“I worked as a project manager at a consulting firm. After COVID, to keep their operational costs as low as possible, they managed projects worth millions of dollars by using very lean teams.

As a lot of the work was outsourced to another country to keep the costs low, I ended up working in two time zones, making my shifts 12 hours long. Some of the calls would go for 2-3 hours. Sometimes, I had to jump on calls on Sunday night because it was Monday morning in the other time zone.

At first I didn’t recognize the impact this was having on my health even though I was having calls late at night and then very early in the morning. I wasn’t sleeping well, I wasn’t sleeping enough and this situation lasted for a year. I was constantly overworked and stressed.

I decided to make the management and the founders aware. Because I am a migrant and don’t have the same kind of freedom of movement as the locals, they knew that even if I said I was unhappy, the chances of me actually leaving were low. They also gaslighted me by saying that I was the only one complaining about the amount of work and everyone else was working the same hours and none of them were unhappy.

The turnover was insane. Every month I saw emails from people announcing they were leaving. Some lasted only 2 months. The bosses kept the “We are hiring” sign up, not because the company was growing but because these jobs were constantly being made available. Is it expensive? Yes, it is very expensive when an experienced employee leaves but HR and junior consultants were seen as disposable.

The leadership roles in these departments were being taken by young and hungry, inexperienced people who after a short time would leave having achieved pretty much nothing. There was also little loss of knowledge in this way. Those who stayed in these roles, seemed to know that they were not experienced enough to be given this level of responsibility and pay, and they kind of figured out that all they actually needed to do was be compliant.

The team was built of young inexperienced people and migrants. The quality of our daily lives and our futures highly depended on this job. It was humiliating, exhausting and extremely unhealthy.

I am now working in another place but the trauma of those three years spent working in fear and under pressure, stripped of dignity is still with me at work and in my private life. It shows up through anxiety and panic attacks, whenever there is a hint of pressure to work longer hours. I have to make a conscious effort to believe my work and my person have value. It is a daily struggle which takes a lot of my energy away from my family. Three years of working for that company and now years of dealing with residual trauma. Therapy is very expensive. I can’t afford it. I do what I can to lead a happy life and be the best father, husband and son I can be. But it is very, very hard.“