Toxic Workplace - Blog Posts
The Cost of Staying
Sometimes it’s not that you didn’t want the job.
It’s that you wanted it too much. And now you're floating down some corporate river. Toward the wrong end of The Waterfall (TM).
You worked too hard. Put up with too much. Got good at things you never thought you’d be good at. Found your rhythm. Found your people. Maybe even started to believe you belonged there.
And then it changed.
Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was always like this and you just finally let yourself admit that the cost was too high.
That staying meant watching someone else get away with it. That staying meant shrinking a little bit each day. That staying meant carrying your own silence like it was professionalism. Like it was maturity. Like it was strength.
But here’s the truth no one wants to put on a poster: Sometimes leaving is the only way to protect yourself.
And that doesn’t mean you failed. It doesn’t mean you weren’t strong enough. It means the place wasn’t safe enough.
And maybe that’s not the ending you deserved, but it’s not the end of your story either (the waterfall).
"They're not harassing you. That’s just how they talk." Oh okay. I’ll just rewire my nervous system so it understands context.
Career change (nervous breakdown optional)
Feels like a Friday post. But you can on Saturday too if you want.
Either way, you want to chase the hat.
NGL leaving my job after was terrifying.
No backup plan and no health benefits. Just me, a spiked nervous system, a trashcan LinkedIn bio I abandoned circa 2017 with honours.
I spent the first two weeks crying, I did that. Then reorganizing my fridge, using a lot of Windex around the house, checking my email like a raccoon checking dumpster locks. Nothing came. And sigh.
No word from HR. But the world didn’t end. My old boss didn’t send an apology or even a passive-aggressive emoji. Just hot red radish silencio ad absurdum. For a while.
And then something weird happened.
I started sleeping again. My shoulders unclenched for the first time in six years. One day I laughed. Can you / I believe it? Like really laughed. And it was not a coping mechanism sliding into an entropic spat of sob sobs.
It turns out walking away from a place that gaslights you into thinking you were the problem can be the best career move you have ever made.
I’m still broke and scared and still always figuring it out. But at least now when I cry, it’s not because I’m being slowly turned into spirals of flesh-coloured chaff in the old pencil grinder gig 'conomy, know what I mean?
Anyways, freedom’s weird. I think I want to hesitatingly and forcefully recommend it.
“You’re so calm during conflict.”
No babe, that’s dissociation. We all bring our talents to the table...
You're still here
Maybe you still talk about it like it wasn’t a big deal. Maybe you laugh when you tell the story. Maybe you change the details each time, depending on who’s listening. Maybe you say “it was weird” instead of “it was wrong.”
Sometimes, survival looks like contradiction. Like forgetting on purpose. Like trying on different words until one of them feels safe enough to hold.
You don’t owe anyone a neat version of what happened. It was messy. You’re still here. That’s the truth.
The performance review said you were “pleasant under pressure.” You thought about telling them it was acting. But why ruin a standing ovation?
“You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding.”
When she reported it they told her she was brave
Then they made her remote
Harassment doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it laughs. And sometimes it just watches to see if you’ll flinch...
Fish outta water....
We need more walkable cities. I am so tired of my transportation turning to aquatic life. It’s so inconvenient.
“You’re overreacting.” Me, about to liberate the galaxy AND the breakroom.
Women In Tech: A Relatable Story?
Hey everyone,
I'm a 31 F, working at an architectural design firm. I will keep this short because I am pretty upset and I know it will just turn into a big rant if I don't.
I am newer there and lower level - junior designer slash BIM tech. But I have a degree and am frankly overqualified based on past experience and my skill set. We have a few Slack groups divided up by project, job and client. I'm on most of them because I am a newb, they have me bouncing all the time from thing to thing. So I get to see most of the messages across the company.
It's almost all men. 30s to 50s. I am one of two women in the entire place other than cleaning staff. I almost didn't take the job because of that but I have a kid and student loans and can't not keep my pay at the level it was.
My secondary work computer is a laptop and it was stolen a few weeks ago. It wasn't backed up so I lost a lot ofwork and had to redo it. It took a lot of extra time. This caused delays and a headache with two big clients and my project leads and boss have treated me like absolute shit ever since.
After that the running joke on Slack about “diversity hires” has been getting out of control.Nobody has said they mean women specifically but all the details about what happened with me have been mentioned very clearly. The have gone as far as saying it's so sad how the company is “lowering the bar", that this is why the economy is so bad.
The supervisors are on these threads too. They steer clear of that stuff but they don't stop the constant jabs either. Based on their treatment around the office I feel like they actually hate me. I can't go to them. The owner is the biggest douchebeg of them all.
We are all contractors I think so there is no HR. It's "in the works" they tell me.
The other woman I work with has become an ally and a friend through this and we want to get out of there but yeah we can't afford it. We want to resist. But there is nothing to do about it. Sick to my stomach of the backward slide things are taking, women are becoming second class citizens again.
Want to burn the place down. Nowhere else is hiring where I am.
Sorry if there are men on this thread I know you are not all the same but sorry sometimes it feels like you are.
I am so frustrated I want to scream.
Ready to quit your job?
How To Decide If You Should
From the series "Civilizations", 1983 - by Vitaly Butyrin (1947 - 2020), Lithuanian
You get punished twice — once for what happened, and again for how you react.
Anxiety isn't drama...it's data.
Chiharu Shiota: Stairway (2012)
You are not imagining it. If something feels off, it probably is. Doubt is part of the pattern. So is denial.
To Report or Not To Report...that is the eternal flaming highway wreck of a question.
It is something that happened to you.
It is something that can have a big impact on you.
But it was not because of you.
And it doesn’t define you or your self-worth.
Learn more
Kiki Smith: Nuit (1992)
Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.
-Carl Jung
