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How Can I Survive Working in a Start-Up?

Posted by: youngster
Date: 7/2/2009 6:43:46 PM

I’ve been working at this start up for almost a year now (I’m 23 so it’s my first job out of college). I’m the youngest at my company by far and I’m also one of only two women. At first the company was very much an “Open Forum”. I was working directly under the COO and we would talk freely about the business processes we were developing and the development of our product/service offering. It was very hands on and providing a ton of valuable experience for me. In the past six months our company has doubled in size and during our expansion a woman was hired to be the boss of my team. She’s a nice lady but she has never taken the time to learn what we do day in and day out, so when it comes down to crunch time she can only tell us how much more we need to get done but she can’t jump in and help us out. Not only that, most of the processes that she’s developed for our team have been a total failure because she doesn’t know what we do and she’s not willing to listen to our opinions. I have to fight tooth and nail with her to even try doing things a different way and afterwords she always reluctantly agrees that things might be better the way I suggested it.

The worst person is the COO. He’s always been a control freak but he’s taken it to another level. He absolutely refuses to allow us to work from home even though our program is entirely web based. I wrote a lengthy proposal outlining the virtues of why he should adopt a telecommuting program and he ignored it. When I finally asked him about it two weeks later he said it was a really well researched and well written proposal but telecommuting just isn’t an option for our company. In the mean time, we are working weekends and evenings in the office when we could be at home seeing our families. Everyone I know hates me because I’m constantly blowing them off for work.

We used to be able to bring comments or concerns to him and now he’s totally unapproachable. He eavesdrops on our conversations with clients and comes out of the office to correct us on our terminology or advice while we’re still on the phone with the client. He yells and screams at us in front of other employees. He’s incapable of thinking outside of the bubble of issues that are immediately affecting him, so often he’ll come and drop a ton of work on us without realizing that his “little project” means we’ll be at the office til all hours. I feel like he’s trying to make a small start-up company into a full on corporation over night with all of his sudden rules and boundaries. There’s nothing fun about our company anymore. He’s even phasing out the start-up jeans and t-shirt for more business-y wear.

Even though I’m continually out performing everyone else on my team, I’m constantly regarded as the “little girl” in the office no matter how responsibly and professionally I compose myself. There are hints from some of the men on the team that I don’t make as much money as them even though we have the same title and I’m getting more done than they are. I get the since from the COO that he wants to keep me in my place – use me for my ideas but never promote me. I even overheard him telling one of our investors that he’s planning on using me to approach some of my alumni for sales opportunities. Though I’ve talked with my immediate boss about my concerns she doesn’t have the balls to stand up to him and fight for what her team needs. She is the only other female after all, in a company full of good ol boys.

I don’t see things getting better and I feel stuck here for another three years until my stock options vest (I don’t want to feel like I went through all this for nothing). Any advice on how to make it through the next couple of years with these chauvinist freaks?

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