What do you do when you fall out of love? You try to work it out, you try to give it more time, you tell yourself that it is just a phase, you give it another chance. But why do you do all this? Because your love feels irreplaceable, because you don't want to give up, because you don't want to quit especially if you have given 10 years of your life to that love. That's exactly what I did too. But my work was my love. 

It was a dream that I saw with my open eyes as a child, a dream for which I worked really hard. I always had my mind set on what I wanted to be when I'd grow up.

With financial instability, college life wasn't easy as the fee was exorbitant and expenses were high. But I made sure that I got the scholarship every year to ease out a little monetary stress and feel a little less guilty for making my parents spend all of their life’s saving to help me take the first step towards my dream.

And then, I got through one of the oldest and most reputed firms in my field. A company where I had interviewed twice before but didn't get through. It was a dream come true for me.

 Going through these interviews wasn't stressful for me for I was fighting bigger battles in my life. I even accepted their offer letter without any price hike from my last CTC, because I wanted to work with them. As days passed, I started enjoying my work and my new company. But slowly my professional life started taking a different turn.

Work became so stressful that I ended up not eating anything during the day. I would travel throughout the day in the heat. My health started going down the hill.

I couldn’t even be with my family when they needed me. If someone was unwell at home, I was still supposed to stay in office and keep working.

I gave up on my social life because by the time I got back home I felt so tired that I didn’t even feel like eating, let alone going out.

Then, business started dropping in my company and the management took hasty decisions to save the boat from sinking, but they failed to realize that the people who were holding the boat together were dying under the pressure. We had no life-work balance, zero appreciation and excessive workload. Along with all this, as a way of appreciation, we were asked to survive it all with zipped mouths because "you can't be a quitter", "that's just how life is" and "it is the survival of the fittest".

That's when I took the decision to end my misery and leave this job that gave me nothing more than stress and health issues and forced me to stay away from family and feel depressed. I decided to resign. But it didn't go down well with the management.

In order to create trouble for me, they didn’t release my salary, didn’t give me my bonus, didn’t even give me my relieving papers. They basically held on to all the monetary elements of the job to take revenge.

Today, I am still chasing the same company for my dues and formal papers. In fact, they're threatening to give negative feedback to my next employer.

Is this what the companies need to stoop down to?

It is often said that employees don’t leave a company, they leave their bosses. It holds true in my case too.

I never wanted to leave my company, I just didn’t want to work under my boss.

To all those who are going through a similar phase in life - please think about what you want out of your life, where you want to go and what you want to be. And if, your present situation does not take you where you want to be, have the courage to bring change. It will be difficult, but it will be worth the effort.

I have seen people crumbling under work stress, please don't do it to yourself.

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