Once upon a time, I worked at a tech startup that was headquartered in Silicon Valley. When I started my job, I had no manager. I didn’t know who would approve my paid time off (PTO). I had no onboarding schedule, no one set to train and mentor me given I had zero experience in this industry. I came in at my scheduled time on my first day in the satellite New York office, and they were NOT ready for me. I had no assigned seat and my computer was apparently not scheduled to arrive via Fed Ex for at least a few more hours from our headquarters. People awkwardly looked at me, a few introduced themselves, and that was really it. I asked a colleague what people typically did for lunch; he responded most people went out to buy lunch but would bring it back. After some hesitation, he offered to go out to lunch with me. And now, he’s actually my husband!!

Anyway, it was not a very welcome first day, and it gave me a taste of what I would expect in the coming months. A lot of the work had to be self-learned. A few tried to teach me and guide me in the right direction. The person who was supposed to sign off on my PTO barely even looked at my PTO requests and would just sign off on them. Though she was supposed to be my manager in name, I can count the number of times we actually had a conversation on one hand.

That’s the danger of working at startups that are truly “starting up,” especially if you are an entry-level worker. These types of places define “lack of structure” and “self-teaching,” and depending on your personality, this could be a good or a bad thing. But hey, when people talk about the glamour and glitz of working at a startup, somehow, they forget to mention situations like these.