Stanley Fritz discusses what makes up a toxic work environment, and how to get out of it.
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Have you ever had to work in an environment that was just completely toxic? Ok maybe to everyone else it was an ok place to work, but for you, there was just no way to function here and be happy at the same time? Well that was me, on Jan 1st 2013 I started what I thought would be a dream job. By the middle of February I was refreshing my resume in the hopes that I could get the hell out of dodge. In just a little over a month my dream job became a living hell, here is what I learned from this experience.
I like to believe that most people don’t start off hating their jobs. I didn’t. Most of us go into a new opportunity excited about the potential to contribute, make some money and eventually move up the ranks. Sure, you may go into a new job with doubts, it’s a new experience with new responsibilities so it’s totally fair to silently question if you will be able to handle it, to fret over whether or not you will get along with your co workers, hell if it’s your dream job it’s still ok to question whether you will actually enjoy the work. Once you get past those thoughts, it is important to understand how things will work at most places. In my short time as an employed young adult, I have learned that, your experience at any job is a combination of three things.
- What you put into it — This includes how hard you’re willing to work, how smart you’re willing to work, how you will, or will not put yourself in a position for opportunities, how open you are to networking, and the level of importance you put on having a relationship with the people you work with. I’m sure there are more, but these are the ones that I have always found most important.
- The Leadership — Anyone who tells you leadership isn’t important is crazy. No matter how talented of a team you have, if there isn’t someone there who can keep everyone focused, understands the importance of team building, knows when to be stern and when they should let up, knows how to manage the many personalities of the office and has the ability to think critically as well as outside of the box, you will be in trouble. That leader or manager should have a clear vision for where they want to take your organization, as well as what they want from each and everyone working under them. When there is no clarity from the top, the bottom will always be confused
- Office Culture — This is another one that people have a habit of not taking seriously. Office culture is very important. The culture of the office dictates the decorum and and work environment. If you’re someone that strives in an environment where there is an emphasis on team building and collaboration, you may want to avoid working somewhere that likes to pit it’s workers against each other, and has a management that thinks employee development means giving you a 5% discount and not writing you up when you’re one minute late from your five minute break.
In Case you’re wondering, yes my job was exactly like “The Office” well minus the funny/endearing boss part.
If any of these is going wrong, you will more than likely be unhappy. I hated my job for many reasons, but if I had to explain why it was never going to be a good fit, it would be with those three points discussed above. I’ll try to explain:
- What you put in — I like to believe that I gave that job 110% from start to finish, but if we’re being honest, I think it’s fair to say that I was only giving about 60% in the final days. There were a lot of things that attributed to that. Including a lack of clarity on my role and responsibilities, ever shifting priorities, and a manager with the IQ of a 2nd grader. I never knew what I was supposed to be doing, so I spent a large portion of my day trying to look busy but not actually doing anything. There was one week where my main objective was to copy and paste every single email that was sent to me from the company, so that we could email the company and show them how “powerfully we were working in the community”, There was another time where I was told that God would address an issue we were having with an event that was going to be over crowded and understaffed. When I offered to do things, they were usually written off with “I will look into it” or “God has it handled”
- Leadership — There was no leadership at my last job. Ok, I should rephrase that, there was someone in charge, and he had other people on staff who we were supposed to report to. But his office was structured like a real life version of Lord of The Flies. There were technically two people in charge; The big boss, and the Deputy Big Boss. I had a great relationship with the Deputy Big Boss, he was intelligent, straight forward and passionate about the job But the Big Boss wouldn’t let him do his job, he constantly undermined Deputy Big Boss sometimes behind closed doors, mostly in front of the entire staff. He (Big Boss) wanted to centralize control but had no idea what he was doing. This lead to constant meetings where Big Boss would go on for two-three hours about his days of practicing Karate in the ocean, and that time he became BFF’s with Jean Claude Van Dam. Big Boss had no goals for the office, he just wanted to look like he was busy, but didn’t know how to do that. One day the goal would be to build Solar panels, two days later he would come into the office yelling at the staff for not telling him that the Supreme Court had re established slavery. I remember in one meeting he yelled at me because I told a client to email their request (Big Boss wasn’t a hundred percent sure what an email was and felt the internet was stupid).
- Office Culture — This one is pretty simple. 80% of the people working in the company had a deep trust and belief in our boss. A few others and I believed that he was grossly incompetent and should have never been made manager. I had warm relationships with everyone, but if you don’t fit in with the culture and ideology things will never work out.
I left that job in August and eventually found something that was a better fit for me. But I must say I learned a lot in my brief time there. This economy sucks, and because of that many of us will find ourselves in a position where a job offer is sitting on our laps. The world is tough in your twenties, it’s also expensive, and filled with reminder calls from Sallie Mae to Pay your loans. You may take the job because you need the money, or it seems like the foot in the door you need to get going in your field, but don’t be so fast to make that move. Take an objective look at that company or organization, and really ask yourself if you’re a good fit. If not and you still take it, you will be just be as miserable as I was maybe even worse. I was lucky enough to get out and find something better, not everyone will share that fate.
Photo credit: Alessandra Pinna/flickr