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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

#51

Post by runawaybottle »

Thinking you have friends at work is a mistake of youth. It is what it is. Most people will barely have any real friends in life.

It’s a job that sustains people’s livelihoods - spouse, children, house, parents, dreams, future ...

It’s super unhealthy to be best friends forever with anyone at work when it comes to this, mainly because everyone is playing for high stakes. If you are a true friend, never draw people into your own bullshit. You think a place is a toxic environment, fine, but there’s 10 other people that can fucking manage it and have other goals with what the job provides.

Eg ‘Since we are friends, and I don’t like so and so, I expect you to not like so and so’

Get over yourselves, this shit pays the bills. I’ll see you at badminton practice or something, but ain’t nobody friends on that level at work other than pure dumbasses.

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

#52

Post by 01100011 »

throwaway823882 wrote: post #15

I have been one of the toxic persons in a workplace. I was young and immature and an ungrateful arrogant prick. Not saying I'm totally reformed now (I still have my moments!). But every so often I see a little former-me running around. After a certain point I stop them and ask them to please calm the fuck down, because they are acting fucking nuts. That can sometimes result in a 180-degree behavior change (especially…

Sometimes the people aren't toxic, they're just encouraged to be that way by the management and company culture. Lots of younger engineers have only worked at a single company and don't have the benefit of experience. Always good to assume the best, even with a highly toxic person.

At my current company there really isn't a technical promotion track. You either get into management or stagnate. That's created some unfortunate situations where excellent technical contributors with poor personalities keep slamming up against the invisible wall preventing advancement instead of being encouraged to stay technical. Also, weak management allows minor technical disputes to turn into all out wars. Pretty sad. Good for me I guess, as my aging brain's best contribution seems to have been in moderating the conflicts.

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

#53

Post by diragon »

bedobi wrote: post #7

> how to survive a toxic workplace Don't! Cut your losses and move on. Life is too short to spend any significant amounts of time around toxic people, no matter the context.

If you advance in your career steadily, at some point you will be at a place where you are responsible of fixing toxicity if it exists/appears.

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

#54

Post by ryandrake »

mgarfias wrote: post #18
bedobi wrote: post #7

> how to survive a toxic workplace Don't! Cut your losses and move on. Life is too short to spend any significant amounts of time around toxic people, no matter the context.

You won’t always have that option. In ‘02 I ended up taking a job as I had been out of work for 9 mos, it paid 1/2 of what I was earning previously, and that was just the start. But, I had no other options at the time. It took 2 years to gtfo, and the next place was minimally better (I got ptsd from pager noises there). So, yeah, learning to survive a toxic work place is a good thing. I have some health problems now…

I did the same thing. During the ‘08 to ‘10 recession, took a job that I probably shouldn’t have, but had to because I was financially at the end of the rope. At least I identified it as toxic pretty quickly and took the first life raft a recruiter threw to me once hiring picked back up!

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

#55

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway823882 wrote: post #15

I have been one of the toxic persons in a workplace. I was young and immature and an ungrateful arrogant prick. Not saying I'm totally reformed now (I still have my moments!). But every so often I see a little former-me running around. After a certain point I stop them and ask them to please calm the fuck down, because they are acting fucking nuts. That can sometimes result in a 180-degree behavior change (especially…

[deleted]

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

#56

Post by treeman79 »

imperialdrive wrote: post #10
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…

My first day of work many many years ago I did the usual (for me at least) and stopped by each office (before open floorplans were widespread) to introduce myself. The very first office the door was cracked so I knocked and slowly opened it a bit more to give a friendly "hello" and the guy immediately grabbed his desktop inkjet printer (one of those old half dome Epsons) and hurled it at me, crashing at my feet due t…

Started a new medication some time back, Plaqunial.

Turns out a very rare side effect is it makes you psychotic.

The kind where sweet old grandma would come at you with a kitchen knife and dance on your grave in glee.

Was extremely angry for months on it, but didn’t realize it was the medication.

Then since it was working so well on my condition, completely life changing. The doctor doubled it.

Was not a good week. Out of a job a few days later.

So not an excuse for tossing a printer, but on that med it was a constant battle to not explode.

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

#57

Post by tikhonj »

mastrsushi wrote: post #9

Can someone name companies that aren't like this? I've worked at 3 places and feel like I'm doomed.

I've worked at a few different teams between some startups and Target, and I can tell you that the variance team-to-team is massive. I've been lucky to avoid anywhere that's been truly toxic, but even just at Target there's been a big gap between one team that was basically perfect and I enjoyed both work and life immensely and a different team that, while not awful, has definite problems and resulted in unnecessary stress.

So not much concrete to say except that great teams do exist, might come up in surprising places (I never expected to find one at Target!) and that team-to-team variance swamps company-to-company variance. It's a complicated function of your immediate team and manager as well as upper management and broader company culture.

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

#58

Post by gabereiser »

giantandroids wrote: post #31
gabereiser wrote: post #19

Oh man, the worst are those that pretend to be benevolent but end up firing you after a vacation. The one who writes memory-bloated code, who keeps state around, that loves to cross types has the gaul to do a single performance review after 8 months to criticize your code quality and fire you. (Recent experience) Or how about the one guy that shouts at people when they ask ANY question on why things work that way, re…

I am very much working class / (blue collar) in my upbringing. Raised by single parent in a very run down area with a fair amount of poverty. I luckily found an early love and curiosity for computers and eventually found my way into software engineering. If this had not have happened god knows where I would be, when I look at where my friends have ended up. I learned quite early in my life, that if someone picks you…

Dad? lol, you basically describe myself as well. I have zero tolerance for brilliant jerks or arrogant assholes when all I want is to solve a problem. Like you I came from a very blue collar upbringing and I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for my complete and utter obsession with computers in the early 90s. Confrontation doesn't have to be destructive. It's also a great way to gauge another person's motivations and desires. Just remember to treat everyone (even your enemies) with respect.

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

#59

Post by drewcoo »

duxup wrote: post #14

I feel like I didn't get anything out that as far as the title goes. I just got a lot of "be loyal to each other before being loyal to Kelsus" and "Kelsus" and that's kinda empty. Being "loyal" to your friends can be just as much a recipe for bad choices as good as far as I read it...

Also known as "empire building." And also toxic.

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

#60

Post by justatdotin »

cbozeman wrote: post #32
bourgwaletariat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is the problem. Unprofessional, low-quality employees think employment is "king of the hill," when really it's "tides lift all boats." It only takes 1 person in a company of a hundred to completely destroy it. Allow one psychopath into your company and it'll go bankrupt or otherwise defunct within just a couple years. These folks are afraid. They know their performance is substandard. They exist by hiding t…

This literally happened to me today. I left my shitshow of a job because I finally got fed up with the petty favoritism, backstabbing, inability to deal with conflict in a reasonable and adult manner, and just plain poor management. And I legitimately felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

congrats.
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