Surviving the stormy seas of corporate politics

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Image was cropped by me

I have always frowned at how some employers treat their employees like they don't matter and this was what delayed me from being employed under an organisation.

For quite a while I enjoyed autonomy as a freelancer because I didn't have to answer to anyone directly. It was just basically being contacted for a job executing it and getting paid. It was such a wonderful experience for me at the time but as I advanced into adulthood, it became clear that I needed a full-time job. While the pay might not be as great as a freelancing job, it is regular plus it gives more opportunities for career advancement and expertise not to mention employee benefits plus other job securities that are not tied to freelancing jobs.

I knew what I was getting involved with the moment I became a full-time employee and I had prepared my mind to navigate the treacherous waters of company politics. Soon, all that I dreaded started coming to pass. My supervisor started coming with the slave master mentality of wanting more productivity with little pay.
Not investing appropriately into the job to make work easy yet expected me to perform magic with the output. Trying to gag me, to coarse me to do his bidding irrespective of it being to my detriment.

What prepared me to handle the situation effectively was that while coming up, I saw how my lecturers were treated, I saw how my mom battled with her directors and how she was even set up to the point of almost losing her job simply because she refused to carry out an unauthorized transaction. I watched movies, I listened to adults talk about their jobs and I never wanted to relieve such experiences. I didn't want to maintain the status quo of working to suffer. So as I grew and kept studying the situation I unlearned and relearned. I became aware that my only escape from such an oppressive style of employment was to advance academically in my educational pursuit and be good at what I do. These made me highly sought after in the labour world and I knew my worth.

These gave me some sort of confidence and enlightenment such that during one of our board meetings, I was at loggerheads with my supervisor who kept lying against me through his teeth. I wasn't going to just sit there and not defend myself while he took credit for all my hard work and painted me as an unproductive thief. While my input was evident, I also came to the meeting with a lot of receipts to prove that I never took a dime unofficially. As I challenged him with facts, it angered our director who told me that I needed to learn the etiquette of civil service.

The meeting was immediately adjourned and my other colleagues chastised me for defending myself. According to them, it wasn't in my place to disprove my supervisor and I should have let management handle it. At that moment, I saw the office politics at play and I couldn't deal so I resigned.