Q: What if you find yourself in a truly toxic work environment?
A: My advice is to get out if you can. Toxic situations make you emotionally and physically sick. It can take years to recover. Have a good support network in place, limit your exposure with that toxic boss and stay under the radar. Adopt a survivor mentality until you can get out.
I was a manager under a toxic director, so I had the added pressure of making sure my team was all right. After most of them had found positions elsewhere, I finally left.
At my first job, I was incredibly unhappy due to various reasons. I started looking for a job, and because I was already under so much strain from the current job, it took almost a year to find a new job. If I had waited until the breaking point, it would've been even more difficult to find a job due to having to recover from the first job, and then slog through almost a year of applying.
This isn't to scare people about the job market. But it's called a market for a reason. It's okay to have something today and look around for something better, even if what you have now isn't the worst thing ever.
The last couple places I left, I had offers up to a year or two before leaving but weighing cost-benefit, stayed at that time.
It's better to have the option than not. And interviewing is truly not that much work. You don't have to be perfect. The less you need the job, the less the interview process should stress you. We call this "opportunistic interviewing".
You can emphasize to the recruiter/HR/interviewer when pressed that - actually I'm happy where I am at the moment, but I am always up for a conversation and this sounded like it could be an interesting opportunity.
You may find companies even respond more favorably in the interview process to you when you are somewhat aloof in this manner. You will also make connections with companies who may touch base from time to time to see if now is a better time to make the jump.
This is infinitely better than having zero leads and feel like your life is going to hell before you even start looking.
I agree with what you've said, but word of caution, this has to be handled with a bit of finesse, I think. I almost got passed over for a job because I said this and gave the recruiter the impression I wasn't that interested.
I had a acquaintance on another team who mentioned it to me, and I did a little "damage control" with the hiring manager. I got a great offer in the end -- and it was a great job -- but without that contact I would probably have whiffed it.
It really depends on the company and role and person. In some situations there can be years of conversations before somebody makes the decision to accept.
It's like the other side of the coin of people who are super paranoid of getting fired if your boss finds out you are interviewing. If you are providing value, being a flight risk (within reason) increases your value not decreases.
You don't want to be so obviously foot out the door that they are looking for your replacement, but being the happy, uncomplaining soldier is not going to get you optimal raises/promotions.
By that point you are so far in the hole that the new shop raise is unlikely to make up for lost gains, and you are likely so desperate you are going to take whatever is on offer.
Also, if you run at the first sign of trouble, it's hard to really accomplish anything (or learn many things actually, since a lot of learning is failing and trying again). It's also expensive for the people managing you/teaching you and the org in general.
Those are the things people are concerned about when they talk about job hopping.
For anyone reading this - if you have a pattern of moving every 6 months, or a year - and it's consistent - there may be underlying issues (mental health, interpersonal problems, unrealistic expectations, lack of skills/fit to the role) that would be helpful to address. Long term, it is pointing to problems that are likely holding you back professionally, and may also make it more enjoyable being you if you worked on them.
That said - every time I've started a role or a job and said to myself 'this is terrible I should leave, but.... it's only been x time and I want to give it at least y amount of time' (where y was 6 months or a year), I've regretted it. The last time I had this happen, I knew I should leave literally 2 days in when my new manager cut short my supposed 3-6 months ramp up time to throw me directly into a particularly hard external customer negotiation issue.
I ended up burning out and damaging my reputation doing so trying to 'give it a try' - a year and a half later.
It's a balance. Look for patterns.
Or, maybe you are perfectly healthy to leave crappy jobs and not stick it out to pad a resume.
Or, maybe you chose the wrong career and need to rethink a pivot to a different vocation?
I'd dread Sunday evening. The morning drive to the office was always filled with a sense of impending doom. The finger pointing during "stand up". The end of the world when a TPS report didn't have a cover sheet, and mandatory meeting to come up with yet another new process to prevent future disasters.
Eventually I just said fuck this and gave my two weeks notice.
I had a mortgage, was the sole earner in my family, and had nothing else lined up. I was scared, but so relieved to never have to go back there.
One week later I was offered a job with a much better company and environment, for significantly higher salary. My only regret is not leaving sooner.
So although you might find comraderie in other wage workers hating their life, still recognize that it is toxic and there are other realities that you are entitled to be in
I just quit my current job, and I told myself that I will quit in less than 6 months if I don't like the new gig. Never again.
Still took me way too long to put 2 and 2 together and leave...
I know of a workplace where the boss is "verbally abusive" by white collar coastal standards (a real peace of work by blue collar middle America standards and a teddy bear by drill sergeant standards) and over the years people have cycled in and out and the people who've stayed are the ones who just let it roll right off and they're a really effective team.
You may need to pare down your expenses a lot prior to quitting but that's why you quit. You trade your toys in exchange for your well being
Yeah, there's a subtle problem here:
- coworkers are a self-selecting population, that are likely OK working there.
- coworkers are probably over-represented in the people you talk to... and LISTEN to.
- people you do not work with "don't understand" (in theory)
I will say one thing:
Every time I've left a job... Every. Time. ... I was really conflicted about leaving.
Then, a week or two into the new job... Every. Time. ...I thought, "Wow! I should have done this sooner!"
Agreed, I think a hallmark of toxic situations is that from the outside it's obvious how bad they are and from the inside it's hard to see.
As one former colleague said, "Nobody who left X ever wanted to go back."
We have really drastically lowered the bar for what gets called "toxic", "dangerous", "harmful" or even "violent". This has happened steadily and with increasing speed over the last ~3 generations, in my subjective observations.
I think the pendulum has swung too far with emotional and (now increasingly) ideological/theoretical safetyism.
It will be interesting to see where the middle ground is, or whether it just results in collapse of competence and output. I hope I'm wrong but over time it feels like the latter is where we're heading.
I think that's ok. I think we can find ways to interact, collaborate, and work, that don't tolerate behaviours we wouldn't find acceptable in a social setting. I think raising the bar for acceptable behaviour is a good thing.
And while people will abuse this (both intentionally and due to personal struggles), It's not like people weren't abusing things the old way too.
I would rather have people take advantage of an _intolerance_ for toxicity than have people take advantage of a _tolerance_ for it.
I was his last remaining employee.
It took me two weeks to formulate a decent “fuck you” but I came to the conclusion that what remains unsaid is sometimes more effective than what is said.
Worrying about the narrative some asshole is going to spin about your departure just puts you in their power - which is why they do it. The folks on the line generally don’t care, certainly not to the extent that should let someone control you in a toxic environment.
Those who left are often oblivious its happening too.
The only ones who ‘leaving’ hurts is the ones who are enabling the bad environment. For everyone else? It’s just another day.
Don’t fall for the BS, you’ll be worse off for it later and regret it. But make sure you have a plan and a backup option. Rage quitting when you’ll be bankrupt in a week is dumb.
The best I could do is to very quietly tell them "This is garbage. I'm looking. You maybe ought to be looking, too." (I guess the other thing I could do for them is to tell the actual truth in my exit interview.)
That being said, I didn't wait until my exit interview to raise hell, I mean, the alarm.
I also put clear criticism into his upward manager review. I later found quotes from that in my own review how in blaming him. That stuff was supposed to be confidential...
If you were a good performer, you can probably just go back to same the job later if you change your mind as well, and if they don't want you back because they're being immature, then it's probably to your benefit not to return.
Hmmm... well, I won't say that I necessarily regret it, but I was a bit trigger-happy in job-hopping right after college. It was the late 90's and programming jobs were REALLY easy to find, so if there was literally anything I didn't like about the job I had, I'd just go get another one. I ended up with four jobs in four years - and then when I decided to bail the fourth time, interviewers started noticing that I'd never been at one place longer than a year. I adopted a three-year policy after that - I'd keep a job for a minimum of three years before looking for another one. Even so, this actually came up during an interview (for a job I didn't get) just a few years ago even though it was 20 years in the past.
I'm not sure that's true. It's pretty common to have people regret initiating breakups. I have certainly experienced being very unsure if breaking up had been the right choice.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/gy79yy/men-tend-to-struggle-...
But, I also dislike that a majority of advice on workplace and toxic people is basically "run away or enable it". Sometimes people can actually influence how much damage narcissist do and how far narcissist will grow in company.
There is little advice on how to communicate and protect yourself when toxic person is peer and you have some power over situation. Or how to report the situation in a way that will make impact, how to recognize who to report to, how to communicate in a way that will make situation transparent for third parties.
Even getting a peer level narcissist neutralized or managed out can easily take 1-2 years of consistent, coordinated daily effort.
What else can you do with your career or personal life with that type of effort?
And I think that it is not just about "fight". It is also about things like verifying information, not covering up for them unnecesary, not lie for them out of politeness, keeping written record, talking about problems etc.
You never know exactly who the abuser has in their corner within management. You never know the professional networks that exist if you work in a smaller niche. Once you've decided to go after someone toxic in management, you better not miss... and even if you don't, you may not want to make a habit of it.
I am generally against the idea that a long, open campaign against a specific more senior individual is likely to succeed.
Often times the supervisor of toxic managers are very aware of their toxicity but accepted it either as a tradeoff or in some cases actually like it.
A lot of these guys will burn it all down on the way out too.
I worked in a team that was having 40% annual turnover for 5 years. In the final year the toxic guy 3 levels up C (A->B->C) forced my boss' boss B to fire my boss A, then fired the firer B a couple weeks later. Finally when this was all over C himself resigned a couple months later.
Given his seniority and the time it takes to find a job at his level, he knew he was going to leave when he forced the final culling. He let A&B stay around for 5+ years and then when he knew he wouldn't have to face the consequences.. he whacked them and resigned.
Apparently the replacement for C is worse.. because the CTO all the way at the top is.. into that.
> It strikes me as an employers problem to fix their toxic workplace, not lower level employees.
There are only few attempts to put workable advice for them too.
And what advice is there for them, it focuses on making our possible to report stuff, maken it possible for them to leave teams and otherwise use own agency.
Plus honestly, the super passive stance does me damage to you psychologically. Learning to control just a little feels better and causes less damage to you.
> . Once you've decided to go after someone toxic in management
As I told, successful harm reduction I have seen did not involved "going after him" as if you was bull. It involved setting boundaries, reporting stuff, keeping records etc.
Bonus points, you meet abuses everywhere, in any big enough company and social group.
That all said, don't be a dick about it.
I recommend not doing what I did. If it’s a bad fit, get out. It’s damaging.
But management doesn’t have to be a five star psychopath to be incapable of correction from below. This is one of those times where simply desiring to act in bad faith and the societal backing of management makes a direct report or worker unable to counter the bad faith actions in any meaningful way on average. I’ve done it, I know how to do it, and it takes an incredible amount of wisdom and luck to pull off.