It's story time! Episode 1

Let me tell you a story.

There was a woman named Anna (sorry to all Annas out here). She graduated from a college and got a job right after. She was always ambitious, but not too aggressive at that.

• The company she joined, let's call it "Company A", was way too aggressive, stringent, process driven and too mechanical in nature. very little scope for creativity. She loved the work, dreaded the company. She woke up every day to work, but of course despised having to talk to other folks. She left the company eventually, but had a good set of learning from the work she did. She left it after 3 years of working with it.

• She then went on to join "Company B". This company had all things "creativity". She loved the first few months. Nobody asks what she was upto, what projects she was working on. As long as she is getting in the deals, they were okay. She eventually realised the company is too laid back. Nobody gives a fuck about anything. Everybody works in silos, nobody really likes even helping a sis out. Just do what's given to you - in any way possible. Just get it done. After a few months, she started slacking out. She wasn't enjoying the work anymore. She left that too after 2 years.

When she looked back to the times when she had to make a decision between companies, and she chose Company A and B; she realised two great things:

• "Culture" is not the Foosball tables, the coffee pantries, unlimited snacks and every Friday team dinners. Culture is how the teams come together to get work done. Culture is how an objection is tackled by the team or your manager. Culture is what happens when you don't perform - what do the leadership think of you, do of you and eventually make of you.

• "Culture" is subjective. What "culture" works for you to flourish is a thing that only you have to figure out. If you are someone that needs somebody else to be on top of you to get things done - you'll flourish in Company A. If you join Company B, you will slack out, run out of skills and just become the useless version of yourself. If you are someone who can work independently and doesn't like folks following up with you to get tasks done, you don't like a process and like being creative - you'll be frustrated in Company A.

It's up to you, of how you introspect and be honest with yourself to figure out what environment is best suitable for yourself.