Sometimes, people spend such a long time surrounded by toxicity that they can no longer tell the difference between healthy and downright harmful behavior. It’s pretty clear that they should make plans to get out of toxic environments as soon as they feasibly can, but recognizing that someone’s in one isn’t as easy as you think. Especially when you’re in the thick of it and can’t afford a moment’s respite to get a different perspective. However, sometimes it takes a single moment for the scales to finally drop from people’s eyes.
Redditor u/Expwar asked the workers browsing r/AskReddit to open up and share the moment that they realized their workplace was truly toxic. We’ve collected the most insightful stories to share with you, dear Pandas. You’ll find them as you scroll down. Let us know your own experiences with toxic work environments and how you solved things in the comments.
Meanwhile, have a read what psychotherapist Silva Neves told Bored Panda about the importance of having firm boundaries at work and what drives people to be unkind, pushy, rude, and demanding. (Spoiler warning: it’s usually due to fear.)
#1
“Why do you have to be at the hospital if your wife is the one having the miscarriage?”
An actual email I received while sopping up my wife’s blood from the floor in the emergency room.
Image source: Resolute002, Cory Mogk
#2
When my partner was giving birth to our only child.
I had spent weeks preparing to be gone for two weeks to be with her during and after birth, held many meetings, cross-trained etc (I was a manager at a tech firm). I had accrued ample vacation time.
My 2nd day off my partner goes into labor and we go to the hospital. During labor the CEO called my cell repeatedly and I finally answered and told him my partner was in labor and I was on vacation. He totally ripped my head off and told me to open my computer and finish reports. These were reports that I had trained someone else to do, and actually others within the company were perfectly capable of doing.
Because we were broke (yes I was underpaid) I ended up doing reports in the hospital, took a short break during the birth, then went back to working until we were released. We had a couple of days with our newborn but then I had to go back to work because my phone was blowing up. That week I ended up working 6am to midnight some days getting everyone caught back up while my partner was at home recovering from delivery and learning how to be a mom.
Everything in me wanted to quit but I knew we needed the next paycheck and at that moment I could not fight a legal challenge with my employer. They had me right where they wanted and made my life hell while my child just coming into this world.
Never again.
Image source: throw_away_TX, Stephen Andrews
#3
When I woke up in the hospital after attempting to take my life in work.
Image source: Chilly_Lil_Eskimo
#4
When my manager said I wasn’t a team player for refusing a shift on my wedding day.
Image source: eatpaintsleeprepeat, Samantha Gades
#5
I had a job where my girlfriend’s Mother was my boss, so I guess the moment I realized my workplace was toxic was when my girlfriend cheated on me and then my girlfriend’s Mom hired the guy she cheated on me with. In hindsight, probably more than just the workplace was toxic.
Image source: the-cschnepf, Mateus Campos Felipe
#6
When someone was called into the manager’s office, then returned to box up their desk and leave. When I asked the manager if she was okay, I was told, “We don’t talk about people after they leave.”
If someone quit or was fired, they were just never mentioned again. It was creepy AF.
Image source: solar-shock, Mimi Thian
#7
When my boss addressed me as “fat a**” in front of a room full of my coworkers.
Image source: amboy_connector, Jason Goodman
#8
A couple years ago my dad died. After my bereavement time and I came back to work, my boss came up to me, looked me right in the eyes and with a smile said “you know what will make you feel better? Doing more work.”
Image source: mbrennan993, Tim van der Kuip
#9
A couple of female coworkers went to the HR manager to file a complaint about sexism in the workplace, related to the same guy. They got told by the HR manager and their boss that the company wasn’t gonna do anything about it, because it would be very hurtful for this man to hear that his behaviour was wrong…
Later when some anonymous survey showed that employees were really not as happy as they(company) were claiming on social media, and people even felt discriminated against in the workplace, they brushed it under the carpet saying people were just too stressed when they filled in the survey, like that is not a problem on its own.
Many more of these kinds of things, but that’s defo when I realised I had to get out.
Image source: uselessacount4ever , iam_os
#10
When my boss arrived at my doorstep trying to open my front door accusing me of lying about being sick and yelling that she will get a lawyer and find a way to fire me legally. I never went back
Image source: Hand_of_bags, Andrew Neel
#11
Mine was, and I’ve told this story a few times on here, but when after being upskirted at work (17F, the uniform was skirts, a kids/young people store) my (late 30s, male) manager bought me black lace underwear and gave them to me for Christmas. In front of the entire team. At the staff do. It was tongue in cheek, insinuating it’d give a future one ‘something to look at’. I remember feeling humiliated and sickened, but having to try and save face. I felt like the incident was my fault.
After that, the “I love my job and team and am happy to work in this field and will do anything for them” shattered. My eyes opened to illegally long shifts, being underpaid, secretly getting us to cover whilst he pretended to be in and paid us cash in hand so the CEO wouldn’t find out, a “we only hire young pretty girls because it’s good to encourage shy kids or teens and add to the fun theme!” being far more nefarious and also morally corrupt. More completely inappropriate workplace things.
I’ve thought for five years about coming out and talking about the company. It’s somewhat well known in the UK. Past employees have said the same and many are still recovering from it years after leaving. But I’ve always been too afraid and I know too well that many people would still support despite things like this coming out.
Image source: playbypaper, Uliana Kopanytsia
#12
I got hired while my wife was about 6 weeks from giving birth. I told the owner in the interview that I would need at least a week off in the next 6 to 8 weeks when my kid comes. He had an autistic kid and led the local chapter of Autism speaks, so I though he was an alright guy.
When my kid was born, he had the manager call me every day and ask when I was coming back, because nobody was doing my work.
I came back after 3 days off work. My kid was born on Friday, back at work Weds….
I was fired 2 weeks later…..as a new father at age 28…..
Image source: shadow247, David Hahn
#13
My own dad and employer hassled me for being in the hospital with my son for like ten days.
Image source: nicholasgnames, Hush Naidoo Jade Photography
#14
When I was crying from anxiety about opening up my e-mails every morning
Image source: UConnUser92, Solen Feyissa
#15
When the union told me “These are solid proves of harassment, but unfortunately the only way to win is to pay a lawyer and go on a trial against your bosses. And they are rich, well known and you are a foreigner. You have no chances and all I can advise you is to quit.”
Image source: Thorbork , Elisa Ventur
#16
It wasn’t always. I was fortunate to have a boss who took his role as a mentor very seriously. He wanted us to learn, improve, etc. and he was kind about it. He’d reward good work, correct you when you made a mistake, yell at you/scold you only when you really deserved it, and would admit when HE made a mistake.
He retired and left the company in the hands of a dude who was an absolute assh*le. Completely the opposite. He wouldn’t reward good work – if you did something that was 99% perfect, he’d scream and berate you for the 1% that wasn’t perfect. The last straw for me was the time I got a new file in, I spent weeks working it up, and prepared a comprehensive letter explaining everything that we were doing, what we planned to do in the future and offering a detailed analysis of the whole thing. Assh*le yelled at me because HIS name should be on the signature line of that letter because “your only job is to make me look good!”
He yelled at me over a bill, misspelling my very simple name in a follow-up email. (I have one of those names that has a common spelling and an accepted, but slightly less common spelling like Steven/Stephen. He used the wrong one.) The next most senior partner reported that HE had put the objectionable items into the bill after I had prepared it. Assh*le didn’t care.
I quit. A lot of other people quit. I heard a year later that literally everyone had quit. They hired new people, including the brother of the next most senior partner. They all quit in less than a year. He lost his biggest client. They had to give up the big suite of offices they built in 2012. Can’t say I’m sad to hear any of that.
Image source: Thirty_Helens_Agree, Hunters Race
#17
My parents sent a Halloween care package full of candy to my workplace, written to “the care of lilsunflowers”. Next time I was at work, I couldn’t find the package — later was told it was opened and all the candy had been eaten
Image source: lilsunflowers, Denny Müller
#18
They used the pandemic to cut bonuses, freeze salaries and remove a majority of benefits. When we went public, they gave us virtually nothing. The CEOs and their cronies filled their pockets.
A little history: we were acquired by this company and absorbed. Our old company was the absolute SH*T!!! Vegas/Barcelona trips, beers at lunch, sick company parties. We were one of the hottest companies in the biz. EVERYBODY wanted to work for us. We had people planning to move from across the world to be in our office. They stripped all that away right when they hired us and installed a more “corporate” atmosphere.
All the fun stuff was replaced with mandatory town halls where they preach “community” and “passion” and “integrity.” They then dropped a bomb on us: “were goin public!” During this time they froze salaries and cut bonuses. The company went public, and they didn’t give the employees sh*t. Instead of being rewarded like we were promised, they rolled out the stingiest RSU plan I’ve ever seen.
To make matters all worse, the CFO is a sexist f*ck. He calls women b*tches to their face and says the most derogatory sh*t when they’re not around.
The cherry on top is we used to get $1k in cash as a Holiday bonus. This year we got hats with the company logo on it and a power bank (obviously from the swag closet).
Image source: Throwawayx01928 , Campaign Creators
#19
We reached a point where we regularly had to wait to cash our paychecks. We basically were told we had to get orders completed and paid for, in order for the account to have enough money to pay us.
During this time, the boss went on a vacation which was just great for morale.
My manager had to take a day off, effectively putting me in charge for the day. I texted my manager, “What should I do if the IRS shows up? lol”. 2 hours later an IRS agent did stop in looking for my boss.
I found a new job not long after.
Image source: [deleted], Dylan Ferreira
#20
When they wanted to give me an attendance point because a terrorist blew up the at&t building in Nashville and I had no internet to work my Christmas Day shift.
Image source: balancebycj, Surface
#21
When my 30 year old manager tried to kiss literally every girl that worked there other than 16 year old me. He just made gross comments about me almost being of age.
Image source: Alicornbeast
#22
A male colleague was promoted above me. I was forced to attend a training he held that I had originally trained him how to do. My work wouldn’t make an exception for me, despite being the original department trainer. I was one of a couple females in my department and I never saw a promotion or raise, despite working there for five years. My male colleagues were typical stoners and got promotion/raises no problem.
Image source: emsquad, Mimi Thian
#23
When a boss told me to go to the port to bribe the officials there to release several containers of materials for the hotel we were building. I did not (and neither did that chickensh*t).
Image source: BillionTonsHyperbole, Ivan Lapyrin
#24
Worked in a psych hospital for a couple of years. This is a (paraphrased) conversation that one of our nurses had with the doctor about a patient that kept assaulting other patients and staff. The doctor only physically came to the facility two or three times a week. He literally did not give a sh*t.
Nurse: “Hello, doctor? The incredibly violent patient that we’ve all been complaining about for weeks just sent two of our staff members to the hospital. Pretty sure one of them has a broken hip. Can you please discharge this guy so we can have the police pick him up?”
Doctor: “No. Just bring in more staff. If you call me and bother me about this again I will keep him in the facility even longer. And just for this phone call I’m cancelling my rounds for the day. You can now deal with ALL of the patients getting pissed off. Good luck, don’t bother me again.”
Nurse: “Cool. Thanks.”
We were not equipped or staffed to handle patients like this guy. He should never have been admitted to our facility. This one just one such instance of this type of situation. The doctor would frequently admit patients like this that would stretch our staff to the absolute limit. The doctor knew and understood full well the impact it would have on the staff and he just. Did. Not. Care.
Image source: supahfligh, Brandon Holmes
#25
When my boss started looking at the store’s cameras every night to knit-pick every little detail I did so she can get mad at me for it.
Image source: Goodlove23, whereslugo
#26
One of my job’s metrics for how our performance is graded by is “on time departure”. We get so many points if we’re within -10, -5, 0, 5 or 10 min from scheduled.
People try to cheat by tampering with the clocks and that’s a punishable offense.
I was good at leaving early or on time most of the times. Got a call one day to warn me that I was under investigation because Ihad the most points in the company. They assumed that I was cheating, that’s when I knew I had to go. I wasn’t going to start being late to avoid repercussions
Image source: wearsAtrenchcoat, Amy Hirschi
#27
When our boss got into a screaming match with one of the managers (his daughter) in the middle of the office.
I’d just started there 3 weeks ago and it was absolutely mind boggling to watch. I looked around at my coworkers and everyone was just looking away, doing their best to stay quiet and not look at either of them. Person at the desk next to mine saw my shocked face and whispered “they do this a lot. Just ignore it.”
Image source: thrown12212020, Amy Hirschi
#28
I had a job as an industrial engineer that I really liked for 6 years. The guy who made it toxic wasn’t even my boss. He was the operations manager of the building where I was domiciled, but I didn’t report to him. When he started, my boss told him I was there to help him out with anything he needed. Well, a couple weeks into him working there, “what he needed” was for me to cover a Sunday shift that started at 6 AM (the reason there was a need for a Sunday shift was because he attempted to handle almost twice the amount of volume that I told him was the max for a Saturday and it went as poorly as expected), and called at midnight to let me know. When I didn’t pick up because I was at my own engagement party, he went ahead and told his boss and my boss that I had agreed to come in at 6 the next morning.
It was one of the dumbest things I ever did when I actually cancelled all the plans I had with my family members who were in town and showed up. If I hadn’t, there would have been about 50 employees waiting in the parking lot because nobody else had the keys, and people would have been pissed at me, but oh well. At the time, my bosses were putting me on software development projects and working on transitioning me into a software dev role, but within 6 months, I was supervising the operation from 9 AM to 9 PM M-F and 6 PM to 6 AM Saturday nights and I had been pulled from all my software projects. I quit to take a software engineering bootcamp and now I am a software engineer.
Image source: ElToberino
#29
Well, I wouldn’t call it toxic exactly, everyone was polite enough, but I quit a job once when it became clear to me that the task at hand couldn’t be delivered on time, and my management rejected the three alternative plans I presented.
My immediate manager even told me words to the effect of “I agree that you’re right, but I can’t sell your plan to senior management”, so I told him “then there’s no point in me sticking around while this project craters”, and handed him my badge.
Image source: [deleted]
#30
My realization came late.
I got laid off from a job with good pay and benefits, but I was dealing with long hours, high stress, a department with low morale, and a hands-off manager who seemed to care more about the company than me.
Even though the place was toxic, I was sad to leave. I’d been there for years, and the job was in a field I know a lot about.
A few days after the layoff, I attended an event not far from the building I worked in. When I saw the building, the first thought that popped into my head was, “I’m glad I don’t have to go back there tomorrow!”
Something somewhere, deep in my brain or my soul, had just told me that the job I’d just been fired from wasn’t for me.
Image source: RedditPrat
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