Signs of a Toxic Work Environment

Because this month is Mental Health Awareness Month, I am going to be publishing a series of blog posts related to different mental health topics. For those of you that do not know, the topic of mental health is becoming more of my interest, especially in my career. Speaking of career, today’s post is going to be talking about the signs of a toxic work environment. Now, this is an environment no one wants to work in, and it isn’t worth your wellbeing. I have been in this situation before, and I definitely DO NOT want to experience that ever again. If you are in a job that you hate right now, that means it is a toxic work environment. Luckily, this post will give you some of the signs that you are in a toxic work environment. Hopefully this will help you decide if you want to quit your job or not. If you are a CEO or a manager reading this, maybe you should start to check on your employees to see if they are happy working for you or if you’ve created a toxic environment in your company. That will explain why you happened to be understaffed most of the time.

1. No work-life balance

A job should not take up your entire life. Unfortunately, we have become a society where we work for about 8-10 hours or more, then come home and have time to ourselves for a few hours. Then we wake up and do this vicious cycle all over for many years until we aren’t able to work anymore. I don’t think this is how humans are expected to live, thus the negative health impacts that comes from working so much. There are many jobs that expect employees to be committed to their jobs 24/7, and don’t care that they have a second life at home. Many employees even feel pressured to ask for days off while at work because they fear that their bosses think they are unreliable and lazy when in reality, they are prioritizing their mental health. Plus, there are only so many days off an employee can take based on where they work. At my last job, my managers made it unclear on we can request time off, but we also had to get it approved ahead of time. There were some days where I didn’t want to come into work because I screwed up the day before. I couldn’t call in sick because we had like three unexcused absences before submitting like a doctors’ note. There were even some weeks where I would work all six days (Mon-Sat) with no day off in-between. At my current job, I can’t get time off because it is only a temporary position, but at least I get weekends and all state holidays off. Plus, it isn’t as stressful as my last one which I will bring up in my next point. Therefore, if you are stuck at a job where you can’t seem to get a break and management wants you to keep working, you should plan your escape as if you are stuck in prison.

2. Lots of burnout/stress

Having no work-life balance where you are just constantly working leads to stress and burnout. Burnout is when your energy is drained, and you don’t have the motivation to do anything. Stress can also have negative impacts on your health such as headaches, high blood pressure, and many other chronic diseases. Many people that work in upper-management roles don’t care if the employees are stressed from working so much. They only care about producing high results, and achieving the goals of their company. This is what I experienced a lot of at my last job, and it was caused by dealing with rude customers, trying to learn many of the products and services, and having to face bad managers (more on this later). There was even a day where I had a headache, but I decided to come into work for some stupid reason. Things only got worse when I had to deal with a customer who was so angry at me, that he pounded at my teller window. Plus, that was also the week where I worked straight-through without a day off. Even if companies offer things like free yoga sessions or meditation workshops, that only feels like slapping a band-aid on employees because it doesn’t help with chronic stress at work. If you are ever at work, and you end up breaking down crying due to high stress and burnout, then you should consider working elsewhere where you won’t have tears of sadness.

3. No room for mistakes

We all know that no one is perfect in this world. However, when you are expected not to make a single mistake at work, that poses a problem. Mistakes are supposed to help us learn and grow, so how are we supposed to develop our skills in our careers if we can’t make a mistake? Sometimes, if a manager catches an employee making a mistake, they just take it out on them and think they are worthless. I made a lot of mistakes at my last job that my managers weren’t too happy about it. That made me stress so much, that every day I felt like I was walking on eggshells trying not to get scolded by my managers for making a mistake. In fact, my managers forced me to remember them when I got multiple written warnings. Even when I make a mistake, I criticize myself very harshly thinking about why I did that. However, I have to remember that mistakes are only temporary, and won't make an impact in the long run. The world will not end because we make minor mistakes.

4. Bad leadership/management

This has to one of the biggest issues of working in a toxic work environment. Having terrible leadership/management in a company is what causes stress and burnout, making a lot of employees quit their jobs. Usually, leaders are supposed to support and help their subordinates rather than treat them like slaves. Having managers that bullied me and threatened me at my last job was an tell-tale sign that I was in a toxic work environment. They didn’t care about my wellbeing or that I was stressed when they assigned me difficult tasks. I didn’t even bother to talk to them a lot because I was already intimidated by them. In fact, one of my managers was micromanaging me. If you aren’t familiar with the term, micromanagement is when your manager excessively supervises you every step of the way. Some examples that my manager was micromanaging me was that they told everyone to use the group chat platform in Microsoft Teams, and we weren’t allowed to have private chats with individuals. They also wanted me to screenshot every single part of the person’s bank account during each transaction I needed approval for because they said they didn’t trust me. I also said this before, but they blamed me several times when the customers were acting rude even though I tried to help them. There was also this one time where I went into my manager's office to get a transaction approved, and on her desk I saw a paper with a list of things I did wrong that they shared with me the week after. I think any manager who acts like an authoritarian towards their subordinates should be held accountable. You may have these big-name companies known for certain popular products services, but that is only what you see on the outside. If only people could really see how employees are treated by the managers, then would have a better understanding of the company from the inside.

5. Lack of acknowledgement and appreciation

Another thing you can notice from bad managers/leaders is how they don’t appreciate and acknowledge the employees for the time they sacrificed to work towards fulfilling the goal of the company. Usually getting acknowledgments are what motivate employees to have a strong work ethic, but that doesn’t exist in a toxic work environment. When I had weekly meetings with my manager, not once did they ever say anything positive to me. All of it was negative feedback which is why I never looked forward to these weekly meetings. I even tried to tell them to include more positive feedback, but they only wanted me to stay "perfect." I came to work sacrificing my own time trying to survive, and not once where I was ever thanked for my hard work. Because I had no positive feedback given to me, I kept coming to work feeling unhappy and anxious about my job. At least in my current job, some people thank us for our hard work despite not being a higher-level department.

Those are the signs of a toxic work environment and I hope you have a better understanding of it. No one deserves to be treated like sh**t at work since it shouldn’t be a priority in their life. If you are in a toxic work environment now, don’t just walk from it, RUN! It isn’t worth staying in one because it will do more harm. I tried to stay in my toxic job, but I only ended up getting fired. Hopefully you find a better job that will make you happy, and gives you a good work-life balance.