Ex-McKinsey employee shares why he quit the Rs 1.7 crore pa job: 'My mental health was shattered'

The former McKinsey employee said he regretted the way he approached his time at the company. 'I should have been more assertive,' he said. (File photo)

A former McKinsey & Company associate, who worked at the company for one and a half years, recently opened up about why he decided to quit despite earning about Rs 1.7 crore a year. Speaking to Business Insider on condition of anonymity, he said that the money was not at par with the workload and the mental agony he experienced at the company.

"On a typical day, I worked from 7.30 am or 8 am until 11.30 pm. And it was pedal to the metal — I didn't leave my desk, forgot to eat, and dropped tons of weight. I barely remembered to go to the bathroom. I only remembered to get up when I noticed my dog looking at me all sad," he said. The former McKinsey employee had joined as an associate in 2021 and he knew he was there "for a bad time, not a long time."

"I knew that the work would be challenging, and I also hoped that if I stuck it out, I'd be able to build up my analytical toolkit and learn how to problem-solve really well. But looking back, I regret the way I approached my time at McKinsey," he told the publication, adding that he should have been more assertive.

Things that went wrong

1.) Little guidance from seniors

"One of the things I struggled with was the lack of apprenticeship. It's supposed to be a really apprenticeship-heavy culture, but that wasn't my experience," the former associate said. "You're expected to start working from day one. I was there to learn, but it was a frustrating experience because no one was there to teach me... I was alone on an island while my manager drowned in her other work. I felt like I wasn't learning anything."

As a result, he would hear senior-level employees commenting about how the new analysts and associates weren't good because they weren't receiving any apprenticeships.

2.) 'Some associate partners and partners were mean'

"The people at McKinsey were both the best and worst parts of my experience," the former company associate said. "The analysts and associates were all cool, but a few associate partners and partners were mean. They freaked out over mistakes and belittled people's thought processes."

Recollecting an experience, he said that once an associate partner screamed at him in front of our whole team because they thought he was going to miss a deadline. "But I knew I could meet it and didn't end up missing it. I ended up crying," he said.

3.) Massive impact on mental health

The former employee highlighted that his experience of working at McKinsey had such a negative impact on his mental health that he often found himself crying and resorted to taking high doses of anti-anxiety medication. It drove him to finally take a break from work.

"After about a year of working at McKinsey, I took a three-month mental health leave. It was literally driving me to the edge. I just couldn't do it anymore," he said. "I was crying more and taking anxiety medication at a higher dosage than I had ever needed before joining. The week before I decided to leave, I was oscillating between being way too OK, and then crying, and then being way too stoic."

The problems persisted even during the break.

"During my break, I tried to pick up new hobbies and realised that I hated every hobby. I tried to get out of the house more but wasn't really successful because of how down I was. Sometimes, I'd have to hire a dog walker even though I was home because I just felt like I couldn't handle it. At some point, I couldn't even care for myself, so my mom came to town to care for me and my dog," he said.

That's when he decided to quit.

"I decided to officially leave because I realised if working here caused my mental health to deteriorate, why would I stay? Why would I want to be someplace that causes me to be in such a dark place?" the former associate said.

Things that went right

1.) 'The bar at McKinsey was much higher'

The former employee told Business Insider that he got the chance to resolve a lot of ambiguous problems with some great problem-solvers. "The company really goes out of its way to give clients a bespoke experience, as opposed to Big Four work which is more of a plug-and-chug into the same slide situation," he said.

"I had previously worked at another consulting firm, and my experience there compared to McKinsey was like night and day. The work at McKinsey was so much harder, and the bar was so much higher. Everything at McKinsey is just a lot more customised."

2.) Camaraderie

One of his best memories at McKinsey is of an incident that followed one of his worst. After he was humiliated by an associate partner who wrongly assumed he was going to miss a deadline, his teammates rallied behind him and stopped working for the night to cheer him up. "One of my coworkers went and got bottles of wine, and we all drank in the team room; it just felt like a lot of camaraderie," the former employee told the publication.

Currently, he is in a much better mental state and is looking forward to work with companies that care about their employees, value inclusivity, and treat everyone with respect.