Your Job Shouldn’t Make You Cry: Handling Toxic Work Environments

I don't think we should feel like we have to survive in these situations or that if we quit or back out that were failures, because frankly, it's okay to decide you're worth better and you deserve more and you deserve a workplace that treats you well.

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of She Is Bossy, the podcast dedicated to helping you be a better boss. My name is Clara Perk and it's good to be back with you all today. If you're a regular listener, you may have noticed that we did not put out an episode last week. And the reason behind that is that I've decided to kind of...

change things up a little bit. I wanted to take the frequency of episodes down to every other week instead of every I think trying to do something every week

just ended up being a lot while I'm really trying to know, making sure that I'm not burning myself out on doing this, which I think is, you know, a lesson that sometimes gets the hustle culture of it all. I also, you know, want to make sure that I'm producing a high quality product.

And I'm also really trying to focus more on what does the social media strategy the podcast look like? trying to make sure that I can reach and help as many people as I can, which is the goal of this podcast anyway. So for all of those reasons, kind of decided to take it down to every other week. So thanks for those of you that.

are sticking around. know the internet doesn't recommend doing every other week. It really seems like people lose traction. So I guess we'll see what the numbers say. But I really just wanted to be transparent everyone on that, especially for those of you that I know do listen every week, which I super So that being said, I have an interesting

Couple of interesting speakers and interviews lined up for the next couple of episodes, but I did have kind of a break in the interview schedule to do another solo episode this week. And this is a topic that I've been kind of mulling on for a little bit, just because I think it's something that a lot of people face, but when we kind of talk about it,

in short form, I'd like to say, at least on like social media, but I don't think that there's a ton of long form outlets that cover this topic. And I've certainly had my share of experiences with this and wanted to just share some tips on what helped me. So today we're really going to be diving into

how to handle situations where you feel like you're in an unhealthy or a toxic workplace or you're under a ton of stress and pressure and how to navigate those situations. So.

This happens, I think, more often than we like to think. And I hear a lot of different stories of people dealing with this. So my own experience dealing with toxic workplace I was definitely feeling a ton of stress. I did not feel super supported by my boss or the leadership team that I was working for.

I felt like I, you know, wasn't getting the right support or guidance that I needed and that, I was being asked to do things that I really didn't agree with or that I thought were really unrealistic. And I think a lot of times it's those unrealistic expectations without the support that you need to actually get things done or the encouragement or the guidance to get things done.

that creates almost a sense of panic. people panic, when we panic, we get into this sort of fight or flight mode, freeze, fight, flight. And it can really cause a lot of emotional turmoil because...

you know, our body is responding and our mind is responding to some of these demands or some of these situations that are really unhealthy. you know, frankly, if you're in one of these situations, my best advice is to, you know, try and find something that is more healthy. I don't think that, you know, we should feel like we have to

survive in these situations or that if we quit or back out that were failures, because frankly, you, people aren't meant to survive in a lot of these toxic workplaces. and it's okay if you, it's okay to decide that you, you know, you're, you're better, you're worth better and you deserve more and you deserve

a workplace that treats you well.

But I think in a lot of these situations, once you come to that conclusion, it does take time to find a new job or renegotiate your position or change teams. And so in those times where you are still stuck in that workplace and you're still just trying to basically keep your head above water,

it can be challenging to wake up every day and go to work. I've certainly had the experience where I've called in sick to work because I just could not get out of bed

And I've certainly this situation that I was in, I would come home from work and I would just break down at least once a week and just feel so overwhelmed, crying on my bathroom floor. And so I think that

It's definitely tough to talk about this. And I think that it's not something that we typically share or talk about all that often because honestly, it's kind of embarrassing. We all want to put on this outward show of confidence because we don't want to seem weak or we don't want to seem like we can't handle it.

But at the end of the day, if you're in a workplace that's making you feel that way, not your fault. And you shouldn't internalize that as being your fault. That's just not a healthy workplace. And I think we experience all of this to varying degrees at different points in our career. Some people, you

may still be feeling stressed and overwhelmed and panicked and things like that, but not to the point of it getting where you're having breakdowns or panic attacks or anxiety attacks or things like that. And some people might get to the point where it really is inhibiting their ability to function in their day-to-day life. And so we all deal with these things on a spectrum.

And, you know, when we think about social media or the world that we're, you know, the persona that we're trying to keep up as, you know, hard asses or whatever, or, you know, life is great on social media. think a lot of this underlying, you know, stress that, jobs are creating, or sometimes these really toxic cultures that are created get swept under the rug and people don't want to talk about it because they don't want to, ⁓

seem like, you know, there's something wrong with their life and they don't want they don't want to admit it. But, you know, I think that when I was going through this situation, I certainly felt like really alone in what I was experiencing. And so I'm hoping that by sharing this and sharing some of the things, the ways that I dealt with it and things that helped me that it can help other people that

maybe feeling something similar or maybe not all way to that point, but again, somewhere on the spectrum where you need help dealing with stress and anxiety that is stemming from work. So that being said, there's a few suggestions and things that really helped me in these situations. all of these tips

are gonna be like probably things that you've already heard of or thought of. There's nothing new out there. But I think what I hope to provide is some more perspective on why you should try them out. Because I...

really shied away from these things for the longest time because I was like, you know, I don't think this will help. I don't need to do this. and I also think a lot of times things that I'm recommending are not talked about in the context of work. We talk about them in the context of other relationships, like relationships with your significant other or people you're dating or your friends or your family. But we don't talk about it as much in the context of work, but I think

a lot of these concepts and ideas we have for becoming more resilient in our lives are really important to apply in the workplace because we have so much of our time and energy is spent on work. It is our livelihood. So it can really impact our overall mental wellbeing if we're afraid that we might lose our livelihood or there's

You know, that's at risk at all. And so these concepts aren't anything new, but they're just things that worked really well for me. Things that I resisted trying initially, that I think, you know, if you're in this situation, you should definitely give it a shot. So the first one that I definitely recommend is meditation. and I used the calm app. I've also tried headspace. So those are two really great apps.

that you can get on your phone. And I really liked Calm because they had a kind of 30 day introduction where you just meditate 10 minutes a day and it guides you through what it means to meditate. Now, meditation, it's like a muscle. So when you start doing it, you probably aren't going to notice a difference until you

strengthen and grow that muscle and repeat it a lot. I really liked getting into the habit of meditating 10 minutes a day, which the Calm, both of those apps help try and motivate you to do that. But the reason I like meditation is because there's this concept in meditation of equanimity. And it's this idea of

finding stability and balance and almost kind of being the eye of the storm where things may be swirling and moving around you, but you're able to just create and maintain this very calm, steady, balanced state where you're very neutral and,

it helps you deal with reactivity, stay even keel, and not let things overly affect you. And I think that when you're in a stressful situation or you're in a toxic situation where people are trying to push your buttons or anything like that, having this idea

of equanimity really helps you almost build up these mental walls and mental barriers to protect your inner peace, to create that inner peace and then also to protect it and to observe things in a neutral way without having someone's own opinions or own stress then be prescribed onto you and you absorbing

all of these other triggers that are around you. And so I just really love this concept because there's always going to be other people that are like hyper stressed or everything's a fire drill or they're over reactive or they have a lot of other stuff going on in their life and they just dump it on you or act out.

and you take the brunt of it. And this concept of equanimity allows you to prevent all of those things that are trying to hit you from penetrating and impacting the way that you act and feel and think. And that is, I think, the number one most important way to deal with toxic workplaces or to deal with other people

dumping their stress or pressure they may be feeling on you. And it's also important because then you're able to not take someone else's stress and redirect it onto someone else. like particularly if you're a manager, when you're in these stressful situations, the last thing that you wanna do is then also turn around and stress your team out because that's going to, you know,

have them in this fight or flight mode and have them not doing their best work. mean, just think about how you are feeling and acting when that happens to you. The same thing's gonna happen to people if you turn around and direct that to them. So I think for me, meditation really helped me build up these walls to protect myself and the ability to

react neutrally or absorb neutrally things going on around me without letting them affect my emotional state as much. And so when you build this muscle, you can take the time to meditate like 10 minutes every day, you build this muscle over time and it really does end up cascading throughout the rest of your day, the rest of your week, any work experiences you're doing. ⁓

or work experiences that you're in. And so I think it's a really, really powerful tool to maintain your composure, not let things get to you and just to build up some really strong protection of yourself. The second thing that I really like is to journal or write things down. So I'm a huge overthinker.

And I am constantly thinking about, you know, all these different scenarios, things that could go wrong. If I said something wrong, if I did something wrong, if I'm doing something well enough or not well enough or anything like that. And the brain is an interesting place because your brain actually has a hard time discerning.

what's real versus what's made up in your head. And so when you get into this excessive worry mode, where you continue to come up with these various, you know, ambiguous scenarios of bad things happening, your brain actually thinks that that is occurring. And that's causes your

body and mind to react to this thing that you've made up that you think is occurring. And so you can imagine that, you know, as if you're worrying over and over constantly coming up with these scenarios, your brain is just going to be completely fried, trying to, you know, combat these scenarios or react to these scenarios.

and you really are just escalating the problem and making it worse and worse for yourself. And so for me, what really helped was writing things down, writing down, you know, what I was feeling, what I was thinking, and it helped me really process stuff on paper rather than letting it spin around in my head. And a lot of times I would get a lot more clarity about what was driving a certain feeling or

you know, how I should handle a situation just by putting pen to paper, writing it down, getting it out of my head and slowing my brain down because I'm actually writing it versus letting things fester and kind of spiral. And so I really like, you know, journaling things, writing things down. If your mind's racing, just writing it down and being able to work through your thoughts.

that way. And again, it just kind of reduce that spiraling because you're, you know, slowing down those those racing thoughts. But you're also working through it. When you put pen to paper versus in your brain, your head just kind of going to worst case scenario and what you're going to do versus really logically thinking through, you know, what might be possible. And so definitely recommend

journaling, writing things down, and trying to work through things that way. And then the last, the biggest thing that helped me deal with a toxic workplace was going to therapy. And I think at least for my generation, I would say therapy has become a lot more mainstream and people are very open about talking about, you know, the fact that they...

go to therapy or see a therapist, but I still think that there is a little bit of a stigma about it. And I also frankly like don't see a lot of people talking about going to therapy to talk about their work. I think that in the collective,

social media consumption and conversation around therapy. It's really about relationships or, you know, friendships, family, things like that, which is all great because therapy is really important for those things too. But when I started going to therapy, the majority of what I talked about was all work related. And just, you know, the way that, you know, perhaps

how my brain was wired or the way I grew up or certain things influenced my behavior, influenced the way I perceived and interacted with people. that certainly all of those same concepts apply in the workplace. But if you are struggling at work, I do think that it's okay to seek professional help and to...

talk to a therapist, talk to someone that specializes in helping people work through tough relationships because at the end of the day, work is a relationship. You have a relationship with everyone that you work with and it's all about people and people interacting to get things done. And so I think that that was probably the biggest game changer for me was

having someone that I could talk to on a consistent basis that could help me work through challenges that I was seeing, that could help me validate what I was feeling, help me consider different ways to think through problems and help me put in the work really get through some of those tough situations and just having someone that I could.

that I could talk to that I fully trusted had my best interests at heart. And so I think that, you know, it is challenging to admit that you need help and admit that you can't do it all yourself and figure it all out yourself. But that really, think was the biggest game changer for me for being able to get through a really challenging situation for several months.

And I learned a lot about myself and a lot about, you know, how to handle deal with really challenging people by being able to talk to my therapist throughout, you know, all the different situations that I had to deal with in that environment. And it definitely made me more resilient. But

I would definitely recommend that. know, you know, sometimes it's hard to find the right fit. So if you haven't found the right fit for you yet, I would say just, you know, keep trying because it's definitely worth it. But that's definitely, I think one of the biggest things that made a difference for me. anyway, I know this was a little heavy.

so sorry if this is a little bit of a downer on your day, but, you know, all I have to say is if you are dealing with a really challenging situation at work, another important perspective that helped me a lot was that, you know, this is temporary. everything in life is temporary. I will be able to get out of this situation. I will find something better. I am worth.

And I deserve better than this. And, you'll be that much more resilient the next time that you have to deal with someone like this or deal with a workplace situation like this. and you'll hopefully you'll learn something that will prevent you from getting into a situation like this again, which I certainly did.

I learned, you know, certain things to look out for. So again, sorry if this was a bit of a downer, but.

I do think that it's something that's not talked a lot about and it's something that, you know, having gone through a really tough work situation, I just want to help people, think about what resources they can rely on to help themselves, get through it as well. So hopefully this helps someone out there and we'll be back in two weeks, for another episode of She Is Fosse. So thanks for listening.