According to James 3:16 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition, “For wherever there is jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry and selfish ambition), there will also be confusion (unrest, disharmony, rebellion) and all sorts of evil and vile practices.”
From time to time, this above scripture will come into my mind when I find that I’m within a toxic environment. Whether it be a church, within a home setting, or at work, if this scripture pops into my mind, I pay careful and close attention to my surroundings and the people within it. It’s not long after I’ve studied the behavior of some of the people within the environment that I choose to make some critical changes to protect myself.
Specifically, within environments where I must deal with extreme amounts of competitiveness, monitoring behaviors, and all sorts of strife, I gird myself up by praying for protection. I study the people and their behaviors – particularly those with whom I must be around closely – and I make determinations regarding my next steps. These next steps always require divine guidance so that I’m not reacting out of fear or haphazardly. In fact, it’s these types of environments where I find my discernment attunes itself the most.
Within my life, there is nowhere as near as my place of employment where I have had to constantly deal with narcissistic behaviors. Any time I must deal with those types of behaviors, I am always within an environment riddled with envy, contention and strife. Every evil work is involved within the workplace in such a way that I am constantly on guard and attempting to stay alert and steps ahead of oncoming attacks.
I work with some people who are very strategic in causing problems. They literally create drama in the place of peace. They’d rather create issues than solve them. They’d rather be on the side of evil as opposed to good. They seemingly enjoy devaluing and discarding the people they work with instead of exhibiting any shred of decency and kindness to them. When they do show kindness, they are fake, and they only do so for their own agenda.
Unfortunately, those in higher positions don’t seem to care that the workplace is shrouded within thick clouds of darkness, and some of them are honestly blind to it. However, some managers, supervisors, coaches, and team leads promote contention and strife amongst their subordinates through competition. Much of this competition fosters varying degrees of jealousy and envy amongst some coworkers to the point that hatred permeates the atmosphere. Instead of an atmosphere of supposed collaboration, there’s nothing but animosity, underhanded scheming and constant bickering.
One coworker, a flying monkey to a whining narcissist I refer to as Damsel in Distress, was notorious for monitoring me at nearly all times – particularly on the days that Damsel was present. On the days that Damsel was not present, it was as if this flying monkey could relax. I reasoned that maybe if Damsel wasn’t such a huge influence in this flying monkey’s life, maybe the two of us could have been better at communicating with each other.
From the start of this flying monkey coming on the scene, I took a liking to her because she reminded me of one of my nieces, but I found it difficult to have conversation with her, and I wasn’t particularly sure of the reason. Right off, she was very dismissive and resistant at even the most casual attempts at conversation. So I didn’t press the issue. I only greeted her in passing and left it at that. Yet, I discovered later on, that she had been pounced upon by Damsel and recruited to be one of her flying monkeys.
Essentially, this flying monkey became a spy for all that Damsel needed to know in terms of information within the workplace. If I knew only a quarter as much as this flying monkey in terms of several coworkers’ personal businesses, I’d know a whole lot. I always found it uncanny as to how the mobsters learned so much personal information about other coworkers. They certainly spent a lot of time gossiping about people and things about people I didn’t know about, and all that gossiping helped them to pass the time at work.
However, I wasn’t privy to any grapevine information since I didn’t hang out in the breakroom very often, stand around and gossip within groups, or make it my mission to want to know about my coworkers in that way. I was much the loner and chose to separate myself because of social anxiety and a need to break away from being overstimulated by groups of people. Plus, I wanted to mind my own business. I’ve learned that the more I know about others’ personal lives, the more drama I have to deal with when I’m around them. I’d just rather not know anything at all.
Needless to say, I came to realize after some time that this particular flying monkey was often the cause of a silent contention that would arise within the workspace. In fact, anytime that she’d come around when Damsel was present, the atmosphere would completely change. I’d literally see dark shadows float in over the lightness of the area as if to change the energy field.
This flying monkey’s behavior often seemed volatile at times. I’d often pray in a whisper in an effort to cover myself from the darkness that seemed to follow her and attempt to blanket itself over me. There would be times,l I knew that there were demons within her reacting to my presence because she’d be doing what sounded like incantations under her breath. I’d even catch her contorting her body in strange ways.
Perhaps, however, this flying monkey might have been coming off of a smoke-induced high since she always wreaked of marijuana at times. Some days the stench would be much stronger, and those would be the days that I felt as if she were attempting to silently provoke a reaction from me based on her outward behaviors.
There were at least three times I needed to walk away from my work area just so I could regroup and get away from the projections of this flying monkey’s demonic energy. I didn’t know whether to laugh, pray, or perform an exorcist because of the growling sounds she’d make under her breath, the incessant chants she’d hum over and over, or the outward monologues she’d have with herself about my actions or my whereabouts.
In the beginning, when I first worked with this flying monkey when she was first moved to the department in which I work, I didn’t realize there was a problem. I was actually tasked with the responsibility of training her. She caught onto her tasks very quickly, but soon afterward, it appeared that she became my arch nemesis. If she ever ran into a problem and needed help, she’d forgo asking me in favor of simply allowing the problem to become a much bigger issue. Despite my openness to assist her whenever she needed, she’d ignore me in favor of asking the other coworkers I had trained along with her. I found it strange.
Yet, later on, when I discovered that this flying monkey actually hated the ground upon which I walked on, I was so terribly disappointed. I had always tried to look out for her and vouched for her keeping a position on the team. Yet, she shunned all my support in favor of making it her mission to befriend the very people I discovered hated me as much as she hated me too. She actually went hard core on becoming my number one enemy and a proud sponsor of mobster behavior.
In fact, this flying monkey seemed to be the former supervisor’s number one recruit in causing chaos on an already dysfunctional team he created for the purpose of pushing me out of my position in the first place. This flying monkey was used to attempt to phase me out of a position I was hired for, and she was very instrumental in using manipulative behaviors to steal portions of my workload, to keep me out of my place on the team on the days I was actually present, and to assist the mobsters in creating false narratives about me to anyone who would listen.
However, I am notorious for documenting EVERYTHING, and when I only mentioned my documentation to the former supervisor regarding his dealings, behaviors, and all that I was experiencing in terms of bullying within the work setting and how I’d present my documentation to an employment lawyer and not human resources, he immediately suspended the flying monkey from the team based on some other so-called actions he claimed she’d done that were against policy.
Although I believe that the supervisor just made moves and most likely told the flying monkey that he needed her in her original position, the flying monkey was removed from the team for a while, and she seemed to no longer be as huge an issue for me, but I was very discerning and watchful of her manipulative behaviors, and I was very careful to watch the interactions between the other mobsters and her – particularly when it came to Damsel. Nevertheless, once the supervisor left and company needs changed again, bit by bit, the flying monkey was moved back into position once another flying monkey was phased out.
For about a month, Damsel gave me her harshest silent treatment and enlisted the help of many others to not interact with me for any reason. Coworkers that I never presumed to have a problem with wouldn’t even respond to simple questions I asked them about the work; nor would those coworkers acknowledge my greetings to them. That month proved to be a little difficult for me emotionally, but it was also helpful for me to realize who was a part of the mobbing behaviors against me.
Once the flying monkey returned to an open position on the team, their competition against me was silent but fierce. If I hadn’t realized that the flying monkey was copying me before, I could see it more clearly than I had before. She’d actually race against me regarding the work detail, copy everything that I did in terms of the work, talk about me as soon as she thought I walked away from the work area (but had not), and take her breaks when I did just to monitor by whereabouts.
This flying monkey’s mimicking behaviors became so frustrating to me that I scaled back a whole lot regarding my work patterns and work schedule. Instead of taking breaks early enough, I’d take them later. I’d even take my lunch later. I grew tired of returning to the work area to only feel that the energy had shifted enough to where I knew that there’d been an attack of the silent treatment or stonewalling launched against me. It was tiring.
I didn’t want to compete about anything. So, I changed up the way I worked, but even despite my change up, this flying monkey would do whatever I did, and if she couldn’t master doing the same thing at the same time as me, she’d attempt to hog all the best work assignments away from me. I’d later realize that this was not only her way of attempting to outdo me, but it was also the same way that Damsel attempted to outdo me too.
In fact, Damsel and her mobsters completed a lot less work throughout the day, but would make it appear as if they’d completed nearly the same amount. If they finished a lot earlier than the rest of the coworkers and me with our assigned tasks, then they’d try to pretend as if they were helping us finish our assigned tasks. This always annoyed me because I didn’t want any help, and I didn’t need it. It also annoyed me because I knew they were still trying to take control of my work and get credit for doing it.
The manipulative behaviors of the mobsters were proof to me that they’d been racing against me from the start and had not completed beforehand what they were actually assigned to do. All of our tasks, if done correctly, would be completed within succession of each other, if not at the same time. So, I always knew when they were manipulating the system. It was never lost on me how they arranged their completed tasks either. They’d always make their work seem as if they’d done so much by arranging their completed tasks to fool supervisors and team leads into thinking they’d done so much only for a team lead to frequently tell the group that I was in the lead.
Sometimes the strife and contention I’d feel within our work area was so thick that a very sharp knife couldn’t have cut through it. A dark cloud would fall over the area and often render me speechless. I’d spend my work time not only working, but also processing through the thick cloud of darkness and considering the reasons for its presence. My head would often hurt from attempting to understand what was going on. It was just a summary of all the mass confusion, disharmony, and every evil work.
In the end, it’s clear that these types of workplaces infilled with toxicity will likely never change. One positive change might come in simply being the one who walks away from this type of environment, but when one may not be able to leave, it’s crucial to manage one’s situation in a way that protects one’s well-being such as:
- (1) emotionally detaching oneself from the toxicity by recognizing that the envy and contention coming from coworkers are reflections of their own insecurities,
- (2) avoiding the internalizing of coworkers’ behaviors while remembering that one cannot control how others act but only how one responds,
- (3) focusing on maintaining professionalism and setting boundaries,
- (4) building a support network outside of the toxic dynamics by finding coworkers who share values or by finding people outside of work who provide a safe space for self-expression, and
- (5) protecting one’s energy by practicing self-care outside of work.
My Voice Unchained 