A Rough Idea: Our silence around toxic work habits is part of the problem

You don't have to suffer to 'prove your resilience' in the EU bubble.

A Rough Idea is a series of personal essays for paid subscribers.

The first time I spoke up about unfair work practices, I was 22 and terrified.

I was coming to the end of my first internship in Brussels and it was time for the performance review. Me and the other interns hyped ourselves up to bring it up in our 1-1 meetings. I’m only saying it if you do! I was only confident when I didn’t have to act on it.

“Um,” I said, when it was my turn to enter that tiny blank-walled meeting room. “Maybe the salary is a bit low… seeing as it’s under minimum wage and I did the same amount of work as permanent staff. I don’t know. Sorry. I know it’s still like, the average and everything. But yeah.”

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