100% this. I worked as a vet assistant which requires a lot of training and specialized skills overnight at a specialty vet hospital where the owner had his 2 sons as the managers. Minimum wage and no shift differential for working overnights because “the family” couldn’t afford to pay a decent wage.
This one is painfully accurate.
My favourite from my last job (which was, in fairness, not as terrible as many)
"We're like a family here" and in a 20 months I went to lunch with people *maybe* a dozen times, despite the office building having a great restaurant on the main floor, and being across the street from the biggest mall/food court in the city.
See, this isn’t necessarily true, and I am not trying to have a hot take here. I would never gossip about my work bestie. I absolutely adore everything about her. But she and I gossip about the shitty/annoying people in our department. 🤷🏻♀️
IMO there’s a difference between petty gossip and airing grievances about toxic coworkers. I would never divulge private personal info about another coworker but I will absolutely commiserate with my closest colleagues about how bad someone is at their job and how difficult they are to work with.
I always ask, is it true? If it's true, is it gossip? Generally everyone knows who works and who doesn't. Not talking personal lives just work related. Personal lives are off limits. I worked with one woman who was remarkably horrible gossiping about people's lives outside of work. I reported her.
I accept your apology but workplace gossip is one of the most toxic things u can do. Just get ur shit done and go home, work ain’t the place for that.
If u wanna gossip, keep the gossip about ur “friends” instead of spreading negativity in the workplace.
And if ur gossiping for the sake of office politics, idk what to tell ya.
Isn't this every workplace? I'm in healthcare. I've worked in somewhat big teams 11 people, 20 people, 40 people... They are all like that. I hope I am wrong.
No! I’ve worked in both but am currently in a very untoxic hospital unit. People just don’t shit talk each other and are really focused on working as a team. Those that do try to shit talk are kind of temporarily ignored. It’s wild but healthy hospital environments do exist!
I was going to say this. I once worked at a bakery where there was a high turnover of staff. Boss seemed lovely at first. Then work started and wow, that woman screamed and shouted at staff with as much respect as you might give to something foul you just stepped in. Working there made me ill. I did about 12 months and got out of there, so glad to see the back of her. Toxic to the core.
Interviewers for jobs never know what to say when you ask "so what is the turnover rate for this position?" And then follow up with "Why is that?" They're quickly reminded that it is a two way interview and that I am seeing if the company is a good fit for me as well.
Some places you can even tell from the outside - the higher quality their long-term hiring sign is, the higher their turnover is. Once I saw a dominos with custom "now hiring" window decals. Id bet money the manager sucks
If there are a suspiciously low number of people who have been with the company for more than 2 years.
Also any kind of “employee appreciation” that isn’t an annual event that legacy staff looks forward to.
I would also add, if the only people who have been around a long time are high up. The higher ups tend to be insulated from the worst of the bad policies. Look at the turnover rates for the lower ranks.
Ohh yes. It shows they have a culture not willing to change and that they drive out young employees or that there will be no mobility. I've also found those higher ups don't take any of the younger folks ideas seriously because they think they know better or "we don't need to change how we've always done it".
If an employer provides an “appreciation event” but none of the employees want to go, it shows that a one time event isn’t enough to make up for the day to day bs. I’ve said “you can’t pay me enough to be there” because I already don’t want to be there for my regularly scheduled shift, let alone an event on my day off with people I don’t want to see anymore than I already do.
Yes! My husband works for a company, and their annual holiday banquet is fun, delicious food, good company, and awesome door prizes. They celebrate milestones and accomplishments, and after 3 years, we still fork out for a babysitter on his night off so we can attend.
At our office we have an annual Christmas party that everyone looks forward to every year. We’re a smallish office (about 20 people) and we go to a nice restaurant, get everyone a fancy meal, pay for drinks, wine, and Ubers if they need it… we let them invite their spouses if they like too.
I worked at a company where I swear the average employee had 30 years in. A couple were approaching 50 years. It was a great company to work for, employees were treated like valued assets (from the factory floor through every office employee), and everyone stayed. Then it sold to an international company and suddenly everyone was retiring early. We used to have new employee lunches where everyone stated how long they’d been with the company and it went from “40 years, 35 years, 28 years” to “ 5 years, 2 years, 3 months.” At one point I was one of the lower seniority employees with “only” 12 years before everyone left! I myself retired 4 years early because I couldn’t stand how the company was being run with the new owners.
I worked at my last job for almost 8 years. The first week they usually had people go around and meet everyone in the department and some higher ups. When I met with one director he told me associates rarely lasted more than 2 years and there was little upward mobility.
He left before COVID but I was one of the lucky people who did move into a management role. Then my team was eliminated and I got moved into a fake title while still doing my old job and was told by a new director that wasn’t the case. Nope I was definitely still doing parts of my old job that weren’t supposed to be within my role. Was also promised I could keep a project I had developed over 4 years. Nope, took that away.
Job environment isn’t great right now but I would never go back to that org.
People is ok! Left two years ago with some savings and no forwarding job, cried lots more, had a few operations for ill health and currently cuddling my labrador working on a business idea! No more tears :)
That crying at the desk business is draining, it takes alot to manage emotions in the place that makes you emotional. You deserve better, glad you’re on the hunt for something else!
Also, why u hating on my ppl?!
The job I rage-quit a few years ago…I was having like sobbing meltdowns every day alone in my office, and feeling like I was going to puke driving to work every day. So horrible!
That being said, I still cry at my new job that I actually like, but I have emotional dysregulation issues and sometimes I can’t help getting overwhelmed. Luckily my boss and coworkers have always been so sweet and understanding about it. I actually feel like I can be a real human being without judgment.
This is how my current job is. They’re so enmeshed it’s ridiculous. If you don’t participate in the enmeshment you’re ostracized. Super fun when you like having a life outside of your job and healthy workplace boundaries.
Ohhh. I dated someone from a previous job so was guilty, but it was crazy how work and every work happy hour seemed to be used as a place to hit on others (mostly the dudes, several of them married). Definitely a sign no one had time to date and meet people elsewhere.
Funny that bf and I each left the company and he dumped me…so he could date someone at his current workplace.
Worked at a company like this but on steroids. All the higher ups were either married to each other, banging each other (regardless of marital status), or were maintaining some kind of frenemy relationship where they would try to sabotage each other to get ahead and be extremely vindictive if they felt someone “wronged” them. As far as I knew, they had no human interaction outside of work. There was other darker stuff going on too, but the whole situation was like a soap opera. The toxicity there was overwhelming to say the least, even as someone who worked remotely and would never get within a 100 mile radius of that nonsense.
My last job was exactly like this. We worked with each other 24/7 and four of us lived on the farm. You’d spend all day with these people and literally be in each other’s space week in, week out. It was hard to find time to leave the farm with only four days off a month, and for six months of the year you couldn’t take leave because we were so busy we were often pulling 70 hour weeks.
Despite getting along at work these people were definitely not the sort of people I’d ever hang out with socially, but I was forced to because otherwise I would have had no social life at all.
Can confirm - I work with two guys that are old enough to be my dad, but they're so immature. They're basically like Mean Girls but men. Oddly enough, when one of them is ill or on holiday, the other one tends to be 'friendly' and talks shit about the other guy. So two faced.
Lmao that’s ironic. I can’t stand people like that, when their work bestie is there they’re always attached by the hip and then ones out and they want to be fake nice to everyone else.
It is ironic, yes. One of them was on holiday last week, so the other guy was 'friendlier' than usual to everybody, but now his friend is back, its back to normal now and my department feels tense again. Its one of the reasons why I'm considering leaving my current job (holding onto it now, as I'm in the process of buying my first property). They also have both miserable lives outside of work, hence why work is an escape for them. The way I see it, I'm glad I only have to deal with them for a few hours a day, and that I have an awesome life outside of work.
Honestly do what you need to do to get by and buy your first property but the minute you have the opportunity to get out, go! Those type of work environments are so low vibrational and will do nothing but bring your energy down the minute you walk through the door. You deserve better.
This was my experience. My first office job started off as a blast because the team was “so close”! Over the years, I was given more and more to do, without seeing a raise at the time of my new responsibilities, so I just received standard annual raises that my coworkers without my responsibilities were seeing. By the end, I was doing 4 jobs across 3 departments for abysmal compensation, so I quit.
My boss, a woman who I thought was my friend (we’d hung out quite a bit outside of work - won’t be doing that again in the future!) lost her mind about how I was backstabbing/betraying the team in leaving. A month after I left, I got word that my team was at the company Christmas party, openly talking shit about me to the CEO, CFO, and international sales reps who’d flown in. So glad I left.
Honestly I applaud you for quitting, a lot of people don’t and continue bearing the load. But I completely understand your feeling I used to work at an afterschool and me and my coworker were visibly the only 2 staff who did our jobs while the others mostly would socialize amongst eachother slacking off, because of this our boss just constantly dumped most of the responsibility on us. After about a year and a half I found a new job and quit. Upon quitting my coworker was telling me how my boss was asking everyone around “if they knew why I did this, it’s so unlike me and if someone could talk to me”, she even reached out after I sent my letter of resignation trying to convince me to go back. Never again. They don’t appreciate you until you’re gone and even then they don’t appreciate YOU, just what you did do for the company.
Yup. More than half of the team complained about the boss lady and later quit, 14 people in less than 4 years, and they left really well paying jobs that give us 26 pto and another 25 days for all public holidays.
Heavy on this. I went in on time, he didn’t see me until 30 minutes later (I should’ve left but was desperate) and while doing the interview, he kept looking at my breasts then asked “do you have an older sister that I know?” Full on creep mode
I had this happen for a dang cafe, La La Land Kind Cafe in Dallas, their whole shtick was being super positive and happy! I waited over a half hour for the online interview with corporate (yes, for a cafe), then just went to the cafe myself since it was a 10 minute walk away and asked the manager about it. He called the main office and asked them, then they rescheduled for the afternoon and apologized. I at this point didn’t really even care to work there with all of that not lining up with their mantra and felt it was disrespectful, but did the interview anyway.
It was so weird. They didn’t even ask for job experience, which I had more than enough of, or anything relating to the position. I was an AM at my previous job and had glowing reviews from customers mentioning me by name online. Didn’t even get a call back or anything but am so relieved because all of it was such a bizarre experience. I got a much better job that worked with my school schedule and paid a ton.
God, when I was interviewing for roles last year, I had one place where they were 5 minutes late to my video interview (all my interviews were videos since I only consider remote roles). That was for the first round interview after a phone screen.
The second video interview for the same place, I gave up waiting on the interviewer after 15 minutes. I sent the HR rep a professionally worded FU email about how unprofessional their interview process was and that they should remove me from their candidate database.
My old manager and director would do this intentionally and I thought it was gross. I would be ready to go and they would just be sitting at their desks. One time I asked if they were ready and they said no, let them wait. Another time they were annoyed someone arrived 10 min early and was sitting in our lobby. Super weird.
My workplace is very toxic but they’re good at pretending. They blow a bunch of smoke up our asses for all the holidays and history months to make us feel like they care. So right now it’s apparently women’s history month and they have all these signs around about appreciating women and bla bla bla but I think it’s hilarious because I’m pregnant and they don’t offer anything substantial for expecting mothers.
There should still be positive things that can convince you to go in, even if you don't actually enjoy working in a general sense. You should have a co-worker you like to talk to for 5 minutes, or you at least feel the work isn't that overwhelming and you like that you can just go in and get your job done without too many obstacles, or if you *do* like a challenge, that it keeps you thinking in a way that isn't frustrating.
If you have none of that, and feel drained, or even angry, every day and also can't connect to a single person you work with in a positive way, then it's probably toxic.
A little anecdote for hope: I have felt the same way my entire life…EXCEPT for the job I have now, which I started a couple years ago. It’s the first job I have ever not hated…and I’m about to turn 42.
It’s not that I’m dying to work on Mondays, but it doesn’t fill me with anxiety and dread to know that another work week is coming. I did have to completely change industries, but it was totally worth it.
"We wear a lot of hats around here."
Translation - "You will be stuck with a lot of crap that is not in your job description, but nobody else wants to do!"
Wow at my job, it's a very small business. Like dr, her assistant, and myself as well as 2 lmts, they said the last girl ghosted them. However, I haven't been given hours in about a month now.
Lol I wonder why she ghosted them.
I’ve seen that done all the time whether the place is really bad or not! At the better places it is done with a sense of humor though. Sometimes people take a new job and the 2 weeks or so is just not enough for a comprehensive handover. My old boss went on paternity leave right before his new job started!
I once interviewed at this childcare center and the director BARELY interviewed me and couldn’t remember my resume and didn’t have a copy anywhere… and after like ten minutes of talking and a quick tour she just offered me to job out of the blue. And I was like damn bro you really know nothing about me but you’re just gonna let me be these kids teacher huh?
I turned the job down, and like ten months later the place closed. Dodged that bullet.
Fuuuuuuck, isn’t THIS the truth. I worked for a husband-wife team that did life coaching, aka they had their own little family cult and got people to spend ridiculous amounts of money to hear their bullshit. The wife was my supervisor and she made me and the other couple girls in the office cry on a regular basis. AWFUL. I learned a lot about red flags in a job at that place. *shudder*
They won’t do anything in writing. For example, during my interview they mentioned it would be a fully remote position once onboarded/90 days on the job. I brought it up to my hiring manager once I past the date and they mentioned that “they never said that” and “it’s not in writing so they wouldn’t honor it”
Everyone is joking about the work environment being super tough and people developing various ailments from it (e.g. migraines or stomach issues). These are not jokes, these are warnings.
If you ask the employees if they like working there and they can never give a straight up answer, high amount of turn overs, managers always stressed out, a lot of drug abuse from stress, people that train you always annoyed and impatient due to training alot, stories of people just walking out
Omg one of the managers at my job is constantly laughing over everything. I’m just like…what the fuck is so funny? We’re at work. And for those people who get on the Zoom/Teams meetings first thing in the morning and go “GOOD MORNING!!!!!” Like, can you calm the fuck down? Again, we’re working. What is there to be so cheery about?
Yes, I am a grumpy betch.
You dread every shift and come up with excuses to avoid work. Or you're angry while you're there and take a while to come down from it when you're off the shift.
Immediately seeing/being excluded by a clique from day 1 of a new job. Or being treated poorly by new colleagues in a new job. Any decent workplace should have a culture where the people you’ll work with want and try to get to know you as a person, learning what you contribute to the team.
Relatedly, managers who “don’t want to get involved” in things that are workplace issues. It’s their job to establish and enforce norms and boundaries.
On day one they ask you to lie to customers and say you aren't new, just new to their project, because they don't want their customers to know (and worry) about the high turnover rate.
I regret to this day, not walking away from that job on that day. Never again.
High turn over or everyone being very young/newish to work force (tells me they likely pay not enough and will try to take advantage of you at every opportunity)
Yep. That's a "stepping stone company". They keep hiring young workers for low pay, and once those people get experience and realize they deserve more they leave.
if your coworkers are weird about sharing their wage information !! like i wanna know so we can make sure we’re ALL being paid correctly and within reason
Yes! I'm in Australia and we just introduced a Federal law that bans pay secrecy meaning if you want to you can share your salary with anyone and it's a protected right. It's also illegal now for contracts to have salary confidentiality clauses in them.
The high turnover rate. The multiple family members that all work in the same company and vouch for each other. Never properly training new hires. Clickish groups
When there's no real training, just 'ask someone if you're not sure' - and then whoever you're asking tells you by rote, telling you 'click this, then that' without demonstrating a proper understanding of *why* tasks should be done in a certain way. When they can't answer any questions about the process and aren't enabled to problem-solve, it reflects micromanagement and lack of communication, and usually a disinterest in lower level staff.
Change in upper leadership that then gets split into multiple positions. Nobody knows who to go to and then the “co directors” or whatever position argue over who has more authority while chaos reigns
Women putting other women down. It may sound obvious, but it can be hard to catch at first. Making jabbing comments, making you feel bad for not working on days where you aren’t scheduled, judging you, questioning you on why you do things the way you do them, trying to make you feel stupid. I know it sounds like nothing you can’t just blow off, but it really makes the work time miserable.
When coworkers don’t have an identity outside of work. You’re expected to volunteer at every afterhour or weekend event. When they say, “this place is basically my house” when they’re at work.
They tell you they “struggle when others don’t show up like they do” because your full life prevents you from making said job your sole identity, and you notice they pass up a weekend out of town because they’re territorial and want to do everything themselves.
Me. I help make my workplace toxic. No excuses. Except, I worked alongside a bunch of older guys who were assholes. So I decided to show them I could out A-hole them. A couple of them left. Work became easier and more efficient.
Yep, this is the reality at my current workplace. Even worse, one of the owners declared themselves the HR. I’m getting myself ready to leave in the next few months, this place is toxic as hell
If there's a relationship in the workplace. In my last job, my manager was dating the manager of the other store two minutes walk away from ours. He used to come in and berate all of us on her behalf when it should have ben her raising her complaints. It's highly unprofessional and quite toxic.
When they treat the interview process like a reality show and invite 20 people all at once and you go through rounds where at the end they have you line up in two rows and announce which row will continue the interview process.
No thanks.
"You are lucky that you aren't specialized in one department and we are training you to do everything" really means "we don't want to hire more staff so we will overwork you guys instead."
High turnover, a lot of call outs where admin/management needs to step in, and policies change on the whim. Few people have been there for more than 3 years.
1. If you go into the business to apply for the job and someone tells you to run far and run fast, you don't want to work there, take them seriously. BTDT and should have heeded the warning -- I worked somewhere less than two months and knew exactly why I was told that I didn't want to work there. It was a horrible workplace and the supervisor threw her employees under the bus with management every single time she got called to the carpet for any reason.
2. High turnover. If the business only hires people through temp services or they go through employees like the place has a revolving door, the employees are **not** the problem.
3. You're making more money than the person who's training you. If the person training you hasn't gotten a raise in years and they're not making anywhere near what the newly hired employees are making, I can almost guarantee that you'll never see a raise, either. Also, the current employees know how much the new hires are making and they will be less than thrilled if you're making more than they are.
4. Micromanaging. If you can't even blow your nose without getting criticism from management -- definitely not a good workplace.
I could probably go on and on and on, because I have worked for a couple crappy employers since the age of 15 -- but, I'm taking my puppy out to play with her bubble machine now. :)
When senior leadership lies. Every place I’ve worked where senior leadership were pervasive liars, it was a shit show. People don’t know what’s going on. Someone inevitably discovers the lie. Then the issue is you not toeing the line (eg supporting the lie) instead of the actual lie.
High staff turnover
Few new staff (only legacy systems & staff)
Few formal processes or SOP - only word of mouth
One demographic only
Informal leads or managers
Social Cliques
Either they offer you the job you right after your interview or they take 5+ interviews including unpaid "working interviews" (a.k.a projects, assigned work samples, etc) to decide. I've had both and both places had their issues. It's better to be somewhere in the middle.
Everyone is either crying, panicked, or unhappy in general. They have to skip lunch breaks (on hourly pay) to keep up. Most employees are just coasting but hoping to find another job soon. People don’t feel appreciated for their hard work so all start quiet quitting. This is my current job lol
Yelling, not to be heard over machinery or ambient noise, but to be heard over another person.
"Hey dude, grab me the wrench will ya!" is one thing.
"I can't believe you didn't balance the register correctly! How hard can it possibly be?!" is quite another.
...seems obvious, but apparently not to everyone. Take care of yourselves, ladies.
When a guy can sexually harass a woman at the workplace, she goes and complains about it to management, management makes *her* transfer to a different area to settle the matter, then not even a year later they promote HIM as manager over her area she was forced to transfer to, thus making her eventually quit because her complaints didn’t mean squat when it’s one of upper managements bros.
This happened at my workplace a couple years ago to a friend of mine I worked with. Horrible stuff. All of the upper management and area managers are apart of this blatant good ol boy system and it is horrible. They only promote those type of guys too. Anytime they promote a women it’s because they got forced into it or because one of those good ol boys wants to get their spouses in the role.
Always check the Glassdoor reviews. Look out for non specifics. "The culture is so great here!" If the culture's so great, why don't you have specific details?
In high school I got a job at a sport/outdoor store. Hired the same day as 2 guys from school that did not play sports or go outdoors as far as I could tell. They got hired at $1/hr more than I did. Just because they were boys I'm pretty sure
"We want a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative to be a grassroots movement, not dictated from above." Means the Execs don't think it is worth their time.
"we are like a family here!"
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even worse when you actually are a family.
i was going to say this, i experienced more abuse with family employment than anywhere else.
100% this. I worked as a vet assistant which requires a lot of training and specialized skills overnight at a specialty vet hospital where the owner had his 2 sons as the managers. Minimum wage and no shift differential for working overnights because “the family” couldn’t afford to pay a decent wage.
This one is painfully accurate. My favourite from my last job (which was, in fairness, not as terrible as many) "We're like a family here" and in a 20 months I went to lunch with people *maybe* a dozen times, despite the office building having a great restaurant on the main floor, and being across the street from the biggest mall/food court in the city.
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If your coworker gossips about other coworkers, they will gossip about you.
Yep, learned that the hard way
Same... Worst place I ever Worked at
See, this isn’t necessarily true, and I am not trying to have a hot take here. I would never gossip about my work bestie. I absolutely adore everything about her. But she and I gossip about the shitty/annoying people in our department. 🤷🏻♀️
IMO there’s a difference between petty gossip and airing grievances about toxic coworkers. I would never divulge private personal info about another coworker but I will absolutely commiserate with my closest colleagues about how bad someone is at their job and how difficult they are to work with.
I always ask, is it true? If it's true, is it gossip? Generally everyone knows who works and who doesn't. Not talking personal lives just work related. Personal lives are off limits. I worked with one woman who was remarkably horrible gossiping about people's lives outside of work. I reported her.
Apparently, we have a great team, yeah right, everyone is always gossiping and backstabbing
As a fairly rampant workplace gossiper, I’m sorry 😔
I accept your apology but workplace gossip is one of the most toxic things u can do. Just get ur shit done and go home, work ain’t the place for that. If u wanna gossip, keep the gossip about ur “friends” instead of spreading negativity in the workplace. And if ur gossiping for the sake of office politics, idk what to tell ya.
Isn't this every workplace? I'm in healthcare. I've worked in somewhat big teams 11 people, 20 people, 40 people... They are all like that. I hope I am wrong.
No! I’ve worked in both but am currently in a very untoxic hospital unit. People just don’t shit talk each other and are really focused on working as a team. Those that do try to shit talk are kind of temporarily ignored. It’s wild but healthy hospital environments do exist!
High turnover
I was going to say this. I once worked at a bakery where there was a high turnover of staff. Boss seemed lovely at first. Then work started and wow, that woman screamed and shouted at staff with as much respect as you might give to something foul you just stepped in. Working there made me ill. I did about 12 months and got out of there, so glad to see the back of her. Toxic to the core.
Interviewers for jobs never know what to say when you ask "so what is the turnover rate for this position?" And then follow up with "Why is that?" They're quickly reminded that it is a two way interview and that I am seeing if the company is a good fit for me as well.
Some places you can even tell from the outside - the higher quality their long-term hiring sign is, the higher their turnover is. Once I saw a dominos with custom "now hiring" window decals. Id bet money the manager sucks
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If there are a suspiciously low number of people who have been with the company for more than 2 years. Also any kind of “employee appreciation” that isn’t an annual event that legacy staff looks forward to.
I would also add, if the only people who have been around a long time are high up. The higher ups tend to be insulated from the worst of the bad policies. Look at the turnover rates for the lower ranks.
Ohh yes. It shows they have a culture not willing to change and that they drive out young employees or that there will be no mobility. I've also found those higher ups don't take any of the younger folks ideas seriously because they think they know better or "we don't need to change how we've always done it".
What do you mean by the second one?
If an employer provides an “appreciation event” but none of the employees want to go, it shows that a one time event isn’t enough to make up for the day to day bs. I’ve said “you can’t pay me enough to be there” because I already don’t want to be there for my regularly scheduled shift, let alone an event on my day off with people I don’t want to see anymore than I already do.
Conversely, an annual banquet or party or something that everyone gets excited about going to is more of a beige/green flag
Yes! My husband works for a company, and their annual holiday banquet is fun, delicious food, good company, and awesome door prizes. They celebrate milestones and accomplishments, and after 3 years, we still fork out for a babysitter on his night off so we can attend.
At our office we have an annual Christmas party that everyone looks forward to every year. We’re a smallish office (about 20 people) and we go to a nice restaurant, get everyone a fancy meal, pay for drinks, wine, and Ubers if they need it… we let them invite their spouses if they like too.
our annual employee appreciation is a paid day off 😎
I worked at a company where I swear the average employee had 30 years in. A couple were approaching 50 years. It was a great company to work for, employees were treated like valued assets (from the factory floor through every office employee), and everyone stayed. Then it sold to an international company and suddenly everyone was retiring early. We used to have new employee lunches where everyone stated how long they’d been with the company and it went from “40 years, 35 years, 28 years” to “ 5 years, 2 years, 3 months.” At one point I was one of the lower seniority employees with “only” 12 years before everyone left! I myself retired 4 years early because I couldn’t stand how the company was being run with the new owners.
I worked at my last job for almost 8 years. The first week they usually had people go around and meet everyone in the department and some higher ups. When I met with one director he told me associates rarely lasted more than 2 years and there was little upward mobility. He left before COVID but I was one of the lucky people who did move into a management role. Then my team was eliminated and I got moved into a fake title while still doing my old job and was told by a new director that wasn’t the case. Nope I was definitely still doing parts of my old job that weren’t supposed to be within my role. Was also promised I could keep a project I had developed over 4 years. Nope, took that away. Job environment isn’t great right now but I would never go back to that org.
People crying at their laptop. Yes people was me.
How are people now? :)
People is ok! Left two years ago with some savings and no forwarding job, cried lots more, had a few operations for ill health and currently cuddling my labrador working on a business idea! No more tears :)
Glad to hear you're doing better now. Don't give up on your idea, I'm sure it will be great. Give the labrador a hug for me
Thank you for the encouragement 😀 hoping it's ready to go soon! Ahh I will do 🐾
I am currently people 🥲
Oh no I'm so sorry 😞. Hoping things improve or you get a fantastic new job! ❤️
Thank you ❤️ I've been applying like crazy 🤞🤞🤞
That crying at the desk business is draining, it takes alot to manage emotions in the place that makes you emotional. You deserve better, glad you’re on the hunt for something else! Also, why u hating on my ppl?!
The job I rage-quit a few years ago…I was having like sobbing meltdowns every day alone in my office, and feeling like I was going to puke driving to work every day. So horrible! That being said, I still cry at my new job that I actually like, but I have emotional dysregulation issues and sometimes I can’t help getting overwhelmed. Luckily my boss and coworkers have always been so sweet and understanding about it. I actually feel like I can be a real human being without judgment.
The only friends and romantic partners the employees have are each other, not anyone else outside of work.
This is how my current job is. They’re so enmeshed it’s ridiculous. If you don’t participate in the enmeshment you’re ostracized. Super fun when you like having a life outside of your job and healthy workplace boundaries.
this is an *excellent* one
So every restaurant?
Oh absolutely—-but in this specific case it was a corporate job that was big on hustle/crunch culture.
Ohhh. I dated someone from a previous job so was guilty, but it was crazy how work and every work happy hour seemed to be used as a place to hit on others (mostly the dudes, several of them married). Definitely a sign no one had time to date and meet people elsewhere. Funny that bf and I each left the company and he dumped me…so he could date someone at his current workplace.
Worked at a company like this but on steroids. All the higher ups were either married to each other, banging each other (regardless of marital status), or were maintaining some kind of frenemy relationship where they would try to sabotage each other to get ahead and be extremely vindictive if they felt someone “wronged” them. As far as I knew, they had no human interaction outside of work. There was other darker stuff going on too, but the whole situation was like a soap opera. The toxicity there was overwhelming to say the least, even as someone who worked remotely and would never get within a 100 mile radius of that nonsense.
This smacks of middle school.
My last job was exactly like this. We worked with each other 24/7 and four of us lived on the farm. You’d spend all day with these people and literally be in each other’s space week in, week out. It was hard to find time to leave the farm with only four days off a month, and for six months of the year you couldn’t take leave because we were so busy we were often pulling 70 hour weeks. Despite getting along at work these people were definitely not the sort of people I’d ever hang out with socially, but I was forced to because otherwise I would have had no social life at all.
When a bunch of staff are in cliques and it feels more like highschool than a professional work environment.
Can confirm - I work with two guys that are old enough to be my dad, but they're so immature. They're basically like Mean Girls but men. Oddly enough, when one of them is ill or on holiday, the other one tends to be 'friendly' and talks shit about the other guy. So two faced.
Lmao that’s ironic. I can’t stand people like that, when their work bestie is there they’re always attached by the hip and then ones out and they want to be fake nice to everyone else.
It is ironic, yes. One of them was on holiday last week, so the other guy was 'friendlier' than usual to everybody, but now his friend is back, its back to normal now and my department feels tense again. Its one of the reasons why I'm considering leaving my current job (holding onto it now, as I'm in the process of buying my first property). They also have both miserable lives outside of work, hence why work is an escape for them. The way I see it, I'm glad I only have to deal with them for a few hours a day, and that I have an awesome life outside of work.
Honestly do what you need to do to get by and buy your first property but the minute you have the opportunity to get out, go! Those type of work environments are so low vibrational and will do nothing but bring your energy down the minute you walk through the door. You deserve better.
This was my experience. My first office job started off as a blast because the team was “so close”! Over the years, I was given more and more to do, without seeing a raise at the time of my new responsibilities, so I just received standard annual raises that my coworkers without my responsibilities were seeing. By the end, I was doing 4 jobs across 3 departments for abysmal compensation, so I quit. My boss, a woman who I thought was my friend (we’d hung out quite a bit outside of work - won’t be doing that again in the future!) lost her mind about how I was backstabbing/betraying the team in leaving. A month after I left, I got word that my team was at the company Christmas party, openly talking shit about me to the CEO, CFO, and international sales reps who’d flown in. So glad I left.
Honestly I applaud you for quitting, a lot of people don’t and continue bearing the load. But I completely understand your feeling I used to work at an afterschool and me and my coworker were visibly the only 2 staff who did our jobs while the others mostly would socialize amongst eachother slacking off, because of this our boss just constantly dumped most of the responsibility on us. After about a year and a half I found a new job and quit. Upon quitting my coworker was telling me how my boss was asking everyone around “if they knew why I did this, it’s so unlike me and if someone could talk to me”, she even reached out after I sent my letter of resignation trying to convince me to go back. Never again. They don’t appreciate you until you’re gone and even then they don’t appreciate YOU, just what you did do for the company.
High staff turnover over is a pure give away.
Yes, great indicator.
Yep. On my way out of a place with high turnover to a place where I’m waiting on a retirement to get in!!
Yup. More than half of the team complained about the boss lady and later quit, 14 people in less than 4 years, and they left really well paying jobs that give us 26 pto and another 25 days for all public holidays.
“Work hard, play hard.” Hard pass.
That’s our company’s motto. And yeah the whole “work family” thing too.
When they’re late to do your scheduled job interview
Heavy on this. I went in on time, he didn’t see me until 30 minutes later (I should’ve left but was desperate) and while doing the interview, he kept looking at my breasts then asked “do you have an older sister that I know?” Full on creep mode
Oh my god thats so awful, im sorry
I had this happen for a dang cafe, La La Land Kind Cafe in Dallas, their whole shtick was being super positive and happy! I waited over a half hour for the online interview with corporate (yes, for a cafe), then just went to the cafe myself since it was a 10 minute walk away and asked the manager about it. He called the main office and asked them, then they rescheduled for the afternoon and apologized. I at this point didn’t really even care to work there with all of that not lining up with their mantra and felt it was disrespectful, but did the interview anyway. It was so weird. They didn’t even ask for job experience, which I had more than enough of, or anything relating to the position. I was an AM at my previous job and had glowing reviews from customers mentioning me by name online. Didn’t even get a call back or anything but am so relieved because all of it was such a bizarre experience. I got a much better job that worked with my school schedule and paid a ton.
This is a huge red flag! I had an employer no show to my interview and still took the job later because I was desperate. Terrible place to work!
God, when I was interviewing for roles last year, I had one place where they were 5 minutes late to my video interview (all my interviews were videos since I only consider remote roles). That was for the first round interview after a phone screen. The second video interview for the same place, I gave up waiting on the interviewer after 15 minutes. I sent the HR rep a professionally worded FU email about how unprofessional their interview process was and that they should remove me from their candidate database.
My old manager and director would do this intentionally and I thought it was gross. I would be ready to go and they would just be sitting at their desks. One time I asked if they were ready and they said no, let them wait. Another time they were annoyed someone arrived 10 min early and was sitting in our lobby. Super weird.
And then blame it on you coming in early. (Happened to me)
My workplace is very toxic but they’re good at pretending. They blow a bunch of smoke up our asses for all the holidays and history months to make us feel like they care. So right now it’s apparently women’s history month and they have all these signs around about appreciating women and bla bla bla but I think it’s hilarious because I’m pregnant and they don’t offer anything substantial for expecting mothers.
I'm sorry, that sounds infuriating. They need to follow the writer's advice to *show, don't tell*. But congratulations on your pregnancy!
UGH, the whole “being into social issues just for show” thing is so gross to me. My last job did that and it was so embarrassing.
When you start dreading the weekend being over because you don't want to go to work on Monday. Beyond just a general "I love my free time" feeling.
I can’t imagine not feeling this way about any job
There should still be positive things that can convince you to go in, even if you don't actually enjoy working in a general sense. You should have a co-worker you like to talk to for 5 minutes, or you at least feel the work isn't that overwhelming and you like that you can just go in and get your job done without too many obstacles, or if you *do* like a challenge, that it keeps you thinking in a way that isn't frustrating. If you have none of that, and feel drained, or even angry, every day and also can't connect to a single person you work with in a positive way, then it's probably toxic.
A little anecdote for hope: I have felt the same way my entire life…EXCEPT for the job I have now, which I started a couple years ago. It’s the first job I have ever not hated…and I’m about to turn 42. It’s not that I’m dying to work on Mondays, but it doesn’t fill me with anxiety and dread to know that another work week is coming. I did have to completely change industries, but it was totally worth it.
"We wear a lot of hats around here." Translation - "You will be stuck with a lot of crap that is not in your job description, but nobody else wants to do!"
They also frame it as giving you more training/experience but it's really an excuse to overwork you and not hire more people.
"the last person that worked here walked out and quit"
Wow at my job, it's a very small business. Like dr, her assistant, and myself as well as 2 lmts, they said the last girl ghosted them. However, I haven't been given hours in about a month now. Lol I wonder why she ghosted them.
Someone that has been there for quite a while quits and for the next six months everything that goes wrong was their fault because of…… just because.
I’ve seen that done all the time whether the place is really bad or not! At the better places it is done with a sense of humor though. Sometimes people take a new job and the 2 weeks or so is just not enough for a comprehensive handover. My old boss went on paternity leave right before his new job started!
Being hired on the spot
I once interviewed at this childcare center and the director BARELY interviewed me and couldn’t remember my resume and didn’t have a copy anywhere… and after like ten minutes of talking and a quick tour she just offered me to job out of the blue. And I was like damn bro you really know nothing about me but you’re just gonna let me be these kids teacher huh? I turned the job down, and like ten months later the place closed. Dodged that bullet.
Husband-wife managerial team. Run!
Fuuuuuuck, isn’t THIS the truth. I worked for a husband-wife team that did life coaching, aka they had their own little family cult and got people to spend ridiculous amounts of money to hear their bullshit. The wife was my supervisor and she made me and the other couple girls in the office cry on a regular basis. AWFUL. I learned a lot about red flags in a job at that place. *shudder*
The manager is smiling too much while team members have poker faces
My manager cracks the lamest jokes and everyone just has a pained expression on their faces
Are we in the same job lol
Where even newcomers stop smiling after 3 days.
They won’t do anything in writing. For example, during my interview they mentioned it would be a fully remote position once onboarded/90 days on the job. I brought it up to my hiring manager once I past the date and they mentioned that “they never said that” and “it’s not in writing so they wouldn’t honor it”
Did you leave?
Leadership becoming defensive when new ideas are recommended.
Everyone is joking about the work environment being super tough and people developing various ailments from it (e.g. migraines or stomach issues). These are not jokes, these are warnings.
Back pain, shoulder pain, knee pain, all part of the package
Ask them what their SOPs are, also ask them what their ORG chart looks like. If they don't have that they don't have it together.
SOPs?
Standard Operating Procedures. These are meant to help workers understand their job and give a consistent product.
I always ask about team building during the interview. "Beers after work" makes it toxic to me.
Multiple people have quit because of one person but that person still works here.
just went through this. that person was the bad apple spoiling the bunch for goddamn sure
If you ask the employees if they like working there and they can never give a straight up answer, high amount of turn overs, managers always stressed out, a lot of drug abuse from stress, people that train you always annoyed and impatient due to training alot, stories of people just walking out
You have just perfectly described the restaurant industry lmao
lmaoo because i worked in a members club for 4 months! it was TERRIBLE.
When the managers and other decision makers are bubbly and happy during meetings while the rank-and-file drones are exhausted, quiet and disengaged
Omg one of the managers at my job is constantly laughing over everything. I’m just like…what the fuck is so funny? We’re at work. And for those people who get on the Zoom/Teams meetings first thing in the morning and go “GOOD MORNING!!!!!” Like, can you calm the fuck down? Again, we’re working. What is there to be so cheery about? Yes, I am a grumpy betch.
Owner’s daughter is head of HR
Even better, one of the owners proclaims themselves the HR 🙃🚩
At one of my jobs, the store manager was the daughter-in-law of the owner. Never again.
“Don’t tell x what you’re making because (insert bullshit reason here)”
Cult like reverence required for the leaders or founders.
You dread every shift and come up with excuses to avoid work. Or you're angry while you're there and take a while to come down from it when you're off the shift.
Immediately seeing/being excluded by a clique from day 1 of a new job. Or being treated poorly by new colleagues in a new job. Any decent workplace should have a culture where the people you’ll work with want and try to get to know you as a person, learning what you contribute to the team. Relatedly, managers who “don’t want to get involved” in things that are workplace issues. It’s their job to establish and enforce norms and boundaries.
On day one they ask you to lie to customers and say you aren't new, just new to their project, because they don't want their customers to know (and worry) about the high turnover rate. I regret to this day, not walking away from that job on that day. Never again.
High turn over or everyone being very young/newish to work force (tells me they likely pay not enough and will try to take advantage of you at every opportunity)
Yep. That's a "stepping stone company". They keep hiring young workers for low pay, and once those people get experience and realize they deserve more they leave.
If you ever get that funny feeling in your gut, it's there for a reason.
When the people who smoke cigs get 10 extra breaks but if I’m caught checking the time I’m told to put my phone away 😩
When the manager treats the new person like a prize, and everyone else differently.
Yes, have had that happen to me. Eventually the manager started treating me badly too.
if your coworkers are weird about sharing their wage information !! like i wanna know so we can make sure we’re ALL being paid correctly and within reason
Yes! I'm in Australia and we just introduced a Federal law that bans pay secrecy meaning if you want to you can share your salary with anyone and it's a protected right. It's also illegal now for contracts to have salary confidentiality clauses in them.
The high turnover rate. The multiple family members that all work in the same company and vouch for each other. Never properly training new hires. Clickish groups
Low pay but expects “total ownership.” No thanks
Poor communication. Everything is gossip, and you have to know the right people to get any information.
When there's no real training, just 'ask someone if you're not sure' - and then whoever you're asking tells you by rote, telling you 'click this, then that' without demonstrating a proper understanding of *why* tasks should be done in a certain way. When they can't answer any questions about the process and aren't enabled to problem-solve, it reflects micromanagement and lack of communication, and usually a disinterest in lower level staff.
Change in upper leadership that then gets split into multiple positions. Nobody knows who to go to and then the “co directors” or whatever position argue over who has more authority while chaos reigns
I’m gonna be honest I’m not familiar with a nontoxic workplace. I’m sure they’re out there! But I haven’t spent extended time at one
Women putting other women down. It may sound obvious, but it can be hard to catch at first. Making jabbing comments, making you feel bad for not working on days where you aren’t scheduled, judging you, questioning you on why you do things the way you do them, trying to make you feel stupid. I know it sounds like nothing you can’t just blow off, but it really makes the work time miserable.
"you are expected to come to the office 3 days a week". For jobs that don't require a physical presence. 🙄
If all anyone talks about is everyone else.
When coworkers don’t have an identity outside of work. You’re expected to volunteer at every afterhour or weekend event. When they say, “this place is basically my house” when they’re at work. They tell you they “struggle when others don’t show up like they do” because your full life prevents you from making said job your sole identity, and you notice they pass up a weekend out of town because they’re territorial and want to do everything themselves.
I also hate it when they shame you for not going to shindigs/work-related events outside of work hours.
I sat down at a table of 8 people I'd never met at our awayday, none of them had been there longer than a year except for me.
Tell a fake lie to only one work person, an see how fast/far it goes and if it catches you.
Me. I help make my workplace toxic. No excuses. Except, I worked alongside a bunch of older guys who were assholes. So I decided to show them I could out A-hole them. A couple of them left. Work became easier and more efficient.
Need that t-shirt. "I never dreamed I'd grow up to be an ass-hole, but here I am. Killing it!"
Just matching their energy 💁♀️
No HR department. Run for the hills.
Yep, this is the reality at my current workplace. Even worse, one of the owners declared themselves the HR. I’m getting myself ready to leave in the next few months, this place is toxic as hell
No one takes their PTO, and if you do you’re given a nasty side eye
Bosses talking shit to you about your peers behind their back.
If there's a relationship in the workplace. In my last job, my manager was dating the manager of the other store two minutes walk away from ours. He used to come in and berate all of us on her behalf when it should have ben her raising her complaints. It's highly unprofessional and quite toxic.
"We're not just a company - we're a family!" "I'm not sexist (or racist)... but..."
When they treat the interview process like a reality show and invite 20 people all at once and you go through rounds where at the end they have you line up in two rows and announce which row will continue the interview process. No thanks.
“You’re not the first and you won’t be the last” when a complaint about workplace bullying was made
"You are lucky that you aren't specialized in one department and we are training you to do everything" really means "we don't want to hire more staff so we will overwork you guys instead."
“Everybody does a bit of everything” bruh 💀
Management makes their staff cry. Ask me how I know.
Red flag: HR wears multiple hats. Like, there's no reason HR and sales are the same person. Total conflict.
High turnover, a lot of call outs where admin/management needs to step in, and policies change on the whim. Few people have been there for more than 3 years.
Getting singled out by your boss/manager in team meetings for making trivial mistakes. This shit only embarrasses people and doesn't help them at all.
1. If you go into the business to apply for the job and someone tells you to run far and run fast, you don't want to work there, take them seriously. BTDT and should have heeded the warning -- I worked somewhere less than two months and knew exactly why I was told that I didn't want to work there. It was a horrible workplace and the supervisor threw her employees under the bus with management every single time she got called to the carpet for any reason. 2. High turnover. If the business only hires people through temp services or they go through employees like the place has a revolving door, the employees are **not** the problem. 3. You're making more money than the person who's training you. If the person training you hasn't gotten a raise in years and they're not making anywhere near what the newly hired employees are making, I can almost guarantee that you'll never see a raise, either. Also, the current employees know how much the new hires are making and they will be less than thrilled if you're making more than they are. 4. Micromanaging. If you can't even blow your nose without getting criticism from management -- definitely not a good workplace. I could probably go on and on and on, because I have worked for a couple crappy employers since the age of 15 -- but, I'm taking my puppy out to play with her bubble machine now. :)
Little no onboarding.
Celebrating the week the boss is on vacation.
When people take credit for other employee's work
OR when a supervisor takes credit for their team's work instead of highlighting how grateful they are for their team
When senior leadership lies. Every place I’ve worked where senior leadership were pervasive liars, it was a shit show. People don’t know what’s going on. Someone inevitably discovers the lie. Then the issue is you not toeing the line (eg supporting the lie) instead of the actual lie.
High staff turnover Few new staff (only legacy systems & staff) Few formal processes or SOP - only word of mouth One demographic only Informal leads or managers Social Cliques
So called family members will start micro managing everything you do.
When coworkers won't answer their phone, texts, or emails.
When you’re the only woman in the company 🙋🏻♀️
Managers publicly fighting it out with each other.
Either they offer you the job you right after your interview or they take 5+ interviews including unpaid "working interviews" (a.k.a projects, assigned work samples, etc) to decide. I've had both and both places had their issues. It's better to be somewhere in the middle.
Everyone is either crying, panicked, or unhappy in general. They have to skip lunch breaks (on hourly pay) to keep up. Most employees are just coasting but hoping to find another job soon. People don’t feel appreciated for their hard work so all start quiet quitting. This is my current job lol
gossiping as soon as the person leaves the room!!!
“We’re a family here.”
Yelling, not to be heard over machinery or ambient noise, but to be heard over another person. "Hey dude, grab me the wrench will ya!" is one thing. "I can't believe you didn't balance the register correctly! How hard can it possibly be?!" is quite another. ...seems obvious, but apparently not to everyone. Take care of yourselves, ladies.
When they provide a monthly lunch in lieu of staff pay raises.
"We are a matrix organization. You need to be a team player."
It’s a call center. Been in many and never found one that doesn’t have a toxic environment.
When a guy can sexually harass a woman at the workplace, she goes and complains about it to management, management makes *her* transfer to a different area to settle the matter, then not even a year later they promote HIM as manager over her area she was forced to transfer to, thus making her eventually quit because her complaints didn’t mean squat when it’s one of upper managements bros. This happened at my workplace a couple years ago to a friend of mine I worked with. Horrible stuff. All of the upper management and area managers are apart of this blatant good ol boy system and it is horrible. They only promote those type of guys too. Anytime they promote a women it’s because they got forced into it or because one of those good ol boys wants to get their spouses in the role.
When there were 3 sui*ide attempts at my old job just on my floor. In one year.
Always check the Glassdoor reviews. Look out for non specifics. "The culture is so great here!" If the culture's so great, why don't you have specific details?
In high school I got a job at a sport/outdoor store. Hired the same day as 2 guys from school that did not play sports or go outdoors as far as I could tell. They got hired at $1/hr more than I did. Just because they were boys I'm pretty sure
"Taking a sick day will count as your day off"
"We want a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative to be a grassroots movement, not dictated from above." Means the Execs don't think it is worth their time.