7 ms·

If I was back at the start of my career, I would of dismissed this article and told the author to "toughen up". After all, what's a bit of ribbing among co-work

by Humdeee 10y ago

If I was back at the start of my career, I would of dismissed this article and told the author to "toughen up". After all, what's a bit of ribbing among co-workers? Surely she's just being overly-sensitive. Until I had the (mis)pleasure of working with a truly toxic co-worker did my mindset completely change on the issue of bullying, intimidation, and hostility in the workplace. He was a senior guy, decent at his job. But how he was able to change the dynamic of multiple teams was very offsetting. Communication declined, as people didn't want to go near the team that had the guy that was insulting them everytime on a whim. Workplace politics were on the rise. The common denominator was this guy was involved with every issue. Management stayed quiet and attempted to push it under the rug for a bit, but eventually they had to take notice. It was so relieving to walk in one day to him cleaning out his desk. I remember locking eyes with him one last time and giving him a final unspoken send off with a stern glare. He turned the corner and I never saw him again. My co-workers and myself went out for lunch as a celebration. The amount of relief was incredible. It was like starting fresh again. Back to the article, I still can't say I fully understand what this woman went through. But just having a taste of how off-putting 1 toxic employee can be really opened my eyes. I can't fathom having multiple employees or even a manager with that type of behavior. I won't comment on gender or racial issues. Being stressed from work is okay. Some jobs have more stress than others, and at higher frequencies. But being stressed from the people at work is needless stress that compounds on top of the regular work stress that we all accept to some degree when entering a job or role.

Bartweiss 10y ago
Honestly, I think many of the dismissive reactions to these things have a similar basis. It can look like people excusing this behavior, but I think in many cases they've just never seen this behavior. If the worst you've seen at work is friendly teasing and maybe some racy language, it's easy to assume that's what happened and someone is overreacting. If you've seen someone truly corrosive, that assumption changes. There's a world of difference between teasing and toxicity, even if the person doing it is careful enough to use language that could fall into either category. I can only imagine the frustration of writing down someone's comments and thinking "that doesn't look so bad on paper" when context made it clear (often to everyone present) that the exchange was terrible. And on a related note, I think companies that handle these things poorly have misunderstood their incentives. Yes, avoiding lawsuits is important to them, and yes, I can even see why they wouldn't admit there was a problem. But to not take action is terrible - as your story indicates, a sufficiently toxic employee can destroy the functioning of an entire team. Burying an incident may be easy, but it's not a good business choice when you're going to lose good, valuable staff over the issue. (I believe The Dilbert Principle suggested this was the single most important thing a manager could do: make sure this kind of hostility never, ever persisted on a team.)
- wccrawford 10y ago
  I think part of the problem is that it's hard (or impossible) to tell how much someone is exaggerating on the internet. Sometimes the answer really is "toughen up" because what they're experiencing is really nothing. Other times, it really is a horrible situation and people should be fired for it.
  - st3v3r 10y ago
    That's never the answer. Why is it that it's ok to not treat some people with basic human dignity and respect?
    - MaulingMonkey 10y ago
      I'm not entirely sure if you're saying "toughen up" is never the answer, or "firing" is never the answer. Assuming the former: It is entirely possible to misinterpret friendly ribbing or banter as something far more malicious. To assume the worst of someone who genuinely means no harm, and to suggest they should be punished, censored, and shunned. "Toughen up" is perhaps not quite the right phrasing here: It's asking people to perhaps extend the basic human dignity and respect you request of others, to others. Where, perhaps, simply asking them firmly to knock it off, explaining you are finding their jokes hurtful, and giving them the chance to change their behavior, is perhaps more appropriate than forming an internet lynch mob based on assumptions of malice. Treating the other person as a person capable of mistakes or being misunderstood, instead of a gremlin to simply assume the worst of. Assuming the latter: Sometimes you simply can't work through the problem. They may be a toxic individual - they may simply be driven to toxic behavior at this job (perhaps they hate it) - perhaps it's simply a matter of deciding who you're going to keep between two people who simply cannot get along with each other, to the point of causing problems for the rest of the team. Assuming you can fix their issues when they can't isn't treating them with dignity or respect. Leaving the situation to fester and drag on isn't treating the rest of your team with dignity and respect. Firing one or both of them might not be treating them with dignity and respect either - but you've only so many options. But just because you're firing someone doesn't mean you can't at least strive to do so. Wish them well on their next venture, and mean it.
traviswingo 10y ago
Exactly. It's hard to understand sometimes until you've witnessed it yourself. Albeit we are living in a "cry wolf" time, actual harassment is a true issue that needs to be taken seriously. Equality and respect aren't that difficult to achieve, I never understood why people are so corrosive towards others. It makes me happy hearing stories about them getting canned over their childish behavior.
graeme 10y ago
Felix Dennis talked about this type of management behaviour (petty abuse of power) in his book How To Get Rich. He said sick days in a department were a good indicator that a manager was doing this and had to be fired.
iaw 10y ago
> If I was back at the start of my career, I would of dismissed this article and told the author to "toughen up". I think this is the problem, until one works in a toxic environment it's hard to truly sympathize with people that do. How do we broaden our understanding of this phenomenon as a society?
pdeuchler 10y ago
I don't mean to discount your experience, but honestly I don't feel like this is the whole story. At least from what I've seen these sorts of things are systemic issues, and it is extremely rare for such problems to be caused by a single bad apple. Again, not trying to discount your personal experiences or lessons, but I'd just be very wary of assigning scapegoat status to a single person for what is clearly a toxic workplace in general ("Management stayed quiet and attempted to push it under the rug for a bit", "Workplace politics were on the rise", etc etc). Often times this mentality plays to the people in power who are responsible for the lack of safeguards, and when you don't fix the underlying causes you're essentially just relying on HR to filter the "bad apples" out of the hiring practice... and we all know how much of a crapshoot hiring in tech is already. Last, I'd re-examine your impulse to go out and celebrate when this guy was fired. I obviously don't know the details here, but it definitely sounds like an "us vs him" mentality was being fostered, and that could have very well contributed to the exacerbation of this guy's toxic behavior. Often times these sorts of people are just desperate for attention or social contact, and the only way they've figured to get a consistent response from people is to piss them off. Disengaging and relying on "management" to solve these issues very often can make a problem worse. Other times these people can be simply responding to being bullied themselves, often simultaneously, by other groups within the company, or are reacting to problems in their personal lives. These explanations are not absolving them of responsibility for their actions, but it's important to realize that most assholes aren't genuinely bad people, they're just normal humans like you and I who respond to stress and stimuli in a poor way. Going to the guy as a group and discussing his behavior, while uncomfortable, often can be very illuminating and solve issues that would have just festered until someone was forced to be fired or leave. Worst comes to worst you'll immediately realize the situation is untenable at that point, and the solution will be quite obvious. Again, disclaimer, I don't know the specifics here and I don't want to indict the parent, but let's make sure we don't use the above example as a primer on how to deal with toxic colleagues in general.
- Sacho 10y ago
  I believe it's a pit of success vs pit of doom matter. Without a toxic employee, everyone is focusing on work, team cohesion is high, people are encouraged to emulate the good behavior of everyone else, etc. Once you introduce the toxic employee, all of that changes - at first people simply learn to ignore them, but the tension introduced in the atmosphere slowly moves you towards the pit of doom. The stress from having to deal with their toxicity leads to you reacting negatively in a situation where you would have laughed it off; Low-friction problems that used to be oiled by the team's happy outlook now suddenly turn into arguments. The team can definitely beat this trend, self-organize, ostracize the toxic employee and distance themselves from them. This however requires a conscious effort and active participation from everyone. For some teams, that might work, and you might say "they were not just a great team in a well-managed workplace". For others, the influence might degenerate into a spiral of negativity, and you might say "well it was a toxic workplace in general". I'm not sure it's easy to make the determination whether the workplace was "toxic in general" or not, but I know that humans are fallible. Following the pit of success mantra, you don't really want to test whether your team is really resilient and cohesive, instead, you want to make sure that in most cases they don't even have to exhibit conscious effort to work together effectively. Of course, the pit of success takes a lot of behind-the-scenes effort from management. I would be happy to place the blame on them here, although sometimes "the problem" is not obvious and easy to solve.

by Humdeee 10y ago

Bartweiss 10y ago

Honestly, I think many of the dismissive reactions to these things have a similar basis. It can look like people excusing this behavior, but I think in many cases they've just never seen this behavior. If the worst you've seen at work is friendly teasing and maybe some racy language, it's easy to assume that's what happened and someone is overreacting. If you've seen someone truly corrosive, that assumption changes. There's a world of difference between teasing and toxicity, even if the person doing it is careful enough to use language that could fall into either category. I can only imagine the frustration of writing down someone's comments and thinking "that doesn't look so bad on paper" when context made it clear (often to everyone present) that the exchange was terrible. And on a related note, I think companies that handle these things poorly have misunderstood their incentives. Yes, avoiding lawsuits is important to them, and yes, I can even see why they wouldn't admit there was a problem. But to not take action is terrible - as your story indicates, a sufficiently toxic employee can destroy the functioning of an entire team. Burying an incident may be easy, but it's not a good business choice when you're going to lose good, valuable staff over the issue. (I believe The Dilbert Principle suggested this was the single most important thing a manager could do: make sure this kind of hostility never, ever persisted on a team.)

wccrawford 10y ago
I think part of the problem is that it's hard (or impossible) to tell how much someone is exaggerating on the internet. Sometimes the answer really is "toughen up" because what they're experiencing is really nothing. Other times, it really is a horrible situation and people should be fired for it.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  That's never the answer. Why is it that it's ok to not treat some people with basic human dignity and respect?
  - MaulingMonkey 10y ago
    I'm not entirely sure if you're saying "toughen up" is never the answer, or "firing" is never the answer. Assuming the former: It is entirely possible to misinterpret friendly ribbing or banter as something far more malicious. To assume the worst of someone who genuinely means no harm, and to suggest they should be punished, censored, and shunned. "Toughen up" is perhaps not quite the right phrasing here: It's asking people to perhaps extend the basic human dignity and respect you request of others, to others. Where, perhaps, simply asking them firmly to knock it off, explaining you are finding their jokes hurtful, and giving them the chance to change their behavior, is perhaps more appropriate than forming an internet lynch mob based on assumptions of malice. Treating the other person as a person capable of mistakes or being misunderstood, instead of a gremlin to simply assume the worst of. Assuming the latter: Sometimes you simply can't work through the problem. They may be a toxic individual - they may simply be driven to toxic behavior at this job (perhaps they hate it) - perhaps it's simply a matter of deciding who you're going to keep between two people who simply cannot get along with each other, to the point of causing problems for the rest of the team. Assuming you can fix their issues when they can't isn't treating them with dignity or respect. Leaving the situation to fester and drag on isn't treating the rest of your team with dignity and respect. Firing one or both of them might not be treating them with dignity and respect either - but you've only so many options. But just because you're firing someone doesn't mean you can't at least strive to do so. Wish them well on their next venture, and mean it.

traviswingo 10y ago

Exactly. It's hard to understand sometimes until you've witnessed it yourself. Albeit we are living in a "cry wolf" time, actual harassment is a true issue that needs to be taken seriously. Equality and respect aren't that difficult to achieve, I never understood why people are so corrosive towards others. It makes me happy hearing stories about them getting canned over their childish behavior.

graeme 10y ago

Felix Dennis talked about this type of management behaviour (petty abuse of power) in his book How To Get Rich. He said sick days in a department were a good indicator that a manager was doing this and had to be fired.

iaw 10y ago

> If I was back at the start of my career, I would of dismissed this article and told the author to "toughen up". I think this is the problem, until one works in a toxic environment it's hard to truly sympathize with people that do. How do we broaden our understanding of this phenomenon as a society?

pdeuchler 10y ago

I don't mean to discount your experience, but honestly I don't feel like this is the whole story. At least from what I've seen these sorts of things are systemic issues, and it is extremely rare for such problems to be caused by a single bad apple. Again, not trying to discount your personal experiences or lessons, but I'd just be very wary of assigning scapegoat status to a single person for what is clearly a toxic workplace in general ("Management stayed quiet and attempted to push it under the rug for a bit", "Workplace politics were on the rise", etc etc). Often times this mentality plays to the people in power who are responsible for the lack of safeguards, and when you don't fix the underlying causes you're essentially just relying on HR to filter the "bad apples" out of the hiring practice... and we all know how much of a crapshoot hiring in tech is already. Last, I'd re-examine your impulse to go out and celebrate when this guy was fired. I obviously don't know the details here, but it definitely sounds like an "us vs him" mentality was being fostered, and that could have very well contributed to the exacerbation of this guy's toxic behavior. Often times these sorts of people are just desperate for attention or social contact, and the only way they've figured to get a consistent response from people is to piss them off. Disengaging and relying on "management" to solve these issues very often can make a problem worse. Other times these people can be simply responding to being bullied themselves, often simultaneously, by other groups within the company, or are reacting to problems in their personal lives. These explanations are not absolving them of responsibility for their actions, but it's important to realize that most assholes aren't genuinely bad people, they're just normal humans like you and I who respond to stress and stimuli in a poor way. Going to the guy as a group and discussing his behavior, while uncomfortable, often can be very illuminating and solve issues that would have just festered until someone was forced to be fired or leave. Worst comes to worst you'll immediately realize the situation is untenable at that point, and the solution will be quite obvious. Again, disclaimer, I don't know the specifics here and I don't want to indict the parent, but let's make sure we don't use the above example as a primer on how to deal with toxic colleagues in general.

Sacho 10y ago
I believe it's a pit of success vs pit of doom matter. Without a toxic employee, everyone is focusing on work, team cohesion is high, people are encouraged to emulate the good behavior of everyone else, etc. Once you introduce the toxic employee, all of that changes - at first people simply learn to ignore them, but the tension introduced in the atmosphere slowly moves you towards the pit of doom. The stress from having to deal with their toxicity leads to you reacting negatively in a situation where you would have laughed it off; Low-friction problems that used to be oiled by the team's happy outlook now suddenly turn into arguments. The team can definitely beat this trend, self-organize, ostracize the toxic employee and distance themselves from them. This however requires a conscious effort and active participation from everyone. For some teams, that might work, and you might say "they were not just a great team in a well-managed workplace". For others, the influence might degenerate into a spiral of negativity, and you might say "well it was a toxic workplace in general". I'm not sure it's easy to make the determination whether the workplace was "toxic in general" or not, but I know that humans are fallible. Following the pit of success mantra, you don't really want to test whether your team is really resilient and cohesive, instead, you want to make sure that in most cases they don't even have to exhibit conscious effort to work together effectively. Of course, the pit of success takes a lot of behind-the-scenes effort from management. I would be happy to place the blame on them here, although sometimes "the problem" is not obvious and easy to solve.