3 ms·

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 system

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.
Stryder 10y ago
Good leadership can have the power to stop a good amount of squabbling between teammates, simply by spreading their view point and guiding people through tough situations. You seem like a good leader. I felt more stressed after reading the original post, but I felt a lot less stressed after reading your comment. I hope you use the way you think to lead and do good.
Humdeee 10y ago
It's not the whole story, as I can't speak on behalf for the toxic employee, nor on behalf of the manager's. However, there's not much use dissecting it, as it serves to represent many months of multiple employee altercations with this individual summarized into a paragraph. To be frank, I was part of and witnessed a smaller role compared to others, as I prefer to keep my head down and work, and not participate in office politics. Regarding the lunch, it was something we often did when we were feeling cheerful. Most, if not all had a reason to be plenty cheerful by the time lunch hit, but I digress. It turned out to not differ from a normal outing. It was the defining topic of discussion, of course. In this case, I think catering to the notion of trying to "fix" someone this toxic who is bringing others down in hopes of rehabilitating their work behavior is a lost cause. He had numerous chances and it was unanimously understood that work life would be easier for all without his presence. I believe you are very right in stating that this shouldn't be a primer. Thanks for your response.

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.

Stryder 10y ago

Good leadership can have the power to stop a good amount of squabbling between teammates, simply by spreading their view point and guiding people through tough situations. You seem like a good leader. I felt more stressed after reading the original post, but I felt a lot less stressed after reading your comment. I hope you use the way you think to lead and do good.

Humdeee 10y ago

It's not the whole story, as I can't speak on behalf for the toxic employee, nor on behalf of the manager's. However, there's not much use dissecting it, as it serves to represent many months of multiple employee altercations with this individual summarized into a paragraph. To be frank, I was part of and witnessed a smaller role compared to others, as I prefer to keep my head down and work, and not participate in office politics. Regarding the lunch, it was something we often did when we were feeling cheerful. Most, if not all had a reason to be plenty cheerful by the time lunch hit, but I digress. It turned out to not differ from a normal outing. It was the defining topic of discussion, of course. In this case, I think catering to the notion of trying to "fix" someone this toxic who is bringing others down in hopes of rehabilitating their work behavior is a lost cause. He had numerous chances and it was unanimously understood that work life would be easier for all without his presence. I believe you are very right in stating that this shouldn't be a primer. Thanks for your response.