What a Hostile Work Environment Really Means

I don't have my job because I want it. I don't put numbers in a computer because it's something that I enjoy. I don't like helping a corporation buy and sell goods that I don't care about. I have my job because I need it. And therein lies the danger that capitalism as laissez-faire as we have it right now causes.

My job provides health insurance. It's not great, but it's better than nothing, and better than what I had before. My job makes it so that I can pay rent. I don't know how much more clear I can make it that if I could survive without it, I would quit in a heartbeat.

But I can't. So here we are.

Almost a year ago, I was contacted by a recruitment agency after having lost $4,000 in an employment scam, and at this point I was desperate for anything that might give me a glimmer of hope of getting me out of the massive crater of debt in which I had dug myself. At least something to help me survive. I had been job hunting for almost three months. I was so relieved that someone was willing to hire me, I looked right past the first red flag: that the building was shitty and run-down, and probably violated all kinds of safety standards, let alone accessibility standards.

That was all fine. Better than retail, I was sure.

It was my first time working in an office, and I had a lot to learn. So much, in fact, that I was horribly overwhelmed and fell behind on a lot of my work because of my prominent avoidance mechanism that kicks in at any sign of anxiety. It didn't help that the person who trained me had a month-long leave of absence about a week or two into my employment, and I was so deathly afraid of coming to my boss with questions, and I didn't know who else to ask, that a large pile of problems accumulated on and around my desk.

The fact that that wasn't grounds for immediate termination as I had expected (or as it would have been in a similar situation in the ruthless world of retail) soothed my anxieties immensely, despite the fact that I worked on figuring out that pile of problems for weeks.

I'm a fast learner, and I have a mind for efficiency. The more I learned about the functions of my job, how to differentiate the subsections of my responsibilities, and why it is that my department does what it does, the more I attempted to reorganize myself and my workstation to better get things done.

But apparently my organization wasn't correct. Because it wasn't the way that my boss liked it.

I have PTSD. One of my biggest anxieties that comes from this is the fear that I don't really own anything, that personal space doesn't exist, and that my self and the environment that I build around it isn't truly mine. A very simple way to activate this trigger is by taking things from my spaces without asking, or at the very basest level, notifying me. Especially when I'm not there.

I came into work one day to find everything on my desk moved around drastically, and several things that I was working on missing, with no notification of their new location.

I was scolded later that day for having things that were past due (which was valid) and for not organizing in such a way that it would make it easier for someone to find something of mine that they were looking for (which was questionable).

After I got used to my job enough that I could work quickly and get everything done in a timely manner, I ended up having a lot of free time on my hands to do nothing. My discontented brain, in desperate need of stimulation, employed my curious, nosy, eavesdropping manner and caused me to notice things that I wouldn't if I had been distracted by a satisfactory amount of work.

I noticed what other people were doing. I noticed the imbalance of responsibility.

I noticed favoritism. And I noticed bullying.

Over time, I discovered that the majority (approximately 15 out of 19 people) had been in my department for less than two years, and that my boss had only had her position for about that length of time. And that turnover since she started had been immense.

Something can probably be said about the fact that 2 out of the 19 people in my department are men. Stereotypes suggest that in that kind of environment (i.e., one dominated by women), gossip and passive-aggressive bickering would be rampant. Possibly luckily, possibly not so, that kind of behavior and that kind of environment bothers the crap out of me.

So I listened. I heard people complain about the same exact things from different angles, and I had fueled their respective fires enough in individual conversations about work that I had not only seen exactly how these people felt, but also probably inadvertently made them more upset about it. That last part was probably a mistake. But I was also upset.

The first step I took was to put something in the "suggestion box" that my boss has available for our department meetings. A meeting happened, and the problem that I put in the box was addressed - but only in the fact that we were told not to complain about it.

Later, I was also told that somebody else had put something in the box, and it was completely ignored.

So the "suggestion box" was useless.

I was eventually asked to train someone. Amazingly, after having been working there for seven and a half months, they decided that I had enough relative seniority, and understood enough about the functions of the department, that I was qualified enough to train someone.

After I had trained her, my boss decided that almost half of my assignments would go to her.

So I was left with nothing to do but to come up with some kind of plan.

So I did. I took a couple of days to formulate an overhaul of the department that, from my perspective, and based on the things that I knew, would increase productivity and lower overall stress. I printed off a couple of copies of this proposal, which was only a first draft, and secretively gave them to some people who I knew were as frustrated as I was, if not more so. I asked them to give me feedback.

A couple of days passed and the only things that I got back were the fact that it was admirable that I had done this.

Then there was a meeting. Only the people who had been working there the longest, excluding the two men, were invited.

We sat around a table in the conference room for an hour and were berated for "gossiping".

Several people voiced some frustrations, but none of it was surrounding the things that I knew were problems. The subject was gossiping, because my boss and her right hand were paranoid that people were talking shit about them personally. Therefore, anybody who said anything mostly just said things about how gossiping was indeed bad, and fingers were pointed at the two men in the department who (by sheer coincidence of individual behavior) made everybody uncomfortable.

I knew this wasn't the source of the frustration. But I wasn't sure how to bring anything else up, at least in that setting.

So, after that meeting, I arranged a private meeting with my boss to discuss my proposal.

It didn't go as well as I'd hoped, but I felt heard, and I felt like my opinions and viewpoints were somewhat considered. I got my point across, and my boss and her right hand understood the basis of my arguments. They said they'd think about it.

It's been approximately one month since they said they'd think about it. The only thing that's changed is the fact that I have basically been left alone, and nobody has been breathing down my neck like I felt like was the case previously.

But most of all, the overall behavior and attitude hasn't changed.

One of my coworkers is being bullied by the management, for the pure and simple reason that they don't want to fire her.

She is a single mother with two dependent children, who is going to court as the plaintiff of a domestic violence case. Understandably, she's had to adjust her hours and make up a lot of time that she's missed because of her children's needs. Her son has a learning disability. Their father is physically abusive. They need their mother.

Despite her unpredictable attendance patterns, she is not lazy by any means. Her work ethic is admirable, she's an amazing multitasker, her communication skills are incredible, and she gets shit done.

Initially, they tried to phase her out. They gave all her previous work to a new hire without any sort of notification, a few days before giving her an ultimatum: that she go part-time (and therefore lose all her benefits), or quit.

She refused to go quietly.

She accepted part-time, because she needed some sort of income with which to support her children. She kept working, and she kept working hard. She has been doing everything asked of her to the absolute best of her ability, and she has been doing it well.

They ran out of things to scold her for, so they started scolding her for doing things that everybody else is allowed to do. Answering personal phone calls regarding her children or from her lawyer? Not allowed. Short, friendly conversation with another coworker? Nope. Not dropping everything and doing every task she's assigned the moment it's assigned to her, even when she's in the midst of doing something else? Unacceptable.

Another one of my coworkers (one whose work ethic and Get-Shit-Done capacity I also admire) has had persistent medical issues recently, and has been in and out of the doctor's office frequently as they tried to figure out what was wrong with her. She had to have an emergency medical procedure done, which put her out of the office for a few days. When she got back, she notified my boss that she would have to go back to the hospital soon as a follow-up, to monitor her condition. She was told that if she missed another day, she would be fired. And that her taking personal phone calls "all day" (which is just plain untrue) was unacceptable.

All around me, people are bullied. They feel denied, unappreciated, smothered, stifled, stepped on, used, degraded, and belittled, every single day. Sure, nobody is in danger of physical harm, nor are they in danger of sexual harassment. But hostility is not just physical. The psychological warfare that happens every day in my department is capable of causing emotional damage. And it has.

It's no secret that favorites are played. Two of my coworkers are family members of people in charge and are never berated nearly as badly as those who aren't. And even though it seems like I am one of the favorites, I see the unfairness in it. I see the frustration and the unhappiness and the stress.

Maybe I'll get in trouble for posting this online for anyone to see despite the anonymity. But, though I don't want to lose my job because I still need health insurance and I still have to pay rent (my living situation, although not the same as the last one, is a different kind of hell altogether), I don't particularly care. I've done all I can do, and nothing has been done.

I am tired.

Everybody is tired.

~*~

 

Right now in my life, the urge to run has never been stronger.

 

It's natural for me though; I am the personification of an avoidance mechanism. I run from any sign of conflict. Always flight, never fight.

 

Where I am right now, the only escape from conflict is on my commute to and from work. I'm gone 12 hours a day at a job that's nothing but stress, and then I come home to loud roommates who are in a toxic relationship which has lately crossed the borderline of abuse. But, none of us can afford to live there if one of us leaves.

 

The lease is up in the spring, and I'm not intending on staying if they decide to renew it.

 

I'm going to Chicago next month. We'll see if I want to stay when I come back.