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How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

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Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#141

Post by benhurmarcel »

lostlogin wrote: post #133
Bayart wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- when working for a Swedish company, when they extended my contract and said they are very happy to have me but they can't pay me the same rate as my Swedish colleagues (I am Polish). Were you living in Poland or Sweden ? I kinda get that they'd want to pay less if you were living in Poland, considering the cost of living, but in Sweden that'd be scummy as shit.

> I kinda get that they'd want to pay less if you were living in Poland, considering the cost of living Shouldn’t a company pay what a job is worth to them, not based upon what they think the employees costs are? This gets complicated fast as remote work, work from home etc all changes the equation. Does the end customer get to pay a different amount based on their location? From my experience the remote customer usu…

> Shouldn’t a company pay what a job is worth to them

No, they pay just enough for you to accept working there. If your alternatives are worse than your colleagues because you don't have high-paying local options, you'll be paid less.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#142

Post by JackPoach »

piva00 wrote: post #138
JackPoach wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very interesting, because some of your examples do seem toxic or borderline toxic, but some do not. Let's take verbal and physical abuse. Can you tell me specifically what was said? Same with physical abuse. There's no excuse for getting physical, unless there's a reason why force had to be used. For instance, at one corporate party one of co-workers got really drunk and pushed another co-worker (a woman) duri…

Every instance I described was something done in the normal work environment, during day-to-day operations, not drunk people at parties or after work celebrations. Verbal abuse as in: a C-level calling one engineer a "dumb motherfucker, lying to my face" and variations of that over time. An IT manager telling his employees (a team of about 6 people) that they should be grateful for having a job, that as stupid as the…

Yeah, I'd definitely agree with verbal and physical things as toxic, never encountered anything close to that. Now, if one team sabotages other - that's clearly an individual or individual making own immoral choices. I wound't put that on the company.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#143

Post by benhurmarcel »

lmilcin wrote: post #96
MrFoof wrote: post #4

Imagine going into an environment suffering some serious performance issues adversely affecting the day-to-day operations of the business. From initial conversations it seems great. You're asked about how you'd handle, "difficult personalities" a fair bit, but aside from that, seems like you can add a ton of value. In your first days, you exhaustively quantitatively measure the entire operating environment, prioritiz…

I had this happen to me. Walked out after 2 months before completing 3 month trial period. I had a boss who said he is best developer in the world and he meant it. He caused major outage when the code he developed and brought to the company as an asset failed. The code was to exchange SMS messages with an SMS gateway for Ukrainian operator. The messages were sent using mails. That was 15 years ago and not his fault,…

> they can't pay me the same rate as my Swedish colleagues

That's also very common in Switzerland. They know that for recent immigrants, the alternative is going back to their country with much smaller wages, so they can afford to propose less.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#144

Post by [deleted] »

lostlogin wrote: post #133
Bayart wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- when working for a Swedish company, when they extended my contract and said they are very happy to have me but they can't pay me the same rate as my Swedish colleagues (I am Polish). Were you living in Poland or Sweden ? I kinda get that they'd want to pay less if you were living in Poland, considering the cost of living, but in Sweden that'd be scummy as shit.

> I kinda get that they'd want to pay less if you were living in Poland, considering the cost of living Shouldn’t a company pay what a job is worth to them, not based upon what they think the employees costs are? This gets complicated fast as remote work, work from home etc all changes the equation. Does the end customer get to pay a different amount based on their location? From my experience the remote customer usu…

[deleted]

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#145

Post by louwrentius »

bobmaxup wrote: post #92
imperialdrive wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continued: (Was on-site earlier and didn't have time to type the rest as, crazy enough, this was just the beginning of what turned into years of encounters) Before I could react to the printer landing at feet (I was frozen) he yelled almost exactly "Don't you ever fucking walk into my office like that again, G T F O" so I slowly stepped out and shut the door. As I said, it (door) was cracked open, and the entire fron…

Cool story, but why end it gloating over someone else's misery?

Indeed, if you hurl printers at people, there is something so wrong with you mentally, the only fair response is compassion and pity in my view.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#146

Post by bjourne »

piva00 wrote: post #112
lmilcin wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this happen to me. Walked out after 2 months before completing 3 month trial period. I had a boss who said he is best developer in the world and he meant it. He caused major outage when the code he developed and brought to the company as an asset failed. The code was to exchange SMS messages with an SMS gateway for Ukrainian operator. The messages were sent using mails. That was 15 years ago and not his fault,…

> - when working for a Swedish company, when they extended my contract and said they are very happy to have me but they can't pay me the same rate as my Swedish colleagues (I am Polish). As an immigrant in Sweden, this is one of the instances where I'd love a name-and-shame (but it's just wishful thinking, I don't expect or really want you public shaming companies). Simply because I've heard this happening to other c…

It's incredibly common. I knew a great Indian developer with years of experience and a degree from a brand name American university. He was making bus driver money. :) Swedish companies are incredible cheapskates. Swedish engineers doesn't make that much money as it is, but it's still too much for them so they have to import engineers from the third world which they know they can pay peanuts. Wage discrimination is illegal and the unions take it very seriously, but for obvious reasons, not a lot of people want to litigate against their former employees.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#147

Post by underwater »

qftw wrote: post #101
imperialdrive wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Continued: (Was on-site earlier and didn't have time to type the rest as, crazy enough, this was just the beginning of what turned into years of encounters) Before I could react to the printer landing at feet (I was frozen) he yelled almost exactly "Don't you ever fucking walk into my office like that again, G T F O" so I slowly stepped out and shut the door. As I said, it (door) was cracked open, and the entire fron…

Why don't we mandate Huxley's Soma for everyone so all anger is suppressed at all times? Really, this obsessive hunting for displays of anger and ruining people's lives over it and the Schadenfreude makes me wonder who the actual psychopaths are.

The psychopath is the one who threw the printer. Someone who can't refrain from violent unprovoked outbursts is unstable. People shouldn't have to put up with threats and such because that's "just they way they are".

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#148

Post by ianai »

bobmaxup wrote: post #107
ianai wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not gloating.

> He went from partner at a well funded firm to east LA metal salvage work. It was such an amazing feeling. I read it as such. Any specific reason that you disagree?

It probably fits an exact definition of gloating “X experienced Y, and I felt amazed.” But it’s a pretty minimal statement. Gloating, real gloating, requires a bit more verbiage. OP just related what would have otherwise gone known by the reader but unsaid. No one should be held to pure stoicism - especially not when a printer is thrown at them.

OP even later expresses compassion for the person. That’s far from gloating. And before someone intones that that is itself gloating - again, you still need more.

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#149

Post by brabel »

phicoh wrote: post #131
Bayart wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>- when working for a Swedish company, when they extended my contract and said they are very happy to have me but they can't pay me the same rate as my Swedish colleagues (I am Polish). Were you living in Poland or Sweden ? I kinda get that they'd want to pay less if you were living in Poland, considering the cost of living, but in Sweden that'd be scummy as shit.

Why would the cost of living factor in? If I move to a place that has a very high cost of living, then I don't get paid more. Why would the reverse be true?

Do you work in Sillicon Valley? Do you think developers working there are just much better than anyone else and deserve earning 300K+ while the rest of us are on 100K if lucky?

Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one

#150

Post by kijin »

derefr wrote: post #79
ithkuil wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quitting and chosing a better place to work is a perfectly valid way to claw your way to the top. Your top. Not their top. Changing a job is not easy; it requires strength too. It's not always the right thing to do, but it's not necessarily a sign of weakness; au contraire.

Certainly! I’m just making a statement about their expectations — not about the epistemological value of living up to them. (Probably negative.) Still, if you’re born in a country with a machismo based culture, where “opting out” is much harder, it’s good to be aware of what game is being played!

Not only countries, but also entire industries can be like that. As long as you work in a broadly similar industry, you're likely to quit a bad job only to land in an equally bad job.
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