Damaging and degrading. - Anonymous employee Grovelands Employee Review

Throughout my time at Grovelands I was made to feel worthless. Most of the time ignored, my skills were overlooked, and was only spoken to by upper management when they had been too disorganised to sort their own workload out and were desperate for help. Oh, and to make inappropriate sexual comments, of course. How could I possibly forget about a certain director and his sidekick's regular comments about my body shape and sex life? The culture there was toxic, childish, and incredibly unprofessional. It was like being in high school again; if you weren't sickeningly nice to the inner circle (and in some cases, even if you were and they just didn't like the way you looked or dressed) you'd be casted out. You'd receive no help, support or recognition. And if they didn't find a way to get rid of you, your life would be made so miserable that you'd be left with no choice but to leave. But believe it or not, the sexual harassment, bullying, and egotistical managers were not the worst things about working at Grovelands. And it's this experience that has prompted me to write this review. No one should ever have to go through what I did. The toxic and nasty environment made me feel worthless. The comments and actions made by the executive team left me feeling incredibly depressed, and I honestly felt like I wasn't good enough to find another role. The pressure of having to please the directors left me feeling so stressed and anxious that I had to be signed off work by the doctor for a couple of weeks. Now you'd think that maybe this would make the CEO and his team of directors take a look at how the company is being run, or maybe prompt them into making some positive culture changes (after all, I wasn't the first person to be signed off with anxiety and stress). But no, unfortunately the CEO saw this as an opportunity to publicly degrade me in front of my peers. My time off was supposed to be confidential. The CEO, however, decided to use it as a piece of gossip he could share with those around him. He not only told people that I had been signed off work for anxiety, but continued to slander me, declaring that i was "crazy" and "mentally unhinged". I cannot even begin to describe how damaging this was. To have the CEO of the company you had dedicated over 2 years of your life working at, use confidential information to make derogatory comments about you to your peers is just horrendous. It's taken me almost 2 years to feel strong enough to share this. And I fully expect my comments to be taken down/ignored/or to be mocked further. But I feel it's incredibly important that people are aware of what it's actually like to work at Grovelands.