4 years in Gurgaon corporate… ended with me driving Uber on my bike to survive
Sometimes I sit and think how weird Gurgaon life is.
One day you are handling campaigns, websites, webinars, events, SEO, content, graphics, inside sales support and acting like the backbone of a company… and few months later you are driving Uber on your motorcycle at midnight hoping enough rides come so you can pay rent and EMI on time.
I joined a company in Sep 2021 during the second COVID wave. That time nobody was getting jobs. People with much bigger experience than me were sitting jobless. Even after already having around 6 years of experience, I joined them on the same ₹38k salary I was getting in my previous company because at that time I just wanted stability.
On my first day, I found out there was no marketing team left.
Everybody had either resigned or got fired.
One IT guy told me in a sarcastic tone:
“Marketing wale yahan tikte nahi. Max 6-8 months.”
I still remember smiling and replying:
“Tu dekhiyo bhai, 3-4 saal toh yahi rahunga… until I decide to leave.”
Funny thing is… I actually stayed almost 4 years.
But leaving was never my decision.
In the beginning I used to work completely alone. No manager. Direct reporting to CEO. Slowly hiring started again. First a Senior Digital Marketing Manager joined and we became really good friends. Then writers joined, graphic designer joined, analysts joined and finally a proper Marketing Head came.
That man genuinely changed our team.
He had experience, leadership and respect for people. He taught us how marketing should actually work inside a company. Slowly we built a solid team of around 8 people and honestly those 2 years were one of the happiest phases of my corporate life.
We were working like crazy but we were happy.
Weekly outings.
Friday fun.
Lunches together.
Late night campaign launches.
Event management.
Webinars.
Office jokes.
Pressure.
Targets.
Everything together.
Sales team in the company had always been treated like the main heroes but for the first time marketing started getting real appreciation. Leads started coming. Campaigns were performing. Bosses were happy. Sales people started getting jealous because suddenly marketing people were visible in the company.
And during all this, I was not just doing SEO.
I joined them as an SEO Manager, but slowly I ended up working in almost every role possible. Social media handling, posting, website development, designer backup whenever someone was absent, content backup because writers kept leaving, blog posts, PR activities, data research, demand generation, ads, webinars, events, partner coordination and what not. Honestly, sometimes it felt like the company was saving salaries of 3-4 different people through one employee.
Honestly speaking, they were saving salaries of 3 different people because of me.
But I never complained.
Because somewhere I genuinely believed hard work and loyalty matter.
Now when I look back, that thinking feels stupid.
The first shock came during appraisal cycle. Our Marketing Head had joined just 2 weeks before my appraisal discussion and company offered me only a 5% hike after everything I had done. Even he got shocked and fought for me internally and somehow made it 10%.
Next year I finally got around 19% appraisal because our team was performing really well and management could clearly see results.
But success inside corporate offices creates enemies very fast.
Then founder’s son joined the company after returning from the US.
Our Marketing Head was also US returned and had almost 20 years of experience. But he didn’t want to work under a 23-year-old entitled kid who got power only because of his surname.
He left.
And honestly, after that the entire team slowly started breaking apart.
Both writers left.
Analysts left.
People started losing motivation.
Finally we were left with only 4 people:
Me, Digital Marketing Manager, designer and one analyst.
Still we tried our best to maintain the same level of work and results but management pressure kept increasing. Sales people started doing politics and gossiping that marketing team doesn’t work, there’s no manager controlling them and all that typical corporate bullshit.
Then temporarily they made my Digital Marketing Manager friend the team lead.
I still remember telling him:
“Never work under your friend. Friendship kharab ho jati hai.”
And eventually even he left the company.
After that company hired new people again. New writer. New analyst. Slowly team bond started returning again. We became a small but good team.
Then after almost one year they hired another marketing manager.
And this is where things became toxic.
The problem was not that he had less experience. The problem was that his TOTAL experience was almost equal to the years I had already spent in that company alone… while I also had 6-7 years experience before joining.
So naturally none of us respected him professionally because leadership is not designation, leadership is capability.
Instead of learning from senior team members, he started mixing with sales people, office politics groups and management pleasing.
Pure corporate chapri behavior.
He knew we were not blindly accepting his decisions because half the time his ideas made no sense practically. Slowly he started targeting old team members one by one.
The hardest working people in that team were probably me and the writer who joined later. And ironically we became the first targets.
Then suddenly appraisals stopped.
Recognition stopped.
And eventually we were called and told:
“Management is not happy.”
The writer somehow managed because he was local, unmarried and had family support in Gurgaon itself.
But my situation was different.
I had been married only around 1.5 years.
I had a newborn daughter.
House rent.
EMIs.
Responsibilities.
Still, I never begged them to keep me.
Not because it didn’t hurt.
It destroyed me mentally.
But somewhere the man inside me still had self respect and integrity. I could not beg a company to value me after giving them almost 4 years of loyalty.
What hurts even today is not losing the job.
What hurts is remembering how much effort I gave there.
I genuinely treated that company like my own.
And when things became difficult for me, I became replaceable overnight.
For around 5-6 months after termination I couldn’t get stable work despite having years of experience. HRs ghosted me. Some companies said overqualified, some wanted cheap employees, some just wasted time.
Savings disappeared very fast in Gurgaon.
Before freelancing and referral projects started coming, I actually had to drive Uber on my motorcycle to survive.
I still remember doing rides around Cyber Hub and Udyog Vihar at night thinking how life changes so fast. Helmet ke andar aadmi kabhi kabhi ro bhi leta hai aur kisi ko pata bhi nahi chalta.
And the most ironic part?
Later I found out the same manager who pushed us out also got fired after office politics turned against him. Then even the designer who survived earlier eventually got removed too.
At that moment I realised something very deeply.
Sometimes the problem is not employees.
The problem is company culture.
A company can take your loyalty, extra hours, mental peace, weekends and hard work for years and still throw you out like none of it mattered.
Life goes on, of course.
I survived somehow.
Freelancing helped.
I moved back closer to my hometown.
Even joined my old company again later.
But I will always remember that Gurgaon chapter of my life.
Not because I got fired.
But because it taught me that loyalty without respect slowly destroys a person from inside.
TLDR: Joined a Gurgaon company during COVID on low salary when jobs were scarce, helped rebuild their marketing department from scratch, handled multiple roles for almost 4 years, built strong friendships and team culture, politics started after management changes and founder’s son joined, experienced manager left due to self respect, new inexperienced manager targeted old team members because we didn’t blindly follow him, appraisal got cancelled and I was removed despite having a newborn daughter and financial responsibilities. Couldn’t find work for months and had to drive Uber on my motorcycle in Gurgaon before freelancing helped me survive.