Trustworthy and loyal friends and colleagues have been difficult for me to find. It seems that so many of us who struggle to get where we are pull up the ladder behind us instead of helping uplift each other.
How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
71–80 of 209 posts
Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Man, that's so sad. I don't even know what to say, but hope you can find happiness somewhere.
Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
#73Earlier 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…
This reminds me of the “chair incident” story I read a long time ago. Maybe someone will know what I’m talking about. It was something in the game industry and I don’t remember the details but I know a chair was broken such that one of the legs was broken off to form a “shit your pants” style point and one person held it while two other guys held the uncooperative victim by the arms and leaned him right over it so th…
Ah, good old Ballmer, I miss that guy...
Steve Ballmer, when CEO of Microsoft, was said to have thrown his chair at an employee announcing they would leave the company to work for Google back in the mid-2000s.
It is a bit of an urban legend. Ballmer himself denies that has ever happened (https://www.businessinsider.com/steve-ballmer-i-didnt-throw-...) - but he was eccentric enough (just google "developer dance") that people considered it plausible.
Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
#74Imagine 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…
> You report the incident to who you are directed to report into and are told to, "man up."
Given that you also mention further down a dev getting punched, I think this statement was code for “if you don’t like what they’re saying, you should just shut them up.”
Machismo-driven cultures are confusing until you realize that everyone is just expecting you to literally physically assault your way to the top, and is just annoyed with you for seeking peaceful resolutions rather than immediately jumping to violence / intimidation. In such societies, (public) peaceful resolutions lower the social status of both parties making them!
Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
#75Earlier 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 guess inkjet printers are good for something after all! Was there any reason...why he did that?
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 front of the office was a large single pane of uncovered clear glass, so it's not like he was on the phone or I walked in on something.
For certain half the floor heard it, but not a sign of life in the hallway of about 12 other offices. I immediately walked straight to manager/CFO's area and rather calmly (in shock) explained what happened. It was short and sweet as was the experience. He apologized and said to please not worry about it or take it personally, that the person was simply/unfortunately "like that" and best to leave him alone and forget it ever happened, and that he would talk to the CEO about it to have him put in a word. I'm professional, I had worked Hollywood for long enough to know of his type (first time experiencing anything like that though) so I remained calm and treated this like a test and said "no problem, never happened."
The story made its way around the office and people simultaneously joked about it while saying they were sorry about the experience too, and echoed my manager's advice to leave him alone. Fast forward about a year and one day he was gone. No one talked about it. I'm guessing the company finally got enough on him to terminate without worry of blowback. He was a partner and probably had a decent contract in place.
Now, something like 5 years after that (I had moved on to greener pastures) I was out front of a community volunteer bike shop chatting with the team. They were sticking around after-hours to let a metal salvage person take away some old/rusted inventory. A beat up old van with metal junk piled on the roof parks nearby and who walks out and over to us?? It's the guy, I recognize him instantly and as his eyes meet mine I say with a big smile "firstname-Fuckin-lastname, how the hell are ya!" and this time he is frozen, turns right on a dime, and starts power walking back to the van. I follow saying something like hey hey, come back, no hard feelings, but he must be so embarrassed he runs the rest of the way and jumps in the van and peels off. I heard he never came back to that shop again. He went from partner at a well funded firm to east LA metal salvage work. It was such an amazing feeling. I do feel for him though. As someone pointed out in comments he very likely had a mental or drug related issue. What a wild world.
Signing off.
Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
#76Earlier 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…
> the guy immediately grabbed his desktop inkjet printer (one of those old half dome Epsons) and hurled it at me, crashing at my feet Seems odd… what’s the rest of the story?
I shared it below in reply to another comment :)
Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
#77Imagine 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…
> You report the incident to who you are directed to report into and are told to, "man up." Given that you also mention further down a dev getting punched, I think this statement was code for “if you don’t like what they’re saying, you should just shut them up.” Machismo-driven cultures are confusing until you realize that everyone is just expecting you to literally physically assault your way to the top, and is just…
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.
Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
#78Toxic workplaces are enabled by everyone, not just a few people. When something unacceptable happens, make a decision that even though it didn’t happen to you this time, that’s not the kind of place you want to work. Don’t make other peoples problems your own, but stand up for them.
And most importantly, realize that if you can’t quit a job for reasons even if you witness something terrible happen, you’re not an employee, you’re a slave. Cultivate the resources and make life decisions so that no job is too good to quit, no income stream too important to lose.
And from time to time, when it’s necessary, use that wealth to protect yourself and people around you. Be able to go to your boss or your CEO or your HR department and be able to say “this is unacceptable, fix it or accept my resignation”.
A lot of bad things still happen to people (women, minorities, people who are really invested in their career, and more) in part because there isn’t that feedback of people standing up and walking out... too many people are too afraid of standing up for what’s right or losing income.
Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You report the incident to who you are directed to report into and are told to, "man up." Given that you also mention further down a dev getting punched, I think this statement was code for “if you don’t like what they’re saying, you should just shut them up.” Machismo-driven cultures are confusing until you realize that everyone is just expecting you to literally physically assault your way to the top, and is just…
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!
Re: How to survive a toxic workplace and how to avoid creating one
#80Imagine 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.
no it is not, not managing them properly, is usually the indication of not experienced leadership...
bad employees (could be a decent person, but just a bad fit for the team), might affect a team, but they shouldn't affect a whole department if the management team knows what they are doing.