I started the Aon graduate scheme in May 2016. At the time, I was the only woman in a cohort of five graduates. I had recently moved to London from Birmingham for the first time and was feeling fairly overwhelmed.
Aon wasn’t a place where I could be my full self, as I didn’t conform to the Aon way of doing things. I spoke to senior colleagues as though they were my peers — something not many people did or thought they were ‘allowed’ to do. I felt grateful to have made friends with Adam (pseudonyms used throughout to conceal real names), who worked in a different team but was the only person who I felt comfortable around. Adam became a really good friend — I generally much preferred being around him to the grads in my year, who I didn’t really gel with.
The speculation around two people from different teams spending time together became the subject of office gossip. One afternoon, Henry, my team lead, walked over to Adam’s desk, said something to him and pointed in my direction. He and another colleague, who was standing nearby, laughed. Adam looked unamused. I immediately asked Adam what had happened and he told me that the team lead had asked him, ‘are you knobbing her?’. The ‘her’ he was referring to was me. I recall at first not quite believing that a colleague would say something so vulgar. I felt humiliated, reduced to a sex object and worried that if he saw me like that, maybe everyone else did too.
Despite becoming increasingly concerned about the behaviour which I observed and the comments that I overheard (such as how they would refer to a woman in another team as ‘the hot one’, or circulate photos of another colleague because her outfit choices were deemed bold), I didn’t voice it. Confronting it would have been career suicide. The values that people at Aon embodied became clear at the weekly Thursday pub gatherings. One of the most highly respected consultants in the London office would gather a group of juniors to gossip about his colleagues, laugh at their expense, and generally mock them. The comments and sniggering heightened with more alcohol consumption. Laughing along and agreeing was the only way to get by in this culture, but it didn’t make things better.
Aon hosted its first summer party a couple of months after I joined. A few hours into the party, I sat down next to Ian, who was one of the few people at Aon that I got along with. As Ian laughed at something that I had said, he leaned over and stroked my thigh. As his hand rested there, on my leg, my body seized up. I was shocked that someone who I thought was my friend had objectified me like everyone else had. He had broken the boundary of trust, leaving me feeling violated and betrayed. My paralysis lasted long enough for him to move his hand away. One of my only friendships at Aon quickly evaporated as I wondered if he had only ever talked to me with an ulterior motive. Maybe I gave him the wrong impression? Maybe I wore the wrong dress that evening? I got up and walked over to another group of colleagues as if nothing had happened.
A couple of months later, all of the new graduates had to attend a retreat. On the first evening at the retreat, we were sitting with some of the new joiners — approximately 10 men and me. We were playing drinking and card games. I went to take a call from my mum, and when I came back, half an hour later, one of the newbies asked ‘where did you go, Kiran?’, to which a grad I knew since joined replied, ‘probably having phone sex with Adam’, and all of them started laughing. I remember how hot my face felt; I felt embarrassed. I completely neglected fight or flight and sat there, inanimate and helpless. I turned to Mark who, once he knew he had caught my eye, made a crude and sexual hand gesture to me (no prizes for guessing precisely what he did), and laughed again. I tried to gain my composure back, telling him that he couldn’t say things like that, but in the heat of the situation, I spluttered my words and failed to get my point across. He laughed it off. I carried on playing the games and gulped down my wine.
The following evening, I went to play pool with Stan and Kevin (grads who I already knew). There were jokes about joining me and Adam for a threesome and inappropriate and probing questions being asked about our relationship. When I tried to stand my ground, they kept laughing and bantering about how “hot-headed” I was. Ironically, the very language they were using to describe me reinforced their gendered bias — I couldn’t have imagined them referring to a male peer as “hot-headed”. I had no other instinctive reaction but to leave the room, crying as I left.
Adam left the company a week after I returned from the retreat. I felt very alone in the office. Without having my confidant around to discuss what I was feeling, my body was building up so much resentment that I felt like I was drowning. I needed to tell someone what was happening. It was time to speak to Joe.
Joe was a new manager and joined Aon a couple of weeks after me. One afternoon, when I spontaneously asked to speak with Joe, I told him everything that had happened. I recall the lump in my throat that I was trying to gulp down after every sentence, looking up at the ceiling every few words so that the tears in my eyes wouldn’t run down my face. It felt like someone else was talking for me. He listened intently. By the end, I was crying, sniffling, and my face felt like it was on fire. He seemed confused and overwhelmed. Clearly, he did not expect this conversation and didn’t know how to respond.
He was close friends with the Partner who had made the ‘knobbing’ comment, who he immediately tried to excuse: ‘Oh, he doesn’t mean any harm. He never meant it like that. He’s just a cockney lad and that’s the way he speaks’. He rationalised his behaviour and made me feel like it was justified. I found myself nodding in agreement, angry that I had interpreted it as anything other than innocent banter. As for the rest of the behaviour, he asked me something that has haunted me ever since:
‘Are you sure that you’re not bringing this on yourself?’
I asked him what he meant, and he said that I walked around quite confidently and that my boisterous, talkative nature might have provoked the behaviour of my colleagues and that these jokes aren’t malicious, and have been taken the wrong way. When he asked if he should speak to the grads, I told him not to act on anything. I needed time to think.
When I reflected on the chat, I was furious and could not concentrate on work. I expressed my frustration to Joe over Lync (work messenger) and told him that I didn’t understand how I could have provoked the behaviour of my colleagues. He used the following analogy to justify what he meant [paraphrasing]: ‘If I [my manager] were walking with my son (who was three years old at the time) in the street, and I punched someone [for the sake of it], that doesn’t make sense. If I punched them because they came to attack my son, then they provoked my punch.’
Putting aside that he likened me to someone who attacks babies on the street, his justification made me feel like he genuinely believed this behaviour was my own fault. Joe blamed me. His words tarnished any memory of confidence that I had. His blame diagnosed me with depression. His question made me struggle to get out of bed every morning.
Joe’s comments made me doubt everything; my appearance, how I spoke, my personality. I threw out my pencil skirts and skinny trousers. I started wearing baggy clothes and changing my style. I became far more aware of my own physicality and body to the extent that I started to objectify myself in the same way that they did. Despite being aware of how irrational this was, I am still battling with an unhealthy relationship with my own body that was triggered at this time.
I talked less. I stopped attending work socials, and when I did, I started drinking more to numb the anxiety. I started to develop nervousness around my own friends. My self-confidence lowered. The blemishes on my face felt redder and larger. I convinced myself that the bend in my nose was getting worse. I started eating more and putting on weight. My self-esteem hit the ground.
I had the feeling you have the day before an important exam, every day. I hated waking up, going to that Cheesegrater building (it still sends a shudder down my spine when I see it), and I even hated the temporary happiness that I felt when I left for the day because I knew it was short-lived. I would go home in the evenings, close the blinds and get into bed. I tried to work from home more. I’d put on YouTube ‘8 hours of watching paint dry’ so I could sleep. I spent most of my time sleeping so I didn’t have to think. I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
One day, I finally broke down to Sarah, a senior colleague that I became close to, in a meeting room. She was rubbing my arm, reassuring me that before she left Aon (in two weeks), she would sort it out. I felt hopeful. But then, things got blurry. She spoke to Joe without consulting me. She spoke to Helen in HR. She told me that Helen wanted to speak to me. Though I completely appreciated Sarah’s intentions, the implications of her taking action involved me having to confront difficult conversations and encounters that I wasn’t ready to deal with. I was scared at how fast this was escalating. I shut down all of my emotions. I explained what had happened to Helen, expressing the events like a story, like they had happened to someone else and I was an observer. She told me she was going to speak to the head of my team for his comment. I asked her not to because I was afraid he’d blame me. I thought he would tell her that I had brought it on myself.
A couple of weeks later, I got food poisoning. It lasted two days, but I convinced myself that I was still unwell, so I took two weeks of sick leave. During that time, Helen spoke to Henry, Sarah spoke to Joe, his manager, and the grads. When I reluctantly went back to work and got settled at my desk, Henry asked to speak to me. He took me to a meeting room and said sorry. I smiled and told him everything was fine and that I forgave him, but I didn’t. He only said sorry because his hand was forced. I wondered why his manager Cathy, who was the only woman partner in the London office and a ‘huge advocate’ for women in finance, didn’t confront the situation. Joe also apologised, murmuring some spiel about being new to management, and asked if I took time off work because of everything that happened: ‘Please don’t tell me that’s true,’ he said. So, I said that it wasn’t true, even though it was.
The grads got a gentle tap on the wrists. One grad told me that he thought we were friends and that they were just harmless jokes. He felt betrayed that I went to my manager before I spoke to him. I felt bad. I told him that I didn’t want any confrontation, everything that happened was out of my control. I felt guilty. I started trying to mend my relationships with the grads. I went to drinks with Kevin after work. Kevin asked me why I caused this big scene because it’s not like I was an asset to the company or wanted to stay there. He told me I was a liability rather than an asset, and then he laughed. I came home and closed the blinds again.
I resented my job. I couldn’t be bothered to work. I was getting really sloppy and I struggled to hide it. I’d do the bare minimum — come in after 9 am and leave at 5 pm. Everyone noticed. My performance ratings went down. I couldn’t hold in the feeling of hating work. I spoke to Helen for advice. She told me to be honest with Joe, so I told Joe I was disengaged. The next day, he scheduled a meeting in my diary and told me he was putting me on a performance plan. I was the problem again. I plucked up the courage to trust him again and he blamed me, again. I cried for a couple of hours in the meeting room, to a point of hyperventilation. I had to ask Joe to leave while I composed myself.
I couldn’t keep up the facade of working harder. I started feeling even worse, and I already felt like I had hit rock bottom. I was struggling to breathe. I spent every day crying. Adam told me that I had to leave, he would pay my rent until I found my way back. I handed in my notice and I had to leave. It was the scariest, toughest, but the best decision I have ever, and will ever make.
After Aon, I experienced mental health complications in a way that I never knew existed. I now struggle with low self-esteem, and I can’t quite quench the anxiety. I still feel it when there is a work social, a piece of work that I find extra challenging, or when I quadruple-check an email before sending it out. I still have my moments. I struggled a lot during my spout of unemployment. I went through a couple of jobs that didn’t work out where I couldn’t help but blame myself.
Then something magical happened. Someone took a massive chance on me. Even though I had zero experience in Talent, he believed in me as a Talent Manager. Twenty-one months later, I’m now in an environment where I feel safe enough to finally discuss what happened at Aon. My team took the time to listen, and in doing so allowed me to embrace my emotions and confront my demons. My team tell me when I have done a good job and build my self-esteem up every day.
I have Europe’s best recruiter telling me that I am a great writer and that he enjoys working with me. I have one of the best closers I’ve ever seen telling me I’m growing faster than he imagined. I have colleagues telling me I’m brave, I’m smart, I’m funny, and my vulnerability inspires them. I hope it has inspired you, too.
First published on Medium. You can connect with Kiran on LinkedIn.