What to Know When Dealing With A Toxic Work Environment
Photo Courtesy of Mimi Thian via Unsplash
Imagine you’d wake up around 6 a.m. to begin your morning routine: workout, take a shower and pick out your cute clothes to go to work (or put on a boring uniform :P.) You get to your office to answer emails, but the atmosphere is different from a few months ago since you started this job. It feels unwelcoming, it feels like whatever you say or do is wrong, and it feels as if you’re not doing a good job at your work. Your colleagues seem to be cordial in front of you, but when you’re not there, it’s a world of petty gossip, rumors, and schemes.
At this point, what do you do? How do you react? How do you find a way to confront these people without starting a fight, being gaslighted and reported to HR, or even fired?
This was an environment I dealt with when I was editor-in-chief and let me tell you—it’s not pretty dealing with cattiness and people constantly talking behind my back trying to fire me as their editor-in-chief. The problem was that these individuals couldn’t communicate with me properly or in a civilized manner about any concerns they had, especially when I emphasized communication among the team. My former colleagues also failed to realize that if they fired their leader, the whole team fails regardless. While I loved being a leader and my time at that publication, my doubts during my job search got the best of me.
Thankfully, I now work in a professional newsroom with people who have more work experience than me. The stories they shared, the willingness to help, and collaboration over competition really do help me grow as a journalist.
Toxicity can be challenging to identify with people you’re working with because it doesn’t happen abruptly. When you wind up in that situation, it seems like the only solution is to quit your job–which can be the hardest thing to do. However, before you make a big decision to quit, here are some tips to know when dealing with a toxic workplace.
What to Know
Competition Makes it Harder to Work with People.
Ambition is a great quality of a person, but a person who is constantly trying to one-up another creates hostile competition. Competitiveness can sometimes be good since it rewards the person for hard work. However, it can bring unfairness to others. While a person can compete with someone else on a certain project, what is the accomplishment of the learning experience everyone can take away from? An accomplishment that everyone can all be equally rewarded for is easier than animosity.
People Will Always Have a Negative or Positive Perception of You.
I couldn’t control how my colleagues were growing into their roles, nor I could control what they thought of me. This is crucial in how employees can carry themselves in front of others. While every work environment should be openly friendly and professional, people’s perceptions of how a person comes off them and others will always be judged. Keep in mind, that is their problem, not yours.
Business, Organizations, or Clubs Should NEVER Brand Themselves as “Family”
In my professional experience, this foundation creates toxicity and favoritism. It’s nothing wrong with being friends with some co-workers. However, there is a boundary co-workers should follow. Don’t give people your full trust when discussing personal or professional matters. Employees can betray each other for their own personal gain. The workplace needs to train employees to build a certain boundary or a middle ground where individuals cannot overstep a line. In this way, conflicts and negative relationships do not have to happen.
Personal Issues Should Not Interfere with Professional Issues
We all have personal issues mentally, physically, and emotionally that we face on a daily basis. As I recall, a boundary between work and personal matters needs to be put into place. If you’re dealing with relationship, family, or mental health issues, keep them out of your workspace unless they are truly interfering with your work. Other than that, don’t let a personal issue bring out a side of you that affects the people you work with.
Stay. In. Your. Effin’. Lane.
Please stay in your lane, worry about yourself and the work you’re doing. There’s no need to interfere with anybody else’s business or project unless they call you for it. The more you focus on somebody’s else project or work, the more you create problems for yourself. If someone is getting in your lane, confront them in a professional and civilized manner (i.e. use your active voice: I feel that there’s been tension lately…). There’s a strong chance the reason why they want to interfere with what you’re doing because they can’t directly confront you themselves. Focus on what is best for YOU and ONLY YOU.
There is no such thing as a perfect workplace since every workplace will always be toxic in some aspects. The best thing you can do is to control what you can control. Keep these tips in mind, take the lessons you learned, and be proud of your accomplishments.
As always, good luck. Till next time.—Paula J.P.