An Indian job seeker claimed their cold message to a US tech founder took a shocking turn, sparking an intense online debate about workplace toxicity. The candidate claimed that after reaching out about an open engineering role, they were bluntly warned that they would have to completely sacrifice their work-life balance. To make matters worse, the CEO allegedly stated that the ideal hire must leave their ego behind, as they would be told they are "dumb" almost every single day.The candidate asked on Reddit if such remarks were a common practice at the workplace. (Representational image). (Pexels)“Is this thing getting super normalized in India ? (a US CEO messaged me this btw),” a Reddit user wrote. Adding context to the statement, the individual continued, “I've been unemployed for months now and tried cold DMing a US founder, he replied almost instantly and he seemed interested in me, when I asked him what's the daily scope of work he replied to me with this.”Also Read: Told he’d never get a job because of his ‘thick Indian accent’, he is today a successful CEO in the USThe candidate further alleged that the CEO asked them to forget about work-life balance and warned that they could be called “dumb” every day.“We're looking for engineers. For do you need to be willing to sacrifice work life balance, i.e. you won't have one. If you need to know infrastructure really well. and you need to be excellent at learning and writing code. And you can't have an ego cause you'll get told that you're dumb and need to learn almost every day.”After laying out the conditions, the employers allegedly said, “If you're interested, let me know.I'll put you in touch with the hiring management.”What did social media say?An individual posted, “Came across a few such people who believe their company is some unique snowflake and does rocket science.” The OP responded, “A lot of folks are pretending to be it; I don't know how people are comfortable working there.”Also Read: Indian man lists himself as CEO of US startup in prime example of gaslightingAnother commented, “Tell him you are ready to sacrifice everything, provided he gives the same salary as him and the same equity!” A third expressed, “We Indians have spent way too many years being conformists and bowing down to power. It's always as if we are looking for our next boss instead of a job. This mental conditioning and lack of free will cost us one day. Why can't we chill for a moment? Like, life isn't that serious; we're all going to be dust one day.”A fourth wrote, “I've been working for an American who was born to Indian parents... It's 100% True. He said there are 1000 of Indians begging for jobs and calls us idiots. That's how most of them treat us.”(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. Hindustantimes.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)