FUNMILAYO AREMU writes on the experiences of employees with their bosses and how overbearing employers create toxic environment for workers.
Ada (not real name), a petite 23-year-old who recently completed her mandatory National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), decided to follow her dream and began to hunt for an accounting job after her boyfriend of two months asked if she could manage an internship position at one of his area brothers’ start-up companies.
Given how crowded the unemployed market is, she eagerly accepted the offer and reported in the company with the aspiration of working diligently and quickly ascending the corporate ladder. She enjoyed the perks that came with the new job; but after the first week, she had a tale of woe to tell.
Ada had just finished working on an invoice on that fateful day when her boss busted into her office demanding that she submit some documents she had been assigned to work on that morning and left.
She quickly followed him back to his office and told him that she would need more time to work on them. On hearing this, her boss flared up and flung his cup of hot tea in her direction, causing Ada to shrink back in fear.
“How long will it take you to work on it? Are you stupid? I never wanted to hire you in the first place; from the moment I set eyes on you, I knew you were a slow, stupid, useless thing! What have you done right since you got here? If you don’t produce that document in five minutes, consider yourself fired!” her boss shouted.
Ada retreated to her office shaking. What had she got herself into? She burst into tears knowing full well that there was no way she could whip up that document in few minutes. She did not even notice blood dripping from the cut she sustained on her leg after the mug hit the floor. She wept bitterly but got herself together and tried to get back to work because she had no choice but to do so. There was no way she was going to go back to being unemployed.
Ada is not alone in this situation. Many subordinates in offices suffer the same fate. When an article exposing the horrible experiences that some former employees of a particular company went viral on Twitter days back, many youths who have suffered at the hands of horrendous bosses took to the social media to narrate their experiences with the hashtag #horrible bosses and toxic workplaces
Sunday Tribune discovered that this article prompted many people who had gone through the same experience to speak up about their own experiences. One tweep with the handle JustKings tweeted that he was almost fired because he took two weeks off work for his mother’s burial, but was pardoned after he begged and forfeited the salary for that month. He later left the job after he got a better offer, though his boss begged him to stay.
A user tweeted that she wanted to resign from a job that was causing her problems, but her boss asked if she would leave her marriage because her husband hits or slaps her.
Some users also shared experiences of people whom they knew had gone through similar experiences. One Emmanuel Ossai tweeted that “speaking about toxic bosses, I know someone who got a bad appraisal and denied a promotion that was to come with a brand-new car and a significant increment in salary which he was qualified for, simply because he refused to attend a party with his boss. #HorribleBosses.”
Another tweep, Oluwatunmise posted that “someone applied for leave and because they wanted to fire her, they asked IT to delete proof that the leave was granted and fired her when she got back by saying she went on leave without permission. #horriblebosses.”
While others shared experiences, some tweeps went on to point out that it is not just about horrible bosses in corporate settings, “Even those Madam Hairdressers and Seamstresses who tell their trainees to kneel by the roadside when they come late are also on Twitter roasting #HorribleBosses,” Drpenking tweeted.
John Reuben said “your housekeeper, 14 years, sleeps on the kitchen floor and go to school twice a week at 10 am but you are giving hot takes on #HorribleBosses.”
Another tweep narrated her experience, saying: “I recently resigned from my job. The job was cool, paid well, but the manager was toxic. ‘Are you stupid? Are you mad? Idiot!’ were the words I kept getting every single day at work. He will always threaten to sack me at every given opportunity. And now I’m back to square one, staying at home. But I’m happy, no one has rained abuses on me for the past week.”
Sunday Tribune also spoke with some employees on their experiences in their workplaces. A lady who pleaded anonymity, sharing her experience at her former workplace said: “I was employed as an administrative officer, but then I had to assume the role of a Business Development Officer, Content Writer, Sales Representative, Customer Service representative, Messenger, and so on, whatever need arose, myself and two other staff had to fill.
“Most times, I had to work extra hours and wasn’t paid overtime; I wasn’t even paid for the other roles I assumed. I went to bed most nights crying out of frustration and still had to get up as early as 6 am every day and make my way to work before 7 am. If I was one minute late, a percentage of my meagre N40,000 salary would be deducted.
“The straw that broke the camel’s back was the day my boss accused me of being lazy. He had asked me to work on a proposal; I did so, and sent it to his email, but he denied ever receiving it. He then called me useless and said he saw no reason to waste money every month, paying me for doing absolutely nothing.
“He said everything I did, he could handle himself; that he didn’t need any staff to work for him. He abused and called me names. That was when I decided that I had had enough of it and quit,” she recounted.
While many people have advised victims of such bosses to quit their jobs as their mental health is important; however, many employees are not able to disengage due to the high rate of unemployment and the economic in the country.
Speaking with Sunday Tribune, a lecturer in the Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, Dr. Abel Obosi, revealed that a toxic workplace affects the mental health of employees and can bring about depression and other mental disorders.
“To a large extent, given work-life balance, individuals that want to work in any organisation will not want to lose their lives in the process. The idea of working is actually to earn a living to meet their basic needs. So, when the workplace becomes toxic, it affects the psychic, these individuals are not able to meet the work-life balance. Going to work now becomes a necessary evil. You just have to go, because you will not be paid if you don’t go.
“So, the passion is out of it, the internal drive or motivation is completely gone and they are just looking for a way out. And because the job is not as available as it used to be, they just stick to that job. A toxic workplace affects the psyche of an individual, their work-life balance; affects their motivation and affects their thought process. They are not able to think straight. It can also bring about some psychopathology; this word is used to capture mental disorders.
“Depression can arise when a workplace is toxic. The person just wants to go to work for the sake of making a living, not because he or she is motivated, not because there is an inner drive. So, to a large extent, they will not be able to survive in that workplace. It can bring about depression; worst-case scenario, it can cause bipolar disorder,” he explained.
On the coping strategy in a toxic work environment when quitting might not be an option because of the current economic situation, Obosi advised that therapy could be a way out.
“Open a dialogue, communicate with the management and talk things over; if the employee feels listened to, or heard, to a large extent, it can correct some of the symptoms. Where dialogue is not possible, therapy becomes the option. That employee should seek therapy. Therapy is available everywhere in the country right now.
“The idea of therapy is to be able to maintain positive mental health amid a toxic environment. You can now begin to see something positive in a toxic place, and therapy will help you achieve that. You will be able to talk about it; you have someone to listen to you and advise you. You have somebody to use tested techniques to help you cope with that place. Amid a toxic environment, therapy will show you that there are positive things you can gain from it. It builds your resilience, your ability to be resilient, ability to work under pressure, to be able to deliver on time, and some virtues that you didn’t know could come out of the situation until he or she goes for therapy,” he stated.
Obosi also revealed that the red flags to look out for in workplaces are numerous and are necessarily personal factors. He added that: “the red flags are necessarily personal factors. As an employee, anytime you think of work, what comes to your mind? Are you excited to go? Is it somewhere you are longing to go? Would you spend extra time at work? Can you go the extra length?
“What comes to your mind each time you get a call from your boss? Do you have to think twice before taking the call? Do you have to recalculate yourself? Prepare your mind? What is he going to ask me? What is he going to say? Are you always on the defensive?
“The individual will have felt the symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety, palpitations, and unnecessary sweating, feelings of worthlessness, feeling of being used, feelings of wasting time, when those feelings exist, those are symptoms of a toxic work environment. When the person is not looking forward to going to work, he is not looking forward to interacting with his boss, his colleagues, he is just all out to make money and go home. Lastly, when the person is constantly looking for an alternative, to resign, to leave. Those are signs of a toxic workplace,” he stated.
He also revealed that employees who are victims of #horrible bosses tend to become horrible bosses themselves.
“People will most likely treat others the way they were treated, unconsciously. You can’t give what you don’t have. So, what they have, what they have experienced – bullying, intimidation, stress – they feel that is actually what made them work. When they now own their own businesses, they are more likely to create a toxic environment themselves, because, for them, that is the ideal.
“Once they can seek help in the form of therapy, they know that this is not ideal and can get help. When they have the opportunity of owning an organisation, they can change the status quo. They can come in and create a conducive environment, where people don’t want to leave; where people want to work and do their best because they have a boss who understands their mental health and empathises with them. When empathy is out of the way, then a workplace becomes toxic. Again, it falls back to information; we have to change the mindset of these individuals and help them know that that is not ideal. An ideal workplace is a workplace where empathy exists,” he concluded.
and then