Feeling Burned Out? Maybe You Work in a Toxic Culture

“You’re not leaving, we’re firing you.” That’s what they told me a few years ago when I announced I was leaving a company, but the story didn’t end there, there’s more to it.

1 - Business Culture

Whenever we think about companies we’d like to work for, we tend to focus on their products, technology, or even their strategy. However, behind each of these companies, there’s something fundamental: the company culture.

If you’ve done interviews recently, you’ve probably realized that soft skills, our personalities, are becoming more important every day. Culture is the company side of the equation, and figuring out whether a culture fits us is a vital part of the process when changing jobs. 

2 - My Personal Experience with a Toxic Culture

Let’s set the scene. It was 2023 and I was at a company where I wasn’t happy. The main reason? The engineering director lived in another country and didn’t tell our team anything, not me, not my manager, nobody in general.

Absolutely everyone on my team was new, and the 4-hour time difference made collaboration difficult. Still, that’s not an excuse for what I’m about to share.

As I was saying, the director never told us anything, why things were happening, what our long-term roadmap was, nothing. This is called gatekeeping and it’s extremely frustrating to work in such a system. We only knew what we’d be working on for a week or two, and that was it. 

Aside from that, we found teams modifying applications within our domain without knowing why, adding hundreds of lines of code, with no explanation, just a quick message for approval. 

Apart from all that, the people were really nice. In fact, there was an office in Mexico and I got along pretty well with them. As you can imagine, those folks also suffered from the same issues, though perhaps not as much since their team had been with the company longer and they had someone to act as a liaison between the director and themselves. 

After about three months at the company, I got fed up with the situation, it just wasn’t changing, and decided to leave. I have to admit I was a bit burned out, and that was one of the reasons I went freelance.

So far, all normal: someone isn’t happy and decides to leave a company. Here’s where things get surreal. 

When I announced I was leaving, I first told my manager in a private call. I always recommend doing this before communicating with HR, so your manager is the first to know , not HR breaking the news and catching them off guard. It’s a courtesy and costs nothing.

After this, you notify human resources by email, and finally your colleagues.

A little while after sending the email, I received a message from someone in HR saying my services were no longer needed and I was being fired.

Which was pretty surprising, because it’s completely illegal (at least in Europe). But honestly, I didn’t care since I was going to be paid for an extra month anyway.

On its own, this was already pretty shocking. This order had come from the company’s director, the very same gatekeeper.

My boss, as surprised as I was by the situation, obviously complained and said people can’t be treated that way. Well, what’s the story? She also got fired that same day. As you can imagine, that’s also completely illegal.

I don’t know if she pressed charges, but if she had, she would’ve won the case and a nice financial compensation.

If you feel like checking out this company’s Glassdoor, you’ll see how ALL the reviews mention the same person. It’s a shame, really, because the tech stack is amazing, they pay well, but they use that kind of software to check your computer usage and make sure you’re actually there. 

I didn’t write this, but I have a pretty good idea who did: 

3 - Healthy Cultures

A healthy culture is one that recognizes people and promotes their growth, we’re not talking only about professional development, but about any type of role, where everyone is treated equally. 

Many companies might claim to have a ping-pong room or even an Xbox in the office. The truth is, this isn’t culture; it’s simply a feature of the office. And honestly, nobody cares because everyone wants to work from home.

We should recognize healthy cultures when we see behaviors like not criticizing people for mistakes, treating errors as company failures rather than pointing fingers. This can really impact people, especially juniors.

Identifying when a company is a good fit for us is something we should do during interviews, and for that, we need to ask questions about it. For example, ask about the company’s roadmap for the upcoming months, or for an example of how the last major project was conceived and developed. If you get evasive answers, that’s a major red flag. 

Reading reviews on sites like Glassdoor or similar can help, but keep in mind that people usually leave reviews to complain. So, don’t let it get to you, if a company has 1,000 employees but 50 bad reviews, that still means at least 950 people are happy. Still, you might spot patterns in the feedback. If everyone says they work unpaid weekends, odds are it’s true; if only one review mentions it, it’s probably not widespread. 

And finally, remember that both the interview and the trial period are two-way streets. You don’t have to say yes to every company that offers you a job.