Letting Go: Toxic Work Environment – Final Part

Part 6

Emotional Finality

On the flip side of giving notice, I didn’t realize I’d feel so emotional about it. Once I emailed my former supervisor from my previous career about my desire to get back to aspects of that previous career, I felt a sense of relief. I had taken steps to get away from the current place of toxicity. Within moments of sending that email, that former supervisor replied back, and I knew that stepping out was essentially securing for myself a new direction for my future. I hadn’t realized, however, that I would feel so sad.

I felt sadness about walking away. After I gave the hiring manager my two weeks notice, I felt tears well up within my eyes. I had stepped out on what didn’t even feel like faith but more like a reaction. I hadn’t anticipated that I’d feel such sadness about leaving a toxic workplace. Although there was relief, there was an overall sadness that I couldn’t deny. I’d originally taken this particular job to hide. I wanted to simply settle for something easy and let that be the end of it, but once I got into the job, I realized my penchant for changing toxicity and making things better around me.

In my previous career, I could readily change things around me for the better. It was all a part of my job to do so, but within this particular work environment, all I needed to do was shop, stock and help customers. I didn’t need to do anything life-changing. Yet, it’s always been my nature to be of good cheer around others. Toxic environments can make that difficult, but I set out to do it just because that’s me.

In fact, I felt I could make life better by being my usual self. I thought I could do that by simply being myself to brighten up someone’s day. I thought it might be as simple as saying “good morning” to a lot of people who always seemed so grumpy each morning. Frankly, so many more people began to look forward to my greeting them that they’d go out of their way to speak to me first when I’da be focused on remaining silent.

I had to learn that some people just weren’t morning people, but neither was I. Just because I had a penchant for greetings didn’t mean that other even felt like that was something necessary to do. I wasn’t there to make friends, but I wasn’t necessarily there to make enemies either. It was always my nature to speak to everyone I encountered, and not doing so sometimes felt “wrong”. After a while, I grew to figure out who I could actually comfortably greet or not, but there were times when even I didn’t want to talk to anyone either, but I always focused on being respectful no matter who I encountered on the job.

I was always all about listening to others to gain glimpses of life lived within this toxic work environment from their perspective. I even listened to the mobsters too. At many points, I realized they were only mobsters because of their overall dissatisfaction with work and life. Listening also gave me insights into the overall immaturity that many of those a part of the mobbing group exhibited towards me. I understood, overall, that their toxic behaviors had very little to do with me and more to do with them.

However, at the same time, I grew tired of dealing with their toxic behaviors. I grew enormously tired of dealing with the copycat and competitive behaviors with the intentions to stay steps ahead of me when I was simply trying to do the same job as some of my competitive coworkers. I’m not one for competition with others. I just wanted to work and measure my own growth against what I’d done the day before. I grew fatigued with the immature behaviors of adults who simply didn’t know how to be mature adults. I grew tired of working within an environment of women and men around my age who behaved as bullies to a younger generation of women and men.

I didn’t want to be viewed as a hater by those younger than me. Yet, this was what seemed to be the thing the older women on the job did to younger women. They were not nice to them at all. They bullied them. They talked disapprovingly to them and about them. It was sickening to watch these interactions, particularly when the younger women would remain respectful while maintaining their composures against the disrespect. I made it my lot to stay out of any groups or cliques. That wasn’t even my personality anyway. I was mainly a loner, often choosing to spend my break time and lunch time alone. Even when there were different safety drills, I’d choose to stand apart simply because of my need for solitude and muteness.

Many of my coworkers behaved so meanly towards other coworkers simply because they wanted to exhibit control. It made me continuously tired to always go behind these coworkers trying to show the same people they were mean to that I wasn’t a part of the mobbing group. I didn’t like being guilty by association. So I always kept myself away from the mobbing group activities. I didn’t purposely try to stand apart from them, but I often did stand at a distance from them that even they noticed. The truth of the matter is that I didn’t agree with a lot of their toxic behaviors, and I often spoke out against them simply by stating what I didn’t want to do.

So, it behooved me to actually shed tears when I finally decided to let go. The emotional release was strong. I had to wipe away actual tears from my eyes as I sat in the break room. I was so overcome with emotion. Even though I didn’t want to remain at the workplace any longer as an employee, I still felt a certain amount of sadness when it came to letting go. For the most part, I think about something that two of my only friends, whom both live a great distance from me, had said to me at different times about this toxic workplace.

From one friend I heard, “I think you’re only in this place as a part of your own transition. You’re not one for remaining silent about issues. You are a catalyst for change, but I think when you’ve done all that you know to do, you feel a release at some point to walk away. I think you did that in many ways at this job, and I don’t see this place as a final workplace for you. I think you were there to realize your own value and strength after having suffered through a previously bad work environment in the past.”

From the other friend, “That place was something to settle on for a little while, but I think all the events that have happened are forcing you out of there. I think you already know you’re not suppose to stay there long term. It’s just not for you even if it is easy work. I think God has allowed the situation to become physically too difficult for you because He wants you doing something else more fitting for your personality and your gifts.”

Whatever the case, I let go of this toxic work environment and cried in the process about doing it. The release made me think about how I’ve let go of other toxic situations and toxic people in the past. It’s not hard but it is hard. Perhaps I cried because of the lack of knowing what the future holds. Perhaps I cried because I didn’t actually affect change in this work environment despite my attempts. Perhaps I cried because this was a place I wanted to settle upon until things became far more difficult and complex for me to handle. Or, perhaps I cried because this is a cycle of ending that only continues to repeat itself in my life.

I wasn’t even on this job a year, and when I think about it, I hadn’t anticipated even remaining a full year. I’d actually given myself a timeline of completion, and I fulfilled it. Yet, what I expected and what actually occurred weren’t necessarily for the same reasons I’d anticipated when I first began the job. This was only supposed to be a job to keep me from boredom, and it did just that. It met my full expectations in keeping me busy, but even though I might have been bored with the tasks I was actually doing at work, I wasn’t bored because of the atmosphere. There was always so much to analyze there.

Being at this job served several purposes. For one, this job awakened my desire to return to school to finish my degree towards becoming a licensed therapist. (That is still in the making though.) Second, this job continued my study on narcissistic personalities, and I certainly learned a lot more on top of what I’ve already learned before. Third, this job awakened what I thought was dead discernment, and although it still took me long enough to walk away from toxicity, it wasn’t as long as I when I remained on my other job in my previous profession. Fifth, I didn’t choose to make friends, and I didn’t divulge any of my personal life under the hopes that I would make friends. I went to work to make money.

Besides making money, I took the time to study the toxicity of a corporate environment and learned a whole lot about how narcissism works even within the corporate system. So, I’ve essentially come full circle to seeing NPD and other mental health issues play out not only within the context of corporations but also in the contexts of educational settings and churches. Basically, narcissism is everywhere, and those suffering from narcissistic personality disorder all follow similar patterns of behaviors and those suffering from narcissistic abuse also deal with similar patterns of abuse.

There’s nothing new underneath the sun, but there sure are a lot of new and different aspects of what occurs. Letting go is the same in all situations. There’s release. There’s a sense of finality. There’s a sense of discovery. In the same way, there is change. There is growth. There is death. The death, of course, is not a physical one but more a spiritual dying to oneself. In essence, I’ve come to learn more about myself from working this job than I could have if I remained unemployed, and I count there to be purpose in even this.

Many of those with narcissistic personalities will never change. There is too much at stake for them to do so. Most of those stakes involve the pride in not changing, the ease of having control because they don’t change, and the toxic environments that thrive upon the lack of a will to want to change. In fact, there’s no sense of urgency to change, and there’s no repentance for a desire to change either. All there are elements that promote the continual thriving of narcissism that feed these personalities to continue as they do.

It’s like an engine that needs to be continually fed stimuli to keep going at a grand narcissistic pace. New people come in and either feed the narcissistic system or resist what’s offered them. If the new people feed the narcissistic system, they are destined to become more like the toxicity within, and if they choose to resist what’s offered, they are more likely to suffer before they choose to eventually leave. That’s how it will always be until the system is destroyed from within. Unfortunately, though, these toxic systems tend to last because someone is always feeding them – giving them enough supply to continue to grow, but this time, I chose to let go.