
And I’m healed.
This year I got pregnant. And my son shall be named Lucas — like the evangelist. St. Lucas is the saint of healing.
