The story of Anna Sebastian Perayil, the Chartered Accountant (CA) who succumbed to the toxic work culture at Ernst & Young, has tugged at the heartstrings of one and all, especially CAs, many of whom have taken to social media to share their harrowing experiences, or, to say that they were spared this gruelling affair.
In this light, when EdexLive was in the process of speaking about toxic work culture at the Big 4 accountant firms, namely, EY, Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (KPMG), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and Deloitte, a CA on condition of anonymity shared a screenshot from an email that had created quite the stir in the year 2021.
This alleged EY employee revealed a few shocking learnings.
These are the statements from the email:
1. Mental Health of the people holds no importance in this company.
2. You will be bad-mouthed among the seniors by a Manager/Senior Manager if you ever take a stand against unrealistic deadlines, working 12+ hours daily, or working regularly on weekends, even when all your work is on point.
3. Your feedback might be screwed up by your Manager/Senior Manager, just because they are immature enough to seek vengeance on a personal level, chucking their professionalism out of the window.
4. You might be called an "orphan" by a Senior Manager when you have left their team and are in the process of switching teams.
5. You might try to voice your concerns, but all that will be conveniently ignored.
6. You might be stripped off your due promotion, and even your annual increment and bonus, all based on vitriolic feedback instead of actual work.
7. You might approach the Partner group, but don't expect any support, for you are a junior resource (and hence dispensable), and apparently the Manager/Senior Manager are saintly and always right.
8. You being a good team player has no value at all, since "you're not being evaluated by your peers, but only by your managers."
9. All the work you did/do might just take a backseat, while dirty office politics based on personal grudges prevails.
10. All of the above constitutes a clear case of mental harassment, but guess what... You have been put into the Performance Improvement
The employee concludes by saying that while he "went through a very specific case with very specific people", he still believes that there are others who lead with passion and consideration.
