It all started with cops in my cubicle. 

 

My exposure to a toxic workplace culture occurred in my very first job. I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, hungry for a challenge, and ready to pour myself into my work. I was the perfect fit for the job— highly self-motivated and without any other professional reference point for comparison.

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Quite quickly, I knew something was off. It started with the sales quotas. The expectations of conversions seemed unfeasible, and often led some of my colleagues to use unethical practices. During shadowing, I noticed a stretch of the truth here, an empty promise there – and this was normalized. There was always some roundabout justification or poetic response that kind of made it make sense. The takeaway? Make the sale at all costs – people are numbers...

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