Tag: toxic workplaces

Resenteeism or hating your job

Read an article  this weekend about work resenteeism as in resenting our work, I started laughing, apparently I love humor columns. They coined this as a new term and a new  danger to the work environment.  However, some of us have resented or hated our jobs for many years without having a great term to define it, we just called it hating our jobs. That’s why you see so many people going drinking after work in TV shows or in the movies, at least in my opinion. I on the other hand do not drink at all, maybe I like my job, maybe not.

According to the latest articles there are several reasons for resenteeism, being underpaid, overworked, feeling like you missed the boat on getting a different job with all the layoffs going around, not feeling appreciated and undervalued by your company. These are all valid reasons that have been around forever and will most likely be around forever. However for most of us, we don’t always need to find a reason why we hate our jobs and yet stay at the job we hate. Most of us stay in our jobs because we are responsible, we have family obligations, we need to  put food on the table,  we have kids in college, a mortgage and the need for health insurance. Maybe we should all  start drinking.

Finding time for taking time off

It is very easy to delay time off and  vacations, telling yourself you are very busy right now and postpone fun activities. God knows I have found many excuses before – I have deadlines at work, this is not the right time, it’s the end of the quarter or year and many more excuses. But when is the right time really? It seems like when we become adults with full time jobs there  is never really a right time to take  a vacation or sometimes even just a day or two off.

I know some people with unlimited PTO and  from what I hear these unlimited PTO people take the least time off. I have a limited amount of time off, it is not small at all but still limited and I get to transfer only a small amount of vacation days to the next calendar year.

Time off is important, we all need it. We need time to refresh, clear our heads and do things outside of our professional life for ourselves and our families. Weekend breaks are really not enough, at least not for me. 

Although my time off is limited to specific times during the year, times that are not flexible and do not always allow me to get the best rates for travel, I still choose to take my vacation days and have some fun. I even stopped taking my laptop with me as I learned to let go and trust my team to cover for me (this was a big issue for me as a recovering workaholic).

Something happened in the last couple of years that made clear what my priorities should be: family,  friends , health and time off for fun. Health I can’t really control but everything else I can.

I can not only make sure I take care of myself but take care of my work team as well.

And since no time off makes employees burn out, it is very important for us as not only to take care of ourselves but as leaders and managers to make sure our team gets time off as well.

I read somewhere that employees don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses. Not sure how true that is for everyone who quits, but having managers that truly care about their employees’ life balance , happiness and yes, their time off is, should be part of managing a great team.

Keeping meetings on track

Today is what I call meeting  Thursday day,  our first monthly all staff meeting of the new year.  I hate meetings.It’s not that I don’t like meeting, I really dislike big all hand meetings. They usually drag on forever or what seems like forever. There is always someone who likes to hear their voice more than actually listen and collaborate and quite frankly they are usually boring after the first 5 minutes.  If we are home on zoom at least we can do something when we lose focus but what can you do when forced to sit in an actual meeting where we can’t hide. Maybe there is something positive for zoom meetings after all.

Thankfully the meeting was on zoom, however I had to present and lead part of it which meant I actually had to  pay attention.  So when we planned this meeting to avoid all the issues  I hate about meetings we decided on parameters- we limited the meeting time to a max of one hour. This forced us to focus on the most important issues and not to wander off. We also decided on the topics ahead of time and put everything in clear bullet points on a shared screen so everyone can see and for us not to lose focus and if we did then one of the meeting leaders would steer everything back on the right track. And the most important for the meeting leaders, we did it just before lunch and made sure to be hungry so we will finish in a timely manner  and we were conscious of other people’s lunch time. I know this might seem weird when planning meetings, but we found that this  helps us with keeping meetings on point. I am not advocating for anyone to go to meetings hungry, I love food, but this is a method that works for us and I am sure everyone has their own guidelines for keeping meetings effective, that is unless they love meetings or the sound of their own voice.

Being Rude to Customer Service People

There is an expression that goes something along the lines of – you get more flies with honey than vinegar. I am in the customer service business and about a quarter of my time I am customer facing. I  am always very surprised when people start yelling or are rude to us in the customer service industry.

It seems that it even got worse after the stay at home orders were lifted. People come in and immediately are rude and disrespectful. Yelling, raising their tones and thinking that will get them a better deal, a discount or just better service. Truthfully, I never understood that point of view.

You are supposed to treat people nicely, from my own experience, if you are nice you will be treated nicely back.  And from my point of view, if you are nasty to me there is no way on earth I will go above and beyond to help you no matter how big a bully you are. I had a customer come in yesterday and they requested something that does not exist anymore, we tried to explain that it does not exist anymore and we got yelled at, her tone was raised and she became more and more loud. Other customers in the office were looking at her as she continued to yell .

What this customer forgot besides that being an ass hole does not really make people want to help you  was that some of us live in the same community we work at, that means you will see me at Target, Costco and Pilates class. There is also a chance that you or your spouse work in something related to what my spouse is doing or to one of my many connections.

People think that just because some of us work in customer service we are uneducated, not connected and not worth being treated politely and thus show their true color. Those who I work with all have masters degrees and chose our industry for various reasons, they are all very smart and educated but even if they were not being rude to them is still no excuse.

Now, when I encounter these ass holes around town, I always look at them directly and smile. It is nice to see how uncomfortable they are once they realize who I am , but it would have been better if they actually behaved like nice human beings in the first place.

The going back to work positivity

I really enjoyed my last two weeks off work, it was nice not to return emails or answer phone calls, no meetings, training sessions or work to do lists. I thought I would be bored but I wasn’t. 

I read a couple of books, binged shows on Netflix, and had meals with friends. 

But even though this was a great mental break for me, I am still happy to go back to the office today , not because I miss the work but because I miss the people I work with. I miss my team!

I have a great team. Some unfortunate weeks  we spend more time together at the office than with our families at home, so naturally we are close to each other.

Most of us are immigrants and have shared experiences as strangers in a strange land (yes, I love the book), moving to the USA  without our families and reinventing ourselves in a foreign country. We make sure we all have breaks, make sure that the workaholics among us stop to eat and cover for each other when an emergency happens. So yes, your work is not your family but there is something different about a group that really cares about each other. And no, we are not all women, we are a mix of men, women, younger and older who come from different backgrounds and are in different stages of family lives and careers.

Not everyone has this experience with their work colleagues, I believe I am quite lucky. I worked with teams and bosses before that were just terrible and Sunday night was filled with agony about going back to work on Monday. The question is why is this team different?

It is different because our supervisor built this team from scratch and when she chose team members  added people that are positive and can contribute to the team.  She surrounded herself with team players who are good at what they do and there was no fear of overshadowing herself. This  leadership played an excellent role in building a great team that most of us are happy to be part of. 

So yes, I am happy to go to work today and see my team.

Decisions, decisions!

It’s the end of the year and we all have to start making decisions again, health plan for next year, 401k deductions, vacations and many more work decisions. However we can not forget our life outside work decisions as well.

Although the lines between our job and private life were a little blurry these last couple of years of work from home, it is time to put some barriers and allow for real work life balance. And that’s a decision I am willing to make. I wrote before on how I am trying to become a recovering workaholic, and I have to admit it is not an easy one. 

My last 6 months were trials and errors of me trying to disconnect and set some boundaries, some days I succeeded and some I did not, and that’s ok as teaching my brain is a work in progress. I discovered that long walks with my Sagey girl  while listening to podcasts has helped. In the beginning it was podcasts related to strategic thinking and business cycles and evolved to other topics that are the complete opposite of business.

So my decision to continue finding balance will continue in 2023 and possibly find a  hobby like macrame might be in order.

Job/ career cushioning – a new term for an old practice

I recently saw an article about Job Cushioning, it sounded interesting and I went to research further and discovered it’s a new term for an old concept. Lately they have been creating new terms for everything. I don’t know if they show up on my feed as I am interested in them more or just because what I follow has the latest trends.

The definition for Job Cushioning is looking for a new job while at your current job. Funny, in the old days we were always told that it is easier to find a new job when you still have a job as how else will you be able to explain the employment gap. Quitting or being fired not connected to company wide layoffs was considered bad on your resume and your prospect of finding a new job was not very good.

One of these articles mentioned that it is unethical to find a new job while still at a current place of employment, to this my response was Ha! As long as you don’t use current employment’s resources for finding a new job I believe it is perfectly ethical, especially if there are impending layoffs as most likely will happen according to all the analysts in the next couple of months.

Our main priority at the end of the day is to able to provide for ourselves and our families and to make sure we have back up plans for our future especially in an unstable market.

How flexible work destroyed work life balance

Once upon a time people would finish their work day, pack up their stuff and go home. There was separation between work and home at least for most of us. Lunch time at work was sacred and you got to eat in peace and when you went home you watched TV, ate dinner with your family or just did whatever worked for you on your off hours. Granted some jobs required you to be on call or have late evenings.

Then came the pandemic and most of us went home. A lot of companies discovered that now they can have meetings galore, there is no need for everyone to be physically in the same space anymore. We can have meetings with people in other countries any time needed. Online meetings were the new god! Don’t get me wrong, not dressing up was a blessing for me and I loved the fact that I could cook when a meeting was boring. I even took advantage of the online all hours format and finally finished my MBA from an international school waking up at 5am for class. 

But what happens when you work for an international company that has meetings all hours – with countries that have 10- 16 hours time differences. Some that I know have meetings scheduled for them at 7am and then again at 9pm or as my friend says, I know when China and India start working as the meets pinging starts. When do employees have a chance to decompress and relax? 

This is not the only problem, employees are expected to be available at all times. If you have small children and don’t mind the weird work hours that is not a problem for you. But what happens with everyone else, the meetings keep being scheduled as everyone is supposedly available, family life is pushed to the side and balance does not exist. 

Some employers are great and respect boundaries but what happens when there are no boundaries. Work life balance does not exist anymore and if anything work and those annoying meet pings on the phone become worse.

Nepotism and Family Business

The dictionary defines nepotism as the practice among those with power or influence of favoring relatives or friends, especially by giving them jobs. In some cultures it is expected as taking care of your family comes first. And in reality most of us would be happy to help a relative or to make sure our immediate family is well taken care of.

But what happens when your manager is not qualified to do their job as they were only hired because they are a family member? In big corporate type companies you can alway go to HR, but what happens if you work for a small private family company where you feel you have no options.

Some family members are groomed from a young age and go to college to get ready for a future  job in the family business, in other family businesses family members train from a young age and take beginner jobs so they will know all aspects of the business. These types of companies usually thrive as everyone has the goal of the company continuing being successful  after the founders retire. Many of these businesses really care about their employees and see them as vital to the success of the business. The general statistics of successful 2nd generation is 30% and third generation is around 13%. This means that the 2nd generation has a 70% failure rate.  So how does nepotism affect this success or failure? Putting people in managerial positions that they are not fit for just because they are family is probably part of the problem. Most of us know a person that you wonder how they tie their shoes in the morning has a c-suite position in the company. 

Now if a family member is just a plain idiot who is harmless that’s one issue, but what happens when this manger thinks they are above everything and behaves like they are untouchable. This manager can be toxic, abusive or just a bully. We as employees who are under these managers have a problem, I know for myself I would not trust HR. And even if I would dare to open a complaint with HR as being part of a small family business I would be very afraid of retaliation. 

In my opinion I believe part of the responsibility of the founder is to develop an exit strategy with planning a successor based on suitability for the future and in the present actually check before you give a leadership role to someone who is your child, niece or cousin. That is if you really care about your business. 

Is quiet firing really new?

This Labor day morning I was enjoying my morning coffee when an article caught my eye, the title of the article was “quiet firing”, we all heard about the great resignation & quiet quitting so naturally i had to read it as it intrigued my curiosity.

Quiet firing means that an employer will make your work life miserable by demoting, adding extra unpaid work and generally mistreating you  so you will quit, this way the employer does not have to pay you severance as they did not fire you. There is no need to prove that your performance was bad,  involving HR or paper work. 

The article spoke about this as a new trend, but as being employed for many years, I know it has always been there. We have all seen it in our professional life and sadly general life. Instead of quiet firing we all need to call it in its true name – a hostile work environment .

This is not caused by one person, the article kept talking about the work place’s behavior, but workplaces/ companies are not some anonymous entity, they are built with people who are not only demonstrating bad leadership but are also letting the rest of their employees know that they are condoning it. Should we stay and suffer? Look for a new job while being mistreated or just start speaking about it publicly? I have no answers as each person has their own decision to make.