If you trust people, and trust is a good thing, you can get things done more quickly.
In a toxic environment, if you are someone who offers trust, then you believe it when management says that they will do this, or will do that. You believe the best of people and that things will change in such and such a circumstance. Particularly when they themselves might believe what they are telling you.
Maybe I need to do regular reality checks of the situation around me. That toxic situation went on way too long. It's not like I'm not capable of assessing if someone is actually going to do something - regardless or not if they are capable of doing something. My EQ is not that bad even if you have to wonder if I put up with that for so long
And reality checks of myself. If I can not change into what they want me to be in order for the overall circumstances to change, well then I only have myself to blame if I stay there.
I guess I am wondering what could I say to young women coming into the STEM industry how to recognise and remove themselves from a toxic place - how to see that no matter how interesting the work is, how cool a lot of the people are, how great the overall company may be, how to recognise and just leave.
I think part of it is the question I ended up regularly asking myself "what do I want?". It got tiring with this nebulous whinge of I'm unhappy. I am about solutions so solve it. Sometimes the definition of a solution requires a direction first to identify the problem. And it's just so negative dwelling on problems all the time. Particularly when problems are just so obvious - and not soluble anyway. Having a specific direction, knowing what I wanted, is a lot more tangible. It just makes more sense, is a better use of energies, to navigate around rather than through.
Knowing what I wanted, and part of that is obviously not to work in a toxic place, really helped me navigate out of there. I took steps towards what I wanted to do, and now am on my way to how I want to work with the tech I love.
