Sigh, If Only Toxic Workplaces Came With a Warning


{Image: Transforming Management}

I just feel so tired these days. Do we really lose our energy levels as we get older. I just hate to confirm that stereotype, but it’s turning out to be true. My energy started waning from my mid thirties onwards. I recall that up to that time I could work till close to midnight and then still go out to party and be ok the next morning for work again. But it might also have to do with other factors. I actually liked my workplace then. The people were nice, I actually respected the bosses, because they were intelligent yet amazingly humble and I loved my work and felt I was doing things that mattered. Then I stumbled onto a new job that I thought would bring even better prospects (damn my ambition), but which ended up giving me nightmares to this day, causing me to quit in a very bad market. I was so depressed to the point of thinking that I would rather get hit by a bus and be hospitalized then have to suffer another day of indignity. That was my breaking point, but looking back I still mourn for a career gone south. To be perfectly honest, I never ever thought I would have a problem finding another job, because it was a cinch before. The economy really threw me for a loop. That coupled with age and other forms of discrimination. I know I shouldn’t look back in regret, but I do, I so do.

I think energy definitely wanes as we get older and in my case lack of exercise and poor food choices are to blame too, but that’s just 1%. 99% is due to your level of happiness at work. I think most employees don’t need any motivation when they start a new job. They are already pumped up and raring to go. Picture the energizer bunny – that’s how pumped up a new employee is. The only way you can ruin it is to demotivate them by involving them in draining office politics, demeaning them or just plain push them to the limit like a playground bully.

And Yes HR – employees are willing to prostitute themselves for a couple of extra bucks and benefits (insert my sarcastic voice).

So if a new employee is demotivated then please bad boss it’s not the employee, it’s you and how you run your organization. You’re the energy zapping monster. Yes you who uses fear as a motivator and ignores high turnover. If it is not directly you, and it’s just an unbearably toxic work environment, I have to hold the one at the top responsible (you again I have to say) for allowing such a climate to thrive and fester.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOZuxwVk7TU]

I was motivated to write this post based on bad work experiences of my own and that of many good, hardworking people I know whose talents are wasted under sadistic dictators and toxic workplaces (because life is unfair and karma doesn’t always work). I am so glad that a blogger I admire and like, Living Dilbert, recently got out of that nightmare. I am sure there are many others suffering and held hostage by bad bosses and mean co-workers due to the terrible economy, so this post is for them too.

And yes, I am 40 something and love Britney Spears and am not afraid to admit it.

P.S. Sorry for the ranting and raving. I just realized that I was typing on the keyboard hard and furiously like a lunatic. I was so mad recollecting everything. I’m not normally like this and am the most docile person you could meet – honest. It’s just that this topic hits a nerve and brings the worse out in me and the blog is my therapy.

About bookjunkie

Blogging about life in Singapore & recently cancer too.
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5 Responses to Sigh, If Only Toxic Workplaces Came With a Warning

  1. Pingback: Tweets that mention Sigh, If Only Toxic Workplaces Came With a Warning « Tiny Island -- Topsy.com

  2. mct88 says:

    aw yes… office politics will definitely do it for you. which is one of the reasons i’m looking for another job!

  3. Pingback: The Really Bad Boss Blog Roundup | Really Bad Boss™

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