‘MY PARENTS PAID FOR HOTELS, FOOD AND TRAVEL'

Why a 23-year-old woman left her “very interesting” first job with a non-profit? Her team was bullied by its leader and she was reimbursed months later for thousands spent on work trips.

I was 22 when I got a job with a non-profit’s mental health programme through campus placement. I had a master’s degree in clinical psychology. Seven of us were recruited together. We joined in January 2019 and on January 5, five of us left for fieldwork in Chhattisgarh.

We had to do psychometric assessments in government schools. These help identify problems areas through Intelligence Quotient or behavioural tests. We can determine if a kid has a disability. Other developmental tests can measure if they have reached their developmental stages on time – they are walking on time, use washroom on their own.

I found the work very interesting. Sometimes, just three of us tested 100 kids. We’d stay till 8 p.m., and miss the bus. It got hectic. But the work was satisfactory. You know the feeling when you come back in the evening but don’t regret having to go back the next day? We looked forward to work.

However, the management of the company was something else.

Paying for a dirty hotel

A person already living in Raipur was supposed to guide us. He was like a team leader. The hotel he had chosen had a bar on the ground floor. Men staying in the hotel after a night of drinking were not very friendly. The hotel was also full of cockroaches. They would appear in our bags and wander over our toothbrushes. Our team leader wasn’t listening to complaints or letting us talk to our supervisor in Delhi.

After two weeks, we had to find another place to stay for just the next fortnight.

As we were leaving, we were asked to pay for the hotel and told we’d be reimbursed. Each room cost Rs. 1,000 per day and two people shared it. For two weeks, each of us had to shell out around Rs. 7,000. Plus, we spent at least Rs. 110 on conveyance and Rs. 300 on food per day. Our parents had to pay all of that because I had not yet received my first paycheque.