There’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ workplace. However, that’s no excuse for maintaining a toxic environment and letting your employees feel like they’re undervalued and don’t belong there. Every manager should, ideally, strive to motivate and support everyone. And while some bosses manage to genuinely inspire their crew, others focus more on creating the illusion of change than actually committing to changing anything.
Mandatory team-building events without any soul behind them, mental health seminars with no real follow-ups, calling your business a ‘family,’ and expecting women to organize and run all social events—this is just the tip of the iceberg of toxic workplace behaviors, according to the redditors on r/AskWomen.
We’ve collected their very best insights to show that, once you take a closer look, even an ‘ideal’ company might still do a lot of things incredibly wrong. While you’re reading everyone’s posts, think about the very worst practices that you’ve seen at work, Pandas. Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments. Got any specific solutions to people’s work problems? Let them know how you’d approach things.
Meanwhile, read on for Bored Panda’s interview about the early warning signs of burnout and mandatory team-building events with workplace expert Lynn Taylor, the author of ‘Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job.’ Taylor is also the CEO of Behind the Buckle and a blogger at Psychology Today.
We also got in touch with the founders of the Work Wives podcast, Johanna Kate and Sarah May Alexander, for their thoughts about a phenomenon that affects female employees, known as ‘office housework,’ and how to change the situation. You’ll find the insightful duo’s thoughts as you scroll down.
#1
The mentality that people who choose to have children are more entitled to taking time off on holidays or in the summer.
I don’t have a child, but I am someone’s child. I don’t have to have children of my own for holidays to be important to me.
Image source: OopsWhoopsieDaisy, Josh Willink
#2
“This is a family”
No it’s not..its a business..
Image source: mrspicytits, Polina Zimmerman
#3
Coming to work sick
Image source: SoCalledPerson, Edward Jenner
#4
Forced team bonding events.
Image source: myciccio, Edmond Dantès
#5
Not paying men and women equally.
Image source: cyarin_60025, RF._.studio
#6
Mandatory social events outside of work.
Image source: pinkflower200, Andrea Piacquadio
#7
Telling employees to keep their salary confidential. LOL I am a HR and I am all for compensation transparency because I know corporate only tell us to hide s**t when when they know it’s too fishy to disclose.
Image source: xeekayla, Karolina Grabowska
#8
Gatekeeping knowledge or information in order to make others look incompetent
Image source: matzah_ball, Christina Morillo
#9
Keep having mental health related seminars.
Give us a day off.
Image source: 0_0moon0_0, fauxels
#10
Secret Santa
Image source: Dazzling-Toe-4955, RODNAE ProductionsRODNAE Productions
#11
Actually attending an “office” for completely remote-capable work.
We don’t need to be friends with coworkers.
Image source: em-ay-tee
#12
Micromanaging. This is one of the worst toxic behaviours, as it destroys motivation and morale quickly. There’s no trust within the team, you lose the opportunity to develop yourself and it burns everyone out.
I’ve just switched roles from working for a micromanager to a more hands off manager, I’ve contributed more in my new role than I did with my previous work.
Image source: Difficult_Humor1170, CoWomen
#13
Asking people to donate their PTO instead of giving someone the time off they need.
Image source: PettyCrocker_, SHVETS production
#14
Gossiping and drama. I have no idea why some adults still have this problem.
Image source: V-RONIN
#15
Not being allowed to sit.
Image source: sky_winters, Ketut Subiyanto
#16
Employees being pressured to donate to charity. I work for a big grocery chain in Florida where we are encouraged to donate out of every paycheck, but our store manager really pushes for 100% participation. If you tell him no he does a 1 time donation in your name so on paper it shows that his whole store donates. I’m all for helping people sir, but I can barely pay my own bills on this wage.
Image source: biomechtronic, Liza Summer
#17
Icebreakers and spirit questions. Don’t force people to reveal personal info about themselves. Just simply say your name and role if you need to do introductions.
Image source: Jolly-Proof, Andrea Piacquadio
#18
Expecting women to organize and run the mandatory fun/ team bonding events. Does not matter if men at the same level or job would never be expected to “waste” their time putting together these events, women are expected to do it, often on their own time, and we are supposed to like it too….
Image source: myalias1919, Mikhail Nilov
#19
The pressure to work when sick just because you WFH (“because that’s what everyone else does” – and everyone thinks like this).
Image source: Anxiety_Cookie, Edward Jenner
#20
This is education-specific, but admin giving praise and compliments to teachers who come in early and stay late, and work on the weekends. They call it “dedication” but honestly it’s working way beyond contract hours for no pay. I used to do this every week and my life improved so much when I finally stopped. I love my students but I shouldn’t be considered less dedicated because I won’t work for free.
Image source: Nikki-Black, cottonbro studio
#21
Bosses not listening to the ones below them out of ego
Image source: pringelman69
#22
Work wives and Work husbands. it’s fine to have friends at work, but “coupling” of people who work together seems inappropriate on a lot of levels.
Image source: Red_Delish_
#23
The whole department getting yelled at for one persons wrong doing. Address the person. Fix the problem. Don’t yell at all of us!
Image source: TysmanianDevil
#24
Forcing people to stay until a certain time even if their workload is complete because you HAVE to be there.
We only get so much time in this world, I hate having to be somewhere only for the reason of having to be there.
That and giving more work if you complete your work early.
Image source: splashattack, Andrea Piacquadio
#25
I once had to put in $75 toward a sick person’s gift So high gifting that’s mandated
Image source: s55555s, Karolina Grabowska
#26
Not being given the tools to train new people properly. It’s crazy that you’re expected to continue with your regular, heavy workload while trying to train. I always feeling like I’m failing the person I’m training.
Image source: spicysalmonella
#27
When things go wrong, focusing on blame rather than solutions. In my experience, most people, even lazy ones, want to do a good job and when they fail it’s due to poor systems or unclear expectations.
Of course there can be a “bad fit” but truly malicious bad actors are extremely rare.
Image source: turingtested, Yan Krukov
#28
Moms getting priority with vacation. At my job I have been there over 20 years so I get 5 weeks vacation. At the first of every quarter we are supposed to request any vacation we want for the upcoming quarter. I always request on the first day.
Inevitably my boss will come to me and tell me I need to change my days because Becky wants to take her kids somewhere on those days. Usually a week or so before I was supposed to take off. Last year I lost 4 vacation days.
Image source: kanda4955
#29
This is different but a very outgoing likeable employee not having to follow the rules because she is popular with everyone in the office.
Image source: pinkflower200, Jopwell
#30
Mandatory potlucks
Image source: pilots_are_horny, Paul Schultz
#31
Non-confrontation that leads to drama.
If you got a problem with how I do things, tell me straightaway. Don’t bother tattling with another coworker cause it’s not going to fix things, if anything I’ll think you’re intending on ruining my reputation instead
Image source: MeiTheForce_
#32
Commenting on other people’s food choices.
Image source: Flowerino, Karolina Grabowska
#33
Toxic positivity. In a previous job I had, it felt like saying things with the proper positivity accoutrements was more important than getting information across or speaking directly. So if we needed to bring up an issue, it had to be sandwiched in between compliments, exclamation points, smiley faces, “no worries if not!”s, etc. to the point where the actual message itself was watered down if not lost entirely. Management gave so much lip service to direct communication (we had a whole seminar on it – despite needing that time to get our real work done) but any time I tried to speak directly I’d get a DM saying I need to reword my message, or asking if I’m okay.
Image source: brittughny, Andrea Piacquadio
#34
Colleagues who are suppose to train you, don’t train you. So you are forced to learn the job yourself. Then that colleague criticizes how you are doing everything wrong. So you ask them for more training so they can show you how to do it right – but they say they are too busy. That colleague treats you like you’ve been working there for 25 years and assumes you know all this stuff, ignores the fact you are new. They overwhelm you with information, make you feel like a total idiot because you don’t know this stuff, and the colleague expects you to know all their 25 plus years of knowledge in a week!
Image source: Deshang222, Headway
#35
not announcing someone is leaving until the last minute.
Image source: heyashleymorgan
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