BWS

A few months back I caught up with someone who had been working in the construction industry. Who at the time, me included, we had all been urging to leave her toxic workplace as they were constantly stuffing her around and treating her badly. So odd that people at the same time were also urging me to leave. For both of us for many years. And neither of us could see it for ourselves.We stayed because we believed we could make it better, that it would get better, that there was better there, that the people were better (sometimes) and the work was...ok? Anyway she had left a couple of years back, been promoted 6 times and now is managing 30 people. She now saw me after 6 months out of that toxic place, and seeing how much more relaxed I am, she says we are the ones who understand why we stayed there, despite everyone telling us to leave. And I do. I get it.

Why did we stay in those toxic places?

We looked for hope? We saw solutions if we could just get them implemented. We could do things. We could fix things. All our training, knowledge, skill, we knew how. And the people, at least individually are all ok. Mostly. Maybe one or two exceptions. And the work is interesting and worthy.

But the culture is toxic.

Maybe it was us. I know for me it was a case of there is no way I could get a better job elsewhere. I was lucky to have this one and the pay is reasonable.

So anyway, we're both out. By our own choices and actions.

And we do understand why we stayed.

In fact her partner said as we were discussing it, "battered wife syndrome". I looked at him in some surprise, and went home and looked it up. It's no longer a syndrome, but I see what he means in the rough descriptions.

Makes me look twice now at the domestic violence stories.

And other stories of bullying and marginalisation. Most recently of assistant ministers in the Anglican church. Someone asked the question, "well why do they stay?" as if it was obvious that anyone who was above this all, pure of motive or whatever would have the common sense to leave.

But I get it now. I don't think there is any way I could have understood until I was out of it. I had years and years and years of friends and family telling me to leave. And considering I still haven't left the company as a whole just the toxic section, I still anticipate a certain level of cheers when I finally say I'm gone.

Someone posted an article on the 'work finding social media platform' re my company re leadership approach to culture. Wow. It was messaged to me and I privately asked someone who I know in HR about it. She also was surprised and told me to keep my digital signature clean as they would be scouring everywhere. Both the article and her response to tell me to protect myself from fallout make me feel just sick again. That, and what I've seen towards the end of the year of ... other things.

I've taken a large amount of leave at the end of this year to think about things. I was in that toxic section for a long, long time. It is not unreasonable to need a little more time to work through things to let them go and build to where and who I want to be.