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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

#151

Post by SyzygistSix »

practicalpants wrote: post #87

I don't understand why the author casually says Basecamp "burned it all down". Basecamp took action to set a culture they believed would help them succeed long term. Is having a tough conversation with employees that risks offending some of them burning it all down?

Basecamp/37Signals was by most accounts a profitable and great place to work for at least 20 years. Most orgs would do well to get to that situation in the first place. Few companies get to fall from that perch. Folks whose only takeaway from Basecamp is a warning story missed 90% of the lessons.

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

#152

Post by ianai »

underwater wrote: post #147
qftw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

People definitely shouldn’t put up with threats. Period.

But psychopaths turn their emotions on and off. They would have a violent, unprovoked reaction if it fit some goal of theirs. Thats the opposite of someone who can’t contain a violent outburst. Just to go on a tangent.

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

#153

Post by ianai »

louwrentius wrote: post #145
bobmaxup wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really? You think the rational and common reaction is to express compassion and pity for the person throwing the printer?

I wouldn’t throw printers at people. For one thing, they might throw it back. For two, I don’t violently attack people…

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

#154

Post by snovv_crash »

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?

It's the feeling of vindication that perhaps there is some justice in the world.

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

#155

Post by moistbar »

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?

It's hard not to gloat over the misery of someone who, guaranteed, caused at least as much misery to multiple other people.

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

#156

Post by moistbar »

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.

> obsessive hunting for displays of anger and ruining people's lives over it

The man ruined his own life by being an absolute maniac. He has nobody to blame but himself, and to make it out to be a witch hunt is at minimum obtuse and at worst acting as an apologist for dangerous behavior. If throwing a printer at someone who's pleasantly introducing themself seems reasonable to you, please, I beg of you, never work anywhere. It's for everyone else's safety.

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

#157

Post by jdhendrickson »

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 was bitten on my chest by a male co-worker with enough force that if I had not been wearing a shirt he would have bitten a chunk out of my chest.

He was not fired or even reprimanded. Like literally bitten. This was while working for Brit Systems.

I was so shocked I just froze. I believe every word you wrote because I too have seen some things. That was the worst (and sadly not only) physical assault, some of the mind games and toxic personalities in this industry have to be seen to be believed. Don't even get me started on the founder that would try to break up his first employees marriages so they would move into his house and focus on work because the rest of their life just imploded (he then pulled some chicanery in regard to the stock options right before they vested, clawed most of them back and the people who sacrificed everything got nothing, HE however became a multi millionaire).

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

#158

Post by AlwaysRock »

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,…

> I had a boss who said he is best developer in the world and he meant it.

He was the best developer in his world.

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

#159

Post by tnzm »

ianai wrote: post #153
louwrentius wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Really? You think the rational and common reaction is to express compassion and pity for the person throwing the printer? I wouldn’t throw printers at people. For one thing, they might throw it back. For two, I don’t violently attack people…

The rational and common reaction is to duck.

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

#160

Post by blaser-waffle »

phibz wrote: post #69
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've been in a position where my abilities vastly out stripped those of the rest of the team. I was insecurely seeking praise and adoration by fixing as many problems with the code as quickly as I could. The mistake, in my opinion, that I made was that I did it alone. I didn't communicate with team and work with them at their pace. I blasted ahead and did all the work myself. And it didn't win me any friends. They we…

> I've been in a position where my abilities vastly out stripped those of the rest of the team. I was insecurely seeking praise and adoration by fixing as many problems with the code as quickly as I could.

To paraphrase someone else, you "disrupted the gentle surface tension of the market" by working at a difference pace than everyone else.

The team can be slow, or fast, or whatever, but if you're incongruous you're gonna have a bad time...

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