CW: This chapter details workplace emotional abuse and some suicidal ideation. If you’ve gone through something similar it might be triggering. Please read with care.
After returning to Amazon on a new team, I had a new co-worker who talked to me like I was a dog. Short, clipped commands in the imperative voice, always with this air of superiority. It was humiliating. I brought it up once and he brushed it off. He was very… passive aggressive. I’m being vague with the details to avoid outing this person (how can I ask for forgiveness if I’m not willing to forgive?), but the “dog” feeling really stuck with me.
I dreaded coming into the office in the morning. One time, I passed him in the hallways and said “Good morning” like I do for everyone, he just looked at me with this death glare, and continued without saying anything. I stopped greeting him after that. I started avoiding him wherever possible. I learned to fear his stare. He knew how to wound me without ever laying a finger on me.
It was tolerable while we had other teammates. I could go to them for coding and design advice. I could wait until he wasn’t around to ask questions. But one by one, my co-workers began leaving the team. They trickled off until it was just a few of us. That’s when things got really bad.
To be honest, I think he was so harsh because he wanted me to quit like everyone else. To give him total control over the product. But I couldn’t move teams due to the 1-year rule, so I stuck it out through the punishment. To survive, I began suppressing myself. I lowered my cheery voice into a monotone drone, I was careful to make myself as uninteresting as possible (a technique I’d later learn is called Gray Rock1). I felt domesticated. I was constantly walking on egg shells to avoid upsetting the ‘master’. I memorized his preferences and birthday, but it seemed like the more accommodating I was, the meaner he got. I’d never dealt with that before.
I don’t remember what the exact conversation was, I just remember leaving feeling so demeaned and humiliated that I excused myself and went to a different floor to compose myself. Tears welled in my eyes. My throat felt heavy like lead. I didn’t know what to do. I felt trapped, but I couldn’t quit. I considered suicide.
By some grace, my internship manager found me and asked me what was wrong. I didn’t know how to put it to words, but I described the differences between my internship experience and working on this new team. For me, my internship manager represented what Amazon could be at its best: the amazing company I interned at. He gave me hope that things could turn around.
Things got bad enough I sent an email to my internship manager with the subject line ‘Mentor Advice.’ Even there, I softened what was happening, calling my mentor ‘mean, for a lack of a better word,’ describing how I waited until he was gone to ask questions, admitting my dread at coming to work. I asked how to talk to my manager about it, but confessed I was terrified of retaliation.
Eventually, this worked its way up to HR, which moved me to a different team in the same org. Something amazing happened: I flourished. No longer hampered by anti-mentor, my productivity skyrocketed.
You were my mentor (anti-mentor). I looked up to you. I trusted you. And you hurt me.
The nicer I was, the meaner you got.
Why?
Don’t worry, people won’t know who I’m talking about. Despite everything you did, I don’t want to see your life harmed. I want to forgive you. I want to believe in second chances, for you, and for me. Abuse is a cycle. We don’t have to keep passing it down. We can stop it here.
In my imagination, sometimes I rewrite the story. Maybe you were hard on me because you believed in me. Maybe you just didn’t know how to mentor. Maybe it was all stick and no carrot because you thought that was what it took to push someone to their limits.
But here’s the thing:
I wasn’t at my best when I was humiliated.
You didn’t pull brilliance out of me. You drove it underground.
Humiliation didn’t help me grow. I needed to be nurtured.
And when I finally was, I thrived.
I thought I was alone in this kind of treatment, but then I started noticing the graffiti, the anonymous posts, the small signals that others were breaking too.
- Caron, C. (2024, May 13). What is the Gray Rock Method?. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/well/mind/gray-rock-method.html ↩︎