Toxic Workplace

Outrageous Tales From My Toxic Workplace

It’s too late to leave my toxic workplace because I‘ve been working there for more than 20 years!

After working for a company for the past 27 years, I realized that OMG, I am caught up in the middle of a toxic workplace.

My workplace is a small company. There are about 25 of us, many of whom are older than 50, and we’re generally in our late 40s and early 50s.

Though the company has been around for a long time, it’s always been a small company with a small company mentality.

Its culture runs contrary to its mission and vision statements, which have long since been abandoned. Yet the pay is excellent with lots of growth opportunities and advancement. Unfortunately, it has become a breeding ground that attracts toxicity.

Despite the toxic culture, many of us have trudged through and remain faithful long-term employees.

One day, in 2017, I went on vacation, and when I came back, I came back to a company in transition. A company on the verge of turmoil. A company whose trajectory would be forever changed.

We had a new General Manager, and one of the partners was in the process of a hostile takeover.

Subsequently, he was successful in his bid to take over. But after he took over, his lack of leadership skills became evident. After that, it was a slippery slope from there.

The new General Manager turned out to be a typical” snake in a suit” (to fully understand my reference, I recommend reading Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Dr. Paul Babiak, Dr. Robert D. Hare).

The new owner had no direction, leadership or business acumen. This would eventually change the company’s culture, leading to problematic hiring practices.

There’s a lot of interpersonal drama in the workplace. I personally have been on the receiving end of the following, in no particular order:

• A “staff meeting” where people were yelling at the top of their lungs, screaming, and threatening one another.
• The owner screamed at me, and then he tossed his phone in a fit of anger onto the floor then kicked it across the room.
• I was told that I am a “bitch” and a “cunt” for investigating an incident reported to me in my role as Human Resources Manager.
• I was threatened that people from a not-so-nice part of the city would come and break my car windows because I was investigating a warehouse staff for theft.
• I was told that I was incompetent and an “idiot.”
• Today, I asked another employee to call the police, as I was being threatened and insulted and told to “go fxxk myself in front of the company owner.

For the first time in my life, I felt unsafe at work.

The list goes on and on.

My employer wants the employees to be happy, but he doesn’t really care how they get there.

The toxic workplace is not just a problem at my workplace. The best way I can describe it is that it’s cancer. It permeates every aspect of the company, and it’s spreading.

My boss is the CEO. But he refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem. He also refuses to fire anyone for fear of paying severance or termination pay. Or dare I say, he doesn’t want to pay.

He also refuses to accept responsibility for what’s going on, and he blames everyone else for the “drama.”

He also refuses to take any accountability for the things he’s done. And he refuses to change the culture of the workplace. But how can he, because in doing so would be an admittance of guilt, and that something is amiss.

You might ask, but Janice, why have you stayed there so long? I have a lot of reasons.

One of them is that I’m hoping for change. Or even I am afraid of change. Call it naivety, but the reality is that change can be a scary thing.

Another reason is that I’m fearful of the unknown. I know that the only way to get out of this is to leave. But, leaving the known for the unknown scares me. I don’t know what the unknown holds. I don’t know what the future holds.

And so, for now, I continue to hold onto hope. And I pray for a miracle.

What’s the worst that can happen?

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