Thread by @pramitheus

1. As I sit here filing a complaint about the non payment of PF by Fork Media Group (FMG) since Oct 2019, I feel, nay, I WANT to talk about what went down during my 2 year stint there & how it sent me on a downward spiral full of depression & anxiety.

https://twitter.com/pramitheus/status/1386951834410098694

2. I joined @MashableIndia, which functions under FMG, back in April 2019. It was my first time moving out of Siliguri & I was excited, thrilled to live this new life. But I should have seen the red flags right in the beginning in the form of @KarrishmaModhy, the associate editor

3. Now, acc. to my limited knowledge, an editor is supposed to edit. Y'know. It's right there in the title. But I was given this mindblowing philosophy that since it's not possible to edit every copy, you just have to do it on your own.
She didn't edit any of my copies for 2 yrs.

4. 2019 was mostly about finding the groove, putting Mashable India on the radar, understanding the reason behind writing regular news copies despite being hired as a Features Writer, understanding why we needed to wade through rain to the office when we can do the same from home

5. OR why was I sometimes working till 12 AM (cuz screenings & being expected to show up at the office at 9.30 AM without even a semblance of a "good job".
But I kinda ignored that cuz I was getting paid & I not just put myself but Mashable India in a pull-quote for the 1st time.

6. But then came everyone's fav year of all time, 2020, & with it began the unraveling of Fork Media Group.
Now, just to put things into perspective, the arrival of 2020 meant 1 year of service. And although my work speaks for itself, the 1 year of service included...

7. ... writing hundreds of reviews & features, covering @MumbaiFilmFest, & doing the "regular" news articles. So, I expected a raise. Cuz you've to literally be the dumbest person alive to not do that.
So, of course, there was a disciplinary hearing & a managerial evaluation.

8. The disciplinary hearing was done to reprimand the team cuz too many people had taken leaves on the same day & also to remind us that it was a "9.30 AM publication". So, I was confused. I was there working when "too many people had taken leaves on the same day" ...

9. ... I always showed up between 9-9.30 AM. And since all leaves are sanctioned by the editor & HR in the 1st place, why was I being clubbed in with everyone else. But for the sake of being a team member, I let that slide but wanted some clarity on the "9.30 AM publication".

10. Mashable India didn't have a wire service. It's audience was built on feature articles. We had SEO writers but none for entertainment & culture (my dept). So, what was up with the whole push for making a feature writer do SEO work & ruin their whole careergraph?

11. Yeah, all those questions were never answered & since we were busy with this, the topic of a raise was ignored as well. And then came the pandemic. And with it came the most bizarre decision: slashing salaries. DESPITE WORKING FROM OFFICE FOR THE MAJOR CHUNK OF THE MONTH!

12. Since it was impossible to stay IN Mumbai & work cuz of the salary cuts were, I had to come back to Siliguri.
And Fork Media Group was considerate enough to reduce our work load & care about our mental hea--I'm just kidding. They did none of that. They did the opposite

13. Despite being completely aware of the paranoia that had come with the pandemic, there was no planning, little-to-no communication apart from a mail from CEO @samar1984 titled "ICEBERG ahead but why be the Titanic" (great metaphor, dude), & this constant berating about work.

14. Just to put things into perspective a little bit. Despite all this bullshit, excluding the regular news articles, between 2019 & 2021, I wrote around 582 FEATURE pieces. All this on that joining salary from April 2019. Five hundred and eighty two. Please, keep that in mind.

15. And these weren't just articles that started & ended with me. These were graciously shared by celebrities. These got me into film festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, Cannes, etc. But yeah, all that's out there. Let's go back to March-May 2020 cuz that's what we are here for.

16. Since that Titanic metaphor was the only piece of communication I had gotten, I sat down with the then HR personnel who told me I had two options: either accept the situation or go on an unpaid leave. I shit you not.
So, I expressed my anger & decided to take the leave.

17. That last bit was communicated by @KarrishmaModhy to @samar1984 via screenshots. Screenshots from a WhatsApp group conversation. This got me in a conversation with the aforementioned two ppl & the then HR head. & it was during that conversation I heard yet another philosophy

18. @samar1984 said that this job "is not a charity. It's a transactional relationship". And if I've a problem with that, I should look elsewhere because the company has a massive talent pool just waiting to join & they can replace me with them.
Read what's up there again. Read!

19. Since it was my 1st ever conversation with this dude, you cannot even begin to imagine my utter shock. And this shock was on top of the paranoia & sickness & depression that I was already suffering from. I felt sick to the point of throwing up during the bloody call.

20. All that work, all that effort, all that care, reduced to that: a "transactional relationship". But that wasn't the most bewildering part. The most bewildering part was that this dude had the utter audacity to say this despite the lack of that "transaction".

21. At this point, I can deal with apathy. I can deal with ignorance. But I'm not strictly a "money doesn't solve everything" guy. I understand its value. I value money. So, to think that I would've "complained" if they would've at least paid me what I was due was weird AF!

22. But it was clear during the convo that it was some grade-A gaslighting. So, I brought back the focus on the lack of appreciation for the work that I was doing & the fact that @KarrishmaModhy doesn't edit or contribute via articles, esp. when numbers are so so important.

23. Sammar told Karrishma to get on a call about THAT & we did. We had a heated convo about her lack of, well, anything that's needed to keep a publication running. But she "promised" to give FEEDBACK. Not editing. Not articles. Feedback. Which she gave in the form of "yay"s.

24. A few weeks later, even that stopped. And it was smooth sailing till the end of 2020. And by "smooth sailing" I mean no communication. AGAIN. Because that obviously meant talking about salary & giving people their due credit. So, yeah, it was just radio silence.

contd...

25. Well, not exactly. A lot happened with other employees. But since I don't want to speak FOR anyone because they're adult enough and responsible enough to speak for themselves, I am gonna keep things to myself.
If these employees see this thread, feel free to chime in.

26. So, before 2021, I acted like any other person in an abusive relationship. I tried to woo the abuser by doing "better" and "good" work, in the hopes that they'll see it & stop this abuse, call me back to Mumbai with a raise, & just let me work in peace cuz that's all I want!

27. That obviously didn't happen. Instead in January 2021, I was told (again) that the numbers have to go up. I asked how, we don't have SEO writers & we have less contributors in 2021 than 2019. Didn't matter to the company. They just wanted to see the numbers up, up, and away.

28. But yes, I was promised that SEO writers would be brought in IF the numbers went up. The numbers did go up. But there were no SEO writers. Instead there was talk about resuming the salary to that 2019 amount & pushing people to come back to office based on THAT SALARY.

29. Like a sane person, I went WTF? They kept asking me to give a fixed date from which I can join. I said as soon as you give the raise I have been waiting for for TWO YEARS, I will join the next day. Because I wanted to come back to Mumbai and I wanted to fucking work normally!

30. As soon as I said that, all talks about coming back to office or talking about a raise died down. But this time I wasn't accepting this silence anymore. So, I kept working but I kept pestering about the raise. I felt sick to my stomach. I woke everyday sad, angry, & depressed

31. Do you want to see what anger, sadness, depression, & having this sick feeling that you're going to throw up because you're not getting paid enough to do this shit & being gaslit into thinking you're not doing enough & being told to do more?
This. It looks like this.

32. You might as, then why the hell was I doing this? Why didn't I just leave? See, now there's the fascinating part.
I loved doing what I was doing for a brand that I had a huge contribution in. And there were no openings that would give me the opportunities I was getting here.

33. Yes, opportunities that I had created with my work cuz unlike every other publication in the world, here I am expected to court PR associates, be in touch with em, cuz editor @KarrishmaModhy can't.
So, I did my job & her job as well & the PRs were gracious enough to help me.

34. But as April 2021 approached, which would mark 2 years of my working at @MashableIndia, my frustration reached a new peak, which was aggravated by yet another push towards doing more news articles & less of reviews, interviews, & feature pieces, which I obvio wasn't ok with.

35. That led to yet another heated convo with @KarrishmaModhy, where yet again I was told to leave cuz this is what it is & I can either accept it or leave. Yes. And they kept saying it cuz they KNEW of the job crisis out there. They KNEW. And yet they kept saying it.

36. I expressed my anger to my parents. I made vague social media posts. And I regret making them. Oh not the fact that I put up those posts or stories. The fact that I kept em vague. And that brings me to why am I tagging all the people who are, well, tagged over here.

37. Cuz on April 24, 2021 (a Saturday i.e. non-working day), @ 5:16 PM, HR execs Pratyashi Bhardwaj & Nikita Soni called me up, accusing me of defaming the company with the Insta stories you see here, for asking for my money, & for asking for clarity about the company's plans.

38. I was accused of not being proper with @KarrishmaModhy. The same Karrishma Modhy who told me to leave every time I requested accountability. I was accused of creating a negative environment & manipulating colleagues & whatnot.
If you're shocked, get ready, cuz there's more.

39. During that call, access to my office accounts (Google, FB, Insta, CMS) were blocked. Which means all the info I had, the connections I HAD collected, not the company, were robbed. And they expected ME to be apologetic. Yeah. After pulling all that shit. The audacity.

40. So, yeah, anger, depression, sadness, loss of appetite, sleeplessness, constantly feeling like I'll puke, and on top of that getting harassed & gaslit to this extent was what I got at the end of 2 years of service. Why? For some vague Instagram stories & for asking for money.

41. On April 26, the letter of termination arrived with those accusations. Accusations that had no basis. Complaints that were surfacing for the first time on paper, with the company behaving like they had tolerated me for 2 years. Not the other way around. Fascinating right?

42. Of course, I didn't accept their accusations. I broke down that puny letter of termination they had sent with facts about the things they had done. Their response? They denied it. Very vaguely. Like they were denying stuff they've admitted to doing on paper. Ya, weird.

43. And that's my story of working at Mashable India, which is managed by Fork Media Group.
An experience that has scarred me to the extent that I don't wanna join another publication cuz I fear versions of these idiots will be in there waiting to harass the shit outta me.

44. They said I was negative & manipulative & impolite. Ya, to the people who were negative & manipulative & impolite to me by not paying me, giving me any kinda appreciation, & are taking advantage of the current pandemic & job crisis to harass employees. Not everyone.

45. I'm not a fan of saying "go ask everyone else about how I was with em" cuz that promotes majoritarianism & opens the door to the company using the employees they still have on their leash to speak the opposite thing & craft a fake majority sentiment. So, I won't do that.

46. What I will do is what I have done here & what I should have done a long time ago instead of sending out those vague Insta stories on my PERSONAL SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS WHICH ARE NONE OF THE COMPANY'S BUSINESS & actually tag these people so that y'all can see their faces.

47. Do I expect @KarrishmaModhy @samar1984, Pratyashi Bhardwaj, Nikita Soni & any of the people who enable this kinda behaviour with this Twitter thread? No. Do I expect the situation to change? No.
I just expect people to hold those in power accountable for their actions.

48. I feel sick writing this Twitter thread. And I wouldn't have written it if they would've given me the last thing they owe me, my PF. But I want this anger, rage, and sickness to get out of my system & show people what goes on in so-called modern corporate publications.

49. And look, I'm no genius. Class 12 mein bola tha college mein admission nahi milega. College mein bola tha job nahi milega. Job mein bola ki I'm worth nothing.
But I don't know how to give up. I just don't. So, I'll be here and I'll keep doing what I'm good at.

Cheers!