It was early within the week after work, and I felt a bit of malaise hit me ever so slightly. It was just enough of a feeling that I actually shrugged it off. I had hopes that nothing would become of it, but the very next day, I felt the tug of malaise bring my body down hour after hour as I went about my work tasks.
By lunch time, I had hopes that some soup would be the remedy of comfort and warmth I needed, but it would not be the case. I had no appetite. The soup did not hit the spot, but was instead a sheer reminder what I was trying to avoid uttering out of my mouth. Once back at work, I had no choice but to admit to myself that I was getting sick.
I mentioned to a team lead and coach that I might have to leave because I wasn’t feeling well. Only the team lead showed concern and would later tell me to go ahead and leave if I needed to do so. Not listening to them or my body, I shouldered on because I had half a shift left. I felt that I could do it based on the time frame alone.
The coach, on the other hand, showed with body language that they could care less. They were distant and less emotive and even shrugged a sigh, like “who cares because I don’t” kind of attitude. They were eager for me to move about and get to work, and even though I was working, I was simply informing them about my physical state in case I needed to leave. Instead of waiting for a response, I made a mental note of the coach’s behavior and went back to work.
A few hours later, the team and other coworkers were called into an “emergency meeting” with the team leads and coach. The the purpose of the meeting was more or less a ton pound of words covered in pretend packages of love used to verbally beat down everyone about their efforts. I felt myself feeling sicker by the moment and decided to stand back in the distance to take note of the energies present and survey the atmosphere.
Two team leads were present and did most of the talking, with one being the positive role model that I’d hope everyone would follow. The other team lead, who brings chaos wherever they go, talked incessantly about the same thing over and over, leading my mind into a resounding chant of “wrap this up”. Based on the time it took for both team leads to reach their points, I knew the meeting was being dragged out on purpose, and I was trying to discern the reason.
Since I’d been down this route before in another career, I made every effort to take in the cues of red flags about the things said, and there were so many red flags that spelled out, “RUN!” From the trope of “We are here for all of you” to “We only want what’s best for each of you”, I felt that my time was being wasted and the energy I needed to continue standing to hear it all was quickly leaving me on depletion.
A great pet peeve for me is for someone to lead a meeting and not capture the attention of their overall audience. It’s like, what’s the point of even speaking if your audience doesn’t hear you or even want to hear you? The disinterest of the crowd was tangible and visible. Some didn’t even bother to stop coming to a halt in their work so that everyone could hear what was being verbalized at all. Their robotic way of doing things said silently what most were thinking … that this meeting, like all the others, was another waste of time.
When the coach was asked to speak, it was clear to me that none of these people had been professionally trained on how to speak to a crowd of people. It was also clear that they did not know how to professionally lead people. Perhaps I cockishly perceived this as one having had my own opportunities to publicly speak and lead in various capacities, but it was obvious that none of them knew anything about quality leadership. The meeting was a mess. There was no order and no agenda.
The coach was flat out disrespectful in the way they addressed the group, letting it be verbally known how very little they cared about any of the employees and their issues. The moment they began to talk about the employees being a part of one big family, my head heard a major alarm bell ringing. These words, “one big family” are representative of toxic workplace culture and should never be used to describe a business company.
Maybe that’s all fine for a family business, but this wasn’t a family business, and I wasn’t related to anyone on the job. One toxic family, by blood, is enough for me. It was hard enough to deal with toxic coworkers, but now this coach wanted us to consider each other like family, and that was a bit much for me. As far as I was concerned, I immediately found myself tuning far out of the meeting from that point onward.
As the coach talked incessantly on and on, the floor became open to questions, and although I had two, I waited to give others an opportunity to air their grievances and pose their questions. One after the other, the coach answered questions with a cavalier attitude while dismissing others and criticizing mostly everyone who brought a question to the floor. Many of the questions were legitimately important, and deserved a respectful response that the coach seemed to care less to bring.
Yet, the more the questions went on, the less I desired to ask my own, and the sicker I felt. I just wanted it all to be over. The meeting felt more like an exploitive charade of chaos than anything beneficial. At some points, a few coworkers were berated for their questions and raked over hot coals of fire for expressing opinions. Then when a few coworkers expressed they felt intimidated by a few coworkers in another department, I looked on in astonishment as the coach yelled, “SO!” The coached yelled this so loudly that I knew it was purposefully meant to drown out all other sounds.
According to the coach, it didn’t matter that anyone is nice to other employees but that the focus should be on getting the tasks done. It didn’t matter that feelings would be hurt in the process, and blah blah blah. It didn’t matter that people didn’t feel safe doing their jobs. They just needed to focus on doing them. To say I was dumbfounded was an understatement. I emphatically disagreed. These types of of intimidating behaviors were only a part of a larger problem, and if this coach saw no problem with them, and wasn’t planning on stopping them, they didn’t care that there was a hostile work environment.
As I wished to speak up, I could feel the sickness over take me to an extent that shut me down. I wanted away from this toxicity. Then it hit me. There was no sense in addressing things that were just not going to change. I was one person, and I’d be looked at and made a target. A part of me didn’t care, but the part of me that did care was just too sick to do anything about it. I was also exhausted. I didn’t want to waste time explaining to someone who didn’t care to hear the truth that they were an added issue to an overall problem.
If this coach felt this way, then undoubtedly, team leads and managers felt this way too. Nobody cared, and even though I cared, I didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. What was my point even being there? With this thought, I shrank further away from the group until I eventually walked out. Oddly, Damsel in Distress and a very insecure coworker who attempted to provoke me followed me out – both talking about how every word went into one ear and out the other when it came to most people in the group. My own mind thought about them too, but I was too sick to care.
Once back to my station, I contemplated a life beyond this job because I wanted to leave and never return. Yet, the illness that had begun to lay hold of and wreak havoc upon my body nearly pushed me over the brink, and I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to be returning to work for the remainder of the week. The sickness had plans that were beyond me, and I was about to learn some very valuable lessons. The most valuable one was an unchanging one, and that was that they [managers, coaches, supervisors, team leads, coworkers, etc.] don’t really care about you in a toxic workplace. In fact, they don’t really care about you at all.
My Voice Unchained 