I understand that not everyone is fortunate to have money saved to be able to have the leeway to leave jobs whenever they feel like it and so forth. But I just feel like people have lost their sense of self-respect when it comes down to employment.
I am a firm believer that if you are working at a toxic place and are being harassed or bullied, to stand up to that behavior and tell them that you’re not going to take their shit, and if they continue you fucking quit and never look back.
I have known people who have not had a savings who have done this in the past and they end up finding a decent job that doesn’t treat them like shit. Do you feel like job Seekers don’t defend themselves anymore?
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Not as bad as it was pre-covid, but yes, this is still definitely a fucking thing…
I appear to be immune to it, I’m retired military and went looking for work more as something to do than something to pay bills, and literally nobody gives me shit about anything, I have a very obvious no-fucks dispositon. I see how they treat coworkers though and seriously wonder how the fuck the state of what people believe individual liberty should be has gotten this fucked.
I literally watched someone hand over their cell phone to a manager so they could go through their Facebook messages a couple days ago… That manager has never even asked for my phone number, and I’m 100% certain she wouldn’t ask for my phone. She just pushes certain people because she knows she can.
Wow, taking someones personal property doesn’t even sound legal. That is messed up.
You definitely get it. You know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. This behavior is prevalent, and I feel like ppl cower and don’t stand up for themselves bc of losing their job.
In my opinion, it doesn’t matter. You need to show them that you mean business and don’t care who they are that you’re not gunna take their bullshit.
You’re not a fucking slave, and people who work for you need to be treated with respect.
The moment you show them its ‘ok’ to walk all over you. It’s done. You let them know you’ll tolerate being treated like shit and they are just going to push you around.
You’ve proven you’re not valuable at that point your disposable.
I’m certain when they were interviewing you and you told them about your military experience, their assholes receded into their bowels.
At that moment they knew that if they hire you, they have to leave you alone and let you do your job. Because idk? You’re a fucking adult?
It’s crazy man
People probably don’t want to lose their job because they can’t afford to. You acknowledged it yourself in your OP, most people don’t have the money to just leave a job. I could probably afford to be out of work for a little while, but I’ve been applying for jobs for ages with no luck… So I’m not exactly confident even my reasonable nest egg would last me until I found something.
I know and that’s the Vicious Cycle of it. Even as soon as you get yourself to that confidence that you know you have value on the job market and you can stand up for yourself with toxic shitty employers, leaving that job or getting fired or laid off means you have to go through the whole job interviewing process again. And that shit is degrading in itself and it starts to eat away at that confidence that you gained
It’s not always about confidence. It’s about money. Many people live paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford to just randomly quit their job without having another lined up. It’s a bit odd that you keep coming back to things like confidence when it really has nothing to do with it.
I’m lucky that I don’t live paycheck to paycheck. I can take time between jobs to find a new one if I’d like. But many people do not have that luxury and cannot just quit their job…
It’s one of those prisoner dilemma things.
If everyone refused to put up with shit like a manager looking through your phone, it wouldn’t happen. The employer wouldn’t have any employees and they’d be done.
But enough people make the optimal-for-themselves choice of putting up with it in exchange for food and money. You can’t really blame them. Do you trust your coworkers?
We should have stronger worker protections and unions, but it’s a long path from here to there.
If you are employed by a fertilizer company to process manure and compost, taking shit from your employer is embezzlement.
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Let’s not get started on the plumbing industry
Sounds like your background is very different to others. Most people have their entire lives tied to their job, through no push of their own. Especially in the US where your very healthcare and family healthcare plans rely solely on keeping your job. Not to mention food in their mouths, education, car and you might even have a house to lose whether mortgage or just rent. Leaving your family homeless, especially when so many are already just making it week to week, month to month, without any opening for rest.
Don’t get it mixed up, people don’t stay in shitty situations because they enjoy it. And corporations has put lots of lobbying around ensuring you are dependent on them so that they have the power.
Why do you think they freak out of unions or free health care or anything that gives power back to the employee.
But, like, there are multiple jobs in the world. The alternative to working for Company A is supposed to be instead working for Company B, not being evicted from society.
I know and that’s what bothers me. It’s the fear. I feel we need to fucking unite
You’re right, but creating an entire movement isn’t easy :p.
Companies will shut down an entire store before they let the staff unite in some way such as create a union for something as simple as fair pay.
They’ll get government involvement to stop strikes from happening.
They’ll use high paid teams of lawyers and rigid contract obligations that you signed when starting if you try typical legal action.
And hardest of all, they use the narrative “if you’re in a shit job, that’s your fault for not moving”. So that the fault will always be yours and they are never required to change. And what sucks worse is the true reality is that except for the occasional unicorn job, most of them are all shit like that (or turn that way at some point).
As a unionist…have I got the solution for you!
Problem is that each person defines what “taking shit” is, for them personally, differently. To draw an extreme, if you’re being physically assaulted, anyone would call that bullshit. But what about criticism, which some people handle better than others, and is an important part of developing skills?
So, it really is going to vary quite a bit from individual to individual, and situation to situation. Depending as much on the receiver as the shit-giver.
That said, yes, I do think workers tend to give up a bit too much of their own power these days, just in general. Unions help with that.
Unionize. Get union jobs. This helps with stopping what you’re talking about.
You’re right. That’s why most big companies tell people not to unionize, or that it’s not necessary. It means they can continue to pay people terribly and treat them poorly. Knowing it’s happening next door means less flight risk of those treated poorly.
There is a reason big US corps spend millions of dollars every year on anti-union propaganda. If they’re not worried about spending that much money, how much do you think they are stealing from your labour?
As someone who’s never been in a union job, what happens if your boss is just kind of a dick? Can you go to your union rep to handle it or is that outside the scope?
I only have one anecdote. A friend of mine was having trouble at work where their boss was giving them shit about sick time (they had COVID). Friend got a meeting with the boss and the union rep on their side. They said it was like the difference between representing yourself at court and having a lawyer.
That’s exactly what it’s like.
I have been homeless and I have been well-paid while taking shit from my employer. Taking shit while well paid was way harder on my mental and physical health. Homelessness was uncomfortable and scary, but taking shit while being highly paid degraded me, made me weaker, made me less happy, made me slowly but steadily think less of myself.
Wow I’m sorry you had to experience that man. I know better things are on their way to you.
From what you’ve said, what would you say to the ppl who think taking shit from an employer is ‘fine’ ?
Either it’s not shit they’re taking, or it’s not fine.
The mismatch between respectful treatment and non-respectful treatment will cause a constant drain on energy and health, and it will recalibrate one’s own sense of self worth via the mechanism called “cognitive dissonance”.
How does cognitive dissonance come into play here? If a person says their being treated in an unacceptable manner, but they behave as if it’s okay for people to treat them that way, the difference between these will cause cognitive dissonance. Given the brain works to reduce cognitive dissonance over time, if the person doesn’t quit then it will alter their sense of boundaries and what is acceptable. In short their self image as to their level of dignity will fall. They will come to view themselves as someone to whom it is acceptable yo act abusively.
And a person it’s “okay” to abuse is a low thing indeed.
It will manifest in some way. Likely there will be a reduction in self-care (why take care of someone not worthy of being taken care of?). It can manifest as resentment and hatred toward others. A person can become really touchy and self-righteous, as a compensation for the creeping subconscious belief that they are worthless.
Because the cognitive dissonance operates on other levels too. If they try to maintain their self worth, sometimes they’ll try by tearing down others. They’ll distract from the feeling of unworthiness by seeking to establish that others aren’t worthy. This can be attacks on others’s character, arbitrary abuse of others.
It can manifest in a desperate attempt to gain respect through people pleasing. That can lead to overpromising, which eventually becomes broken promises, low performance reviews, and termination.
And the cognitive dissonance operates in the mind of the manager as well. Let’s say a manager is exhibiting two conflicting beliefs:
- I’m a good person who treats people fairly (mental thought), VS
- I’m treating this person poorly.
How does the manager’s mind resolve this conflict to reduce cognitive dissonance? One way is it finds excuses to punish the person. In order to create congruence between “I’m a good a manager” and “I’m treating this person poorly”, one way to bridge that gap is to add in “They did something wrong”.
Generally speaking, abuse transforms the abused person for as long as they acquiesce to it. It also transforms the abuser. Neither person benefits in terms of mental health. Both may be engaging in the pattern out of a mistaken belief it will bring them financial benefit. But long term, abuser and victim are both poisoned psychologically by their two, independent, decisions to allow the abuse to exist.
One might even go so far as to say groups of people have cognitive dissonance acting at the collective level (individually occurring in each mind, but interacting in complementary ways to enable and support each other). At a collective level, a society might proclaim “All people are inherently valuable”, but if that society allows abuse to continue, embedded into its institutions, that conflicts with the stated societal value, and it starts to produce a new unconscious (and therefore harder to grapple with and control) belief that “People are shit”.
I am not kidding, at all, when I say that my health was fine when I was homeless, but my health suffered massively when I put up with abuse at work. These findings are backed up by scientific studies on heart attacks: turns out if you compare heavy workload vs lack of respect, the lack of respect is a better predictor of heart attacks than is the heavy workload.
And in my case I didn’t even keep the job. Those mechanisms I described led to my status within the company falling and falling. I got overloaded with work and not listened to when I had issues. I eventually got fired. So for me at least, trying to sacrifice my dignity for money just straight up failed.
I now make $47k, and my finances are more stable than when I was making $105k.
I don’t know about others, but for me money doesn’t even work right for me if I’m not acting according to my conscience. I saved nothing during that time I tried to sacrifice my dignity.
It’s a real life example of a “deal with the devil”. He promises you great things, but ultimately the terms of the deal are that you lose your soul.
In the words of one of my favorite psychology professors:
If you ignore that thing that’s calling you forth, you will pay for it like you cannot possibly imagine.
That sentence echoed in my head as I wallowed in abuse (a relationship this time, not a job). I was trying to accept it. But a little voice inside me would not accept it. It said “this is wrong. It can be better”, and that quote scared me.
Because abuse isn’t level. It gets worse and worse the longer you put up with it. It only feels level because as the abuse gets worse, your ability to perceive it as abuse is getting worse at the same time.
It’s a pathway to ruin. And there are forms of ruin worse than having to sleep in a homeless shelter, having to carry a knife to defend against psychos, worse than extreme hunger, sleep deprivation.
That’s what I would say, if I thought there was any chance they’d listen.
ACCEPTING ABUSE DOES NOT WORK
Some deep wisdom there. Thank you.
"I got overloaded with work and not listened to when I had issues. I eventually got fired. So for me at least, trying to sacrifice my dignity for money just straight up failed.
This is what I feel like people miss. Your dignity is valuable you have dignity as a person, you don’t let people disrespect you. And the more you allow that behavior the more you’re inviting it in. And you will get more of it.
For people who think it’s normal I would have to ask, well where do you draw the line then? If they ask you to get on your knees and kiss their shoes in front of everybody is that okay? They’re not putting hands on you or getting physical they’re just requesting this of you are you going to accept that? That’s humiliating.
Just because somebody owns a company and is your boss gives them absolutely no right to treat you like fucking dirt.
And the more people realize that, and show people that they are not to be disrespected, the better their life will be and the better relationships they will form and have in their lives.
Thank you so much for what you wrote and I’m glad you’re in a better place. You really touched on a lot of important points and I feel like people really need to see this.
In my field I see lots of people taking shit for no good reason. Of course there are those with little choice, but many could just easily tell their boss to go fuck himself and still… they rather eat shit.
Fucking why !?!? This God like complex needs to be stripped away from these Assholes
Yes but not everyone is in a shaky position where they have to be super passive. Some people could totally get some respect. I can’t understand.
Yea I feel this
Everyone’s circumstances are different. Finding a new job is a huge opportunity cost, typically requiring large amounts of time and money as the search gets extended.
I make healthcare related calls on the clock, because I am forced to get healthcare through my employer, so to me, it is a work related matter.
I like my boss though, he gets it.
In a lot of cities there just aren’t any opportunities. All the businesses have banded to together to abuse employees. So you can suck it up, or you can be a really proud homeless person.
Or you can move, you know.
Sometimes people can’t do that for reasons like family members. For instance I’ve lived away from my hometown for years, but now my parents are getting older and I don’t want to be 800 miles away currently. Or say your spouse has a job they’re satisfied with.
I did, but a lot of people can’t, or won’t.
You should leave if you feel that your job is making you miserable. Start interviewing on the down low, and leave once you have something lined up.
There is no point in trying to stay at a place you hate because you are guilty about that your work is going to be piled on to your coworker. They made their choice to stay, you’ve done your best to help them, but you should put your own well being first and foremost.
I think this is a very American thing. Employers have a lot of leverage over employees because the employees rely on employers for healthcare insurance and there’s no real safety net if they get laid off.
In other developed countries, employees will have access to universal healthcare and you have generous unemployment benefits for a much longer time (often up to 90 percent of your previous salary for a year or two or until you find another job (you have to prove your active job search)).
This all creates more balance between employer and employee.
For most people it would take about one month to find new job. So, you can quit in a month.
[citation needed]
Change it to half a year. My point still stands.
Your point doesn’t stand. The time it takes to get an equivalent job depends on what industry you’re talking about and what level of position.
My point is not about time it takes, but about the fact that you can find the job and quit. In this order.
Not agreeing with MxM’s comment, but you should be interviewing and working your network at all times.
Essentially your current job should be trying to retain you. (Though they aren’t aware this is actively happening)
If another opportunity arises (better earning, better learning), take it. The best time to look for a new job is while you have a job, and no employer will be concerned when you tell them you are interested in their position if you simply say your current role isn’t meeting your career needs.
This approach will reduce the interviewing cycle time, ideally to zero, but obviously layoffs happen that can catch you out.
Then your point is totally right, might take months
Not in itself, no. Some people conflate “not taking shit” with being rude, stubborn and domineering, though, and that’s not good in the workplace or elsewhere. For all my ranting about everything being political, I think this one is just down to worker’s rights and culture - if the company is god and can never be questioned, but can fire you at a whim, most people are just not going to stick their neck out. With healthier work culture and rights, there’s less shit going around in the first place, and it’s easier to get out of a toxic “relationship”.
Being able to walk out on the spot is a great thing. But most people will have to do some advance planning for that. Find a new job and then find a good opportunity to walk out on the spot.
In the US, the lack of statutory notice makes this particularly satisfying. In the UK (and everywhere else with statutory notice) I recommend saving up some paid holiday so you don’t have to work much of your notice period. Not that you need to get much work done during it anyway.
Bad managers deserve to be left in the lurch as much as humanly possible. Make sure you plant the idea in the heads of all your co-workers.
I’ve recently exposed what I think constitutes criminal negligence at my company for safe handling of various chemicals. Pretty sure I’m getting fired on Tuesday.
AMA?
If you have that in writing, make sure its on paper outside of the office. Look up whistleblower laws in your city, state, or industry regulation. You may have either protection or a payout ahead of you, but only if you gather the right evidence and make the right statements to the right people now.
Yup. I have emails and such that I’m backing up. I have multiple witnesses to conversations. I’m engaging resources that I have outside of work as well in terms of legal next steps and making sure I can keep affording my medication.
Elaborate on you exposing them. Did you go to social media and some other public place to badmouth the company, or did you go to your managers so they can handle it internally to save face?
Still internal. So by exposed I mean legally they have been informed of this negligence and not acted in a timely manner to address it. I gave them a week to do what they need to do and Friday went to another employees house after work and went over the SDS for the chemical that has possible injured him because they had yet to inform him. They had their chance.
Long weekend so Tuesday a machine isn’t get turned on and by Wednesday they start losing about 2k every 4 minutes.
Did you document everything thoroughly?
Are you contacting the authorities?
Doing what I can to document but I’m realizing that it’s a deliberately informal workplace likely to avoid this type of records keeping.
We’ll see how Tuesday goes but I don’t see them not getting involved.
If you do get fired make sure to name and shame them. What kinda chemicals were they? Nasty shit?
Pretty bad shit. Corrosive enough to blind or nerve damage within 3 minutes. Long term aerosol exposure rating of 2mg/m3.
Talk to a whistleblower attorney. Look up your jurisdiction’s rules for qui tam actions. Maybe you can get some money for your troubles.
My brother is a Health and Safety trainer, auditor etc. He’s been a good resource and I’m confident of my standing but have reached out to several people I know that facilitate legal resources if needs be.
