Burned Out and Broken: When Work Takes a Toll on Mental Health - Accelerated Growth Consultant Google Employee Review

1.0
21 Nov 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The office is nice, decent salary, nice benefits such as free good, gym and more. Nice team mates.

Cons

Starting a new job should be an exciting chapter, filled with hope, ambition, and the eagerness to grow. That’s exactly how I felt when I began my role as an Accelerated Growth Consultant. But what unfolded over time shattered me in ways I never thought possible. The excitement I brought to this job was quickly replaced by dread, anxiety, and a constant feeling of inadequacy. My manager silently targeted me, and it became clear over time that he had simply decided one day that I wasn’t someone he wanted on the team. It wasn’t overt bullying, but the kind that slowly eats away at your confidence and sanity. He excluded me from important conversations, sabotaged my work behind closed doors, and painted me as incompetent during graduate reviews with fabricated claims. I wasn’t alone in this experience. Other teammates were subjected to the same treatment, often deciding to leave the company because they simply couldn’t cope. Some of them confided in me about how this manager made them feel so worthless that they contemplated suicide. It’s horrifying to think how one person could cause so much pain and distress in others. When I reported these issues to HR, I was met with gaslighting. My concerns were minimized, twisted, or ignored entirely. HR seemed more interested in protecting the company than addressing the harm caused by this manager. Despite multiple complaints from different people, he faced no accountability. Instead, he was rewarded with promotions and opportunities in other departments and even international roles. The Accelerated Growth Consultant role itself was stressful and chaotic. There was no clear structure or straightforward path to success. It wasn’t like a traditional sales role where you could track your progress and adjust accordingly. Instead, everything depended on whether the clients decided to spend—and if they didn’t, you were the one held accountable. It was a constant cycle of confusion, stress, and fear of missing targets. By the time I left the company, I felt utterly drained and destroyed. A piece of my soul had been taken. I came in full of energy and positivity, only to be worn down by a system that allowed toxicity to thrive unchecked. This experience taught me how deeply workplace bullying and poor leadership can impact mental health. No one should ever feel like their job is tearing them apart from the inside, and no one should suffer in silence because their concerns are dismissed. It’s time for companies to take reports of bullying seriously and hold managers accountable for the harm they cause. Anything less is unacceptable.

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5.0
11 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The infamous perks, benefits and the people.

Cons

A lot of red tape. Projects and approvals move at a snails pace. That's expected since we have 180K employees.

4.0
21 Jun 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1) Food, food, food. 15+ cafes on main campus (MTV) alone. Mini-kitchens, snacks, drinks, free breakfast/lunch/dinner, all day, errr'day. 2) Benefits/perks. Free 24:7 gym access (on MTV campus). Free (self service) laundry (washer/dryer) available. Bowling alley. Volley ball pit. Custom-built and exclusive employee use only outdoor sport park (MTV). Free health/fitness assessments. Dog-friendly. Etc. etc. etc. 3) Compensation. In ~2010 or 2011, Google updated its compensation packages so that they were more competitive. 4) For the size of the organization (30K+), it has remained relatively innovative, nimble, and fast-paced and open with communication but, that is definitely changing (for the worse). 5) With so many departments, focus areas, and products, *in theory*, you should have plenty of opportunity to grow your career (horizontally or vertically). In practice, not true. 6) You get to work with some of the brightest, most innovative and hard-working/diligent minds in the industry. There's a "con" to that, too (see below).

Cons

1) Work/life balance. What balance? All those perks and benefits are an illusion. They keep you at work and they help you to be more productive. I've never met anybody at Google who actually time off on weekends or on vacations. You may not hear management say, "You have to work on weekends/vacations" but, they set the culture by doing so - and it inevitably trickles down. I don't know if Google inadvertently hires the work-a-holics or if they create work-a-holics in us. Regardless, I have seen way too many of the following: marriages fall apart, colleagues choosing work and projects over family, colleagues getting physically sick and ill because of stress, colleagues crying while at work because of the stress, colleagues shooting out emails at midnight, 1am, 2am, 3am. It is absolutely ridiculous and something needs to change. 2) Poor management. I think the issue is that, a majority of people love Google because they get to work on interesting technical problems - and these are the people that see little value in learning how to develop emotional intelligence. Perhaps they enjoy technical problems because people are too "difficult." People are promoted into management positions - not because they actually know how to lead/manage, but because they happen to be smart or because there is no other path to grow into. So there is a layer of intelligent individuals who are horrible managers and leaders. Yet, there is no value system to actually do anything about that because "emotional intelligence" or "adaptive leadership" are not taken seriously. 3) Jerks. Sure, there are a lot of brilliant people - but, sadly, there are also a lot of jerks (and, many times, they are one and the same). Years ago, that wasn't the case. I don't know if the pool of candidates is getting smaller, or maybe all the folks with great personalities cashed out and left, or maybe people are getting burned out and it's wearing on their personality and patience. I've heard stories of managers straight-up cussing out their employees and intimidating/scaring their employees into compliance. 4) It's a giant company now and, inevitably, it has become slower moving and is now layered with process and bureaucracy. So many political battles, empire building, territory grabbing. Google says, "Don't be evil." But, that practice doesn't seem to be put into place when it comes to internal practices. :(

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