Toxic Spaces
This post is personal to me because I write about something that I'm intimately familiar with - workplace trauma. I speak of my experience working at a toxic company as well as offering some advice to anyone who may find themselves in this situation.
ANGERMENTAL HEALTHBUSINESS
S Young
2/2/20244 min read
I thought I would write about something I've been experiencing lately as it relates to, what I believe to be, unethical and unsustainable business practices. I’ve been living in the same apartment for almost nine years now and over the years the property has changed hands a few times. The transition of ownership was fairly seamless each time until the last one that took place about five years ago. My first experience with the office staff was a negative one and it only went downhill from there, as did the level of service, maintenance, and overall aesthetic of the place. The customer reviews for the property also tanked. Yet the same staff remains employed and they don’t appear to be getting any training to improve the way they manage the property, so it continues to decline. It’s hard to watch because this property was once lush, clean, and well-maintained.
What bothers me most though, isn’t the inconvenience of a bathroom that’s been broken for months, nor is it the fact that the hallways are often littered with food wrappers and cigarette butts left behind by folks that use the heated stairwells as a place to shelter for the evening. What bothers me is how unfriendly the office staff has been as I’m trying to get repairs done. It really put a lot of things in perspective for me and I began to see something that filled me with unease. I was diagnosed with PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder after working for a narcissistic and manipulative manager. I was unable to work for over two years as I attempted to heal the trauma. The nature of PTSD and Depression caused me to dwell and ruminate on my work experience. I laid in bed for months as dark thoughts and superannuated fears ricocheted around in my head. I feel lucky to be here today and I’m in a better place now, yet still, some days are hard. Some days I think everything is pointless and I have to remind myself that there is beauty and kindness in the world, even when I’m unable to see it. Ultimately, I decided that I didn’t want to return to the workforce at all so I started my own business - and this blog. For me, it was dehumanizing to be treated so callously by another human and the anxiety and isolation that I felt while working there still lingers. The capacity that some people have within themselves to act with such cruelty will always astound me. When I’m around people that radiate that negative energy it puts me on edge. Before therapy and learning how PTSD symptoms could cause my limbic system to go ‘offline’ and my thoughts to become chaotic, being around that type of energy would make my brain sort of dissociate from the moment – my heart would race and I would panic and start speaking jibberish - my brain would struggle to put words together to form coherent sentences. Later, once I’d calmed down, I’d find that I had blacked out and wouldn’t even remember parts of the interaction at all. It led to a few embarrassing and some frightening experiences. I’m getting better at managing my PTSD, but often, when I’m around that type of energy it’s easiest to just walk away. I've learned from past failures that trying to rationalize with a toxic person is useless as their proclivity is to react defensively and emotionally, rather than processing the information to devise a logical solution. This reactivity will prevent them from hearing any argument that isn’t their own. It has made trying to get my apartment repaired extra trying. It makes me wonder though, if one of the reasons for poor maintenance is because the staff is unmotivated to work. Sometimes I will see the maintenance guys just walking around with a leaf blower. Maybe they are just demotivated to the point to where they want to give the appearance of working while not actually doing anything. Our current work zeitgeist has coined several terms for this approach to work – quiet-quitting, bare minimum Mondays, lazy girl jobs...all different ways of conveying an employee’s desire to only provide these types of workplaces with the most minimal effort - to only give them what they pay for. It’s the ROI they earn from how little they value their workers. People don’t want to work for companies that don’t appreciate them. Feeding into a greedy corporation with time and energy, helping it grow and thrive, watching the CEO get richer while entry level employees are living on government benefits isn’t something workers want to, or have to, suffer through anymore. With the rise in acceptance of remote work people have more and better options and these places will likely find it harder to maintain staff.
For anyone that may be working at a job like this, I hope you are able to find a new job soon. Your mental health is more important than your job and your employer isn’t worthy of the value you provide. Find a company that will appreciate you, offer you stability, and the ability to grow your career. While you’re looking for a better opportunity do what you can to protect yourself – keep a work journal that you can use to record dates, times, and details of interactions. Unfortunately, we can’t always recognize which companies are going to be a drain on our careers, but it’s getting easier as some of these companies are calling themselves out publicly by insisting that people return to the office or get suspended, demoted, or fired. The pandemic caused a shift in the way we work and most people don’t want to go back to the office for good reason - I'm far from the only person who's been exposed to workplace trauma. A lot of employers are adapting to the hybrid work model because they understand that if they want to attract and retain talent today then they need to provide an alternative to office life. While others are showing that they need to maintain a level of control over their employees- maybe to be able to peer over their shoulders to micromanage their day.
True leaders can lead remotely – it requires some adjusting and learning, but it’s worth it because the more comfortable you can keep your team, the more loyal they are likely to become. I think some places think that if they treat their employees too nicely they will become insubordinate and walk all over them making it impossible to get actual work done. I’m not saying that’s never happened, because it probably has, but it‘s definitely not the norm, so just be good to your employees. Pay them a livable wage, listen to their needs, and let them know their efforts are valued – more often than not, you will find that you create a loyal employee who will be motivated to work harder because they value you too.