My experience at Salesforce is something that still haunts me to this day. It’s been a couple years, so it’s a little easier to talk about, but I try to put it behind me as much as I can. I may have been too naive in that I thought people genuinely try to treat others with common decency, but it forever changed my trust towards others in the work place. To this day, I still can’t piece together why I was treated the way I was, but I am able to look back and see how I was blackmailed, bullied, and harassed. I will give some background and the events that occurred that ultimately resulted in my departure from Salesforce on my own will. I had been referred by a friend for a role that I was extremely interested in and everything worked out ,which lead to an offer. I continuously brought a positive attitude and made a genuine effort to ramp up quickly and do as much as I could. By midyear, I had a great review resulting in a high bonus percentage and even continued on to earn a spot bonus for my efforts in the following months...then things started changing. I started noticing that one of the directors (whom I’ll refer to as Director#1 from here on) became very short and blunt. I had originally concluded that this was due to a recent move that resulted in a longer commute, but I don’t think that was the case. Shortly after, I found out that the very person who referred me was suddenly now on the same team that I was; odd, but again, I didn’t think anything malicious by this new change. A couple months later, out of nowhere, Director#1 tells me that I am not a good fit and that I am to look for another team or another job as soon as possible. I was instructed that if I did not do this, I was to be put on a PIP (performance improvemt plan) which would ultimately result in me being fired and that “the Bay Area is small, so I wouldn’t burn any bridges”. I literally thought this was a joke, but after I was then told to go home for the day to think about it, I became incredibly confused. What did I do wrong? What did I not do? After this, the environment was so toxic that it made it hard for me to wake up every morning to come to work having experienced what I experienced having to see this person every day. Then, one morning, I am pulled into a meeting with my manager who informs me that I had misused company funds and I was highly advised to resign immediately. Luckily, I had saved an email with my managers approval, which basically negated the claim that I misused company funds. I could not believe this was pulled on me; I became visibly upset but also felt incredibly betrayed. By the grace of God, I was able to receive an offer shortly after from a job I had been interviewing for and left. Before my last day, however, I was able to speak with others around the office and was surprised to hear that this treatment wasn’t something new; it was apparently actions that weren’t out of the norm when talking about Director#1. What a terrible experience that I wish upon nobody.
