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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

#61

Post by paganel »

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…

> are those that pretend to be benevolent but end up firing you after a vacation.

This happened to a close friend of mine relatively recently, both the "benevolent" and the "firing after the vacation part". I cannot understand such tactics.

In the end it was much better for said friend the way things turned out for him, but right when it happened it was a shitty situation to be in, because you just don't understand why that is happening to you.

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

#62

Post by elSidCampeador »

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…

1-2 of these employees is enough to sink a department, or worse, an entire company.

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

#63

Post by goatinaboat »

diragon wrote: post #49
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've seen a grown man, extremely well educated, data scientist make a fellow data scientist cry. I've. Seen. Things. Data scientists seem to be on a level of their own when it comes to disrespecting colleagues. I've been surprised by this recently.

Data scientists seem to be on a level of their own when it comes to disrespecting colleagues. I've been surprised by this recently.

Pretty much every developer, when brought in as a replacement, will bad-mouth their predecessor, say their code is junk and needs to be totally rewritten, etc. Managers love it and encourage it, to them it's a divide and conquer tactic. Data scientists just take it to the next level, that's all.

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

#64

Post by amarant »

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…

Damn I thought my last workplace was bad, but it was nothing compared to what you describe.

I did get told off by the boss for fixing someone's compilation errors(that they had force-pushed to master, deleting a week of my work) but he didn't scream at me.

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

#65

Post by goatinaboat »

runawaybottle wrote: post #51

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 in…

Thinking you have friends at work is a mistake of youth. It is what it is.

It's OK to enjoy the company of your co-workers, to socialise with them, you can have some fun and memorable experiences with them. But you have to understand that there is a hierarchy, the job is what pays the money that supports a person's family, and if siding with a co-worker in a dispute with a manager would jeopardise that, then the outcome is entirely predictable.

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

#66

Post by taurath »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #30

Yeah I never did the 'take the team with me' thing but I wish I had. I heard great things from people I've met randomly who work as a team and go together to a new gig. Sounds like a lot of fun. Is it too late for me. I am > 40 and tried of the industry. Well, you know, tired of "industry" in general and the workers/company conflict that naturally arises. Reading that linked thread about BaseCamp - and I won't give m…

It feels like with how relatively arbitrary and complex the hiring process is in companies nowadays the “take people with you” thing doesn’t happen as often. Even people I know who are absolute top performers anywhere don’t necessarily have the giant raft of interview-only skills. Having been in tight relationships at work I’ve still yet to see a team member leave and take anyone with them, except between management, where it’s happened frequently. I believe when you’re a manager or director it’s much easier to interview using job skills you use on a daily basis than as an engineer, where you need to focus on abstract puzzles.

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

#67

Post by aroundtown »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #25
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'm not going to name names, but companies like this that normalise bullying and overwork to the point of staff breaking are not the norm. Thinking about my own experience and the people I know, this would describe at most 25% of jobs (most of that being overwork).

Unfortunately for some of us, it seems like every place we go is toxic. I've had nothing but terrible experiences every place I have worked as a programmer. I've been out of the game for a bit because of health issues, but I do not look forward to trying to find work again. To be honest, I feel like that person who has been in so many abusive relationships that they give up on dating all together.

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

#68

Post by raverbashing »

procombo wrote: post #46
imperialdrive wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I once had a colleague throw his wireless mouse at me because of a windows automatic update during crunch time. Apparently did not expect me to throw it back. We're still friends. ------ Also reminds me of the day I picked up an xbox one for my team. We were traveling and it was cause for a little change of pace. We were going to play a zombie shoot em up game. They plugged it in, and first thing the damn thing did w…

Yeah I think your anger with the game was justifiable

"Yes please let me download the whole game again because the developer is too cheap to use any kind of incremental upgrade and if you're buying an XBox you have the fastest internet connection available right? RIGHT?"

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

#69

Post by phibz »

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 were angry, very angry. They thought I made them look bad and I was being negatively critical of their work. They got defensive and stopped listening to the why and how of my changes.

When there's a huge skill impedence mismatch between you and the team of your peers you especially need to consider their feelings. Had I approached the situation by reaching out and explaining my ideas in a way that they understood and guided them along to the solution, I would have had a different outcome. They needed to be part of the solution even if I didn't agree with them completely.

I needed to accept and believe in myself and not go looking for praise from them. I needed to recognize that they spent their own time and effort on this work. Maybe they were lazy, maybe they didn't know better, or maybe they were too busy to write a performant solution, but the work was partly theirs and I needed to consider that. The best way to do that was to talk to them and listen.

More recently I have been more guiding and taken the team with me to a solution. I've had much better success with this. Sure it's slower. Sure I ended up with work that was good but not exactly how I wanted it. But I gained something I hadn't expected: a stronger bond with the team, knowing they would listen to me and I to them, and that we all respected each other. We also ended up producing better work as a team.

I'm not saying any of this to discredit toxic work environments. I've been on broken teams before where everyone is turned against each.

Part of the responsibility for this lies with the leadership individuals who matched someone with skills out pacing the rest of the team, placing them as a peer on the team. They should have considered the team dynamics they were creating.

You can help reduce the toxicity of your work environment by considering your impact on a team and how you work with them. Being "right" about the work is seldom the only factor to consider and does not absolve you of ignoring the thoughts, ideas, and feelings of others.

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

#70

Post by Griffinsauce »

bourgwaletariat wrote: post #8
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…

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…

Your comment relates it all to bad performance. That doesn't cover the "brilliant asshole" problem though, do you think we should allow such behavior for people who show good (personal..) results?
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