What’s It Like To Work In A Company With A Broken System
It’s chaos!
If you are a business owner, I hope you put this into priority internally. I’ve been there, and it’s not pleasant at all. Many left the company as soon as they get the chance, and the ones who stayed because they had no choice became snappy as the office turned into a toxic culture.
I know we should be appreciating the job we have, especially these days. But how long can we survive with our mental health if the toxic gets into our heads and slowly degrading ourselves?
I want to share with you the signs of a bad system in a company, usually, it’s what leads to a toxic culture. And if you are an employee, I hope this will help you so that you don’t have to go through what I did.
1) Lack of internal communication
This is usually the core of the problem. Most businesses I’ve been told were underperforming because no one is communicating with one another. When this happened to me, I became so angry because I wasn’t even warned.
Here is an example, you have a manual book. But the manual instructions aren’t complete. As the result, you couldn’t use the product at its full potential. That’s similar to putting your money to waste. Now, this is similar to work when there is lack of communication.
Like….no one even bothers to inform us about certain ways to work on a project. I had to look for the information myself from many different people to the point that it goes ping pong. No one is informed about what is going on or what we were supposed to be doing. Your tasks are just hand over to you again because you missed something that you weren’t informed from the start.
2) Your previous tasks are still hanging
This is very frustrating. Absolutely ridiculous and time-consuming.
When this first happened to me, I thought that it might be not happening much. However, it kept happening nearly daily to the point I get frustrated to meet that person who asks for the same stuff over and over again. Like, I could’ve finished it on time, it kept getting delayed because the instructions weren’t clear.
Sadly, when this happens, I’d get into fights with colleagues. Turning the situation to office dramas.
It takes a lot of energy to be called for the same reasons over and over again, and it’s not pleasant. I know it means that we must be more careful, but how are we supposed to avoid that from happening again when the instructions aren’t clear? If this keeps happening, our productivity will just drop drastically, leading to my next point…
3) The energy is fading
When things get frustrating, we just can’t bear to work again. It drains the energy to do the same thing over and over again, with no clear instructions and not enough information to work on the tasks.
I used to be upbeat at work, ready to take on any challenges. My colleagues would tell me that I am seen smiling a lot. But suddenly, when the system changed, and there were no clear instructions, my usual energy faded. My colleagues would ask me, “what’s wrong? where’d your energy go?”.
If they weren’t older than me, I would snarkily say, “That’s thanks to this company that my energy is gone.” But I simply said, “Well, ya’ know. Work caught on.”
When I said that, they told me the same thing as well. They told me how work is just draining their souls slowly to the verge of breaking down. I’ve seen some of my colleagues let out their emotions by crying in the office when they thought no one is watching.
It’s just heartbreaking to see this.
And when they had had enough, the worst will happen, leading to my final point….
4) Frequent resignations
This is the end result. We got fed up, and leave. I’ve received resignation emails nearly every month with at least four-five people leaving the company. When I asked why, most would tell me that they had had enough.
I’ve seen the best people who have worked hard to contribute to the company and left in a short period of time. Not because they are bored, but everything became too overwhelming for them. They just can’t find their purpose anymore, all because of an unclear system.
The take
If you see these signs in your :
- Your previous tasks are still hanging
- Lack of internal communication
- The energy is fading
- Frequent resignations
It’s best to sound your internal alarm. Because once you are stuck, you just don’t know when you can clean that gum off your shoe.
Would you still want to work in that toxic place or would you dare to solve the problem? Sony had this problem back in 2014, and in the end, they lost too many competitors.
