#workplace trauma

[pastelmagma]

Heyyyy guess who has CPTSD from tons of little things that traumatized me while going to art school and now are greatly affecting my ability to get a job or progress in my chosen career path, and getting actual therapy is insanely difficult. If you wonder why its taking me forever to draw literally anything, this is why. Plz be patient with me, I /am/ working on your requests.

I'm doing it as fast as my tired burnedout out body and mind will allow.

[gecko-s-greenhouse]

a thread about my shithole job

when i asked my therapist about workplace trauma and how to move forward from it, she suggested setting some time aside to feel my feelings and journal about it. so that's what i'm going to do, because i'm determined to move on from all the ways that i was mistreated at that shithole job now that it's been 5 months (lol).

for context, my first job out of my PhD was at a tiny startup of fewer than 10 employees. i felt lucky to land the job because the biotech job market was in a bad place at the end of 2022 (it's worse now at the end of 2023), and luckier still because the company sang a (lying) tune about company culture that i bought into. the job ranged from okay to a total dumpster fire and i'll get into the details below, and then after 5 months, i was unceremoniously laid off. (alternately, my entire team of 2 was unceremoniously restructured.)

and because i signed a non-disparagement agreement to get my severance, i can't tell you the company's name. i assume not all of these issues occur at other companies,

topics that i want to cover:

my own timeline of events.

company retreat.

what i wish i had said to my shitty ex-manager when she fired me.

cult of personality.

how to create a healthy work environment. (the short version: consume any/all media that anne helen petersen puts out)

dating among the c-suite.

"i'm not here to make friends."

qualities of a good manager.

respecting time off.

i regret not taking more time off.

what does giving employees an honest chance look like?

valuing humans over success; failure is always on the table.

and others that i'm sure will spring to mind.

today's topics:

company retreat.

for context, about 2 months into my time at this company, we went for a 3 day/2 night ski retreat.

the invite went out after i had accepted the position, but before i had started, so i felt like this was "mandatory fun" and forced team bonding time that i had to attend (even though the text of the email said no pressure!), so i accepted, but made clear from the beginning that i am not a skiier and would not be joining the downhill skiing activities.

come the week of the event, work was a flaming shitshow. we were in our first sprint week at this startup, and two new hires were visiting from oot so we had to entertain them and make it seem like work was chill even though we were working overtime.

actually being on retreat was fine, i guess? we did cabin activities, they went skiing and i did other snow stuff. it was awkward but manageable. the CEO covered activity fees for only the downhill skiiers, so i, notably not in this group, had to pay my own way for tubing, skating, and snowshoeing all by my lonesome.

i now regret not asking for my activity fees to be covered also.

we get home, and the CEO sends out a group photo. that was taken at the top of the ski mountain.

let that sink in for a moment.

ask yourself, who was not included in the picture?

and to make matters worse, i was never, at any point during this retreat, invited to be in a group photo.

that was the first time i cried over this shithole job, and the first time that i told myself that i wasn't going to care anymore. (first time? because i wasn't good at holding myself to it.) startups want their employees to be part of a shitty family, and i was no longer having it.

to make matters worse, when i was being hired, the CEO had fed me a lying story about how "we're not like other startups" and want to focus on employee well-being over the other cultish aspects of stereotypical startup culture.

what i wish i had said to my shitty ex-manager when she fired me.

i don't appreciate being patronized. the first thing she said to me was, "this may come as a surprise, but..." haha no, this was not a surprise in any way, shape, or form. i've known that you wanted to fire me from that joke of a performance review* (more on this later) a month ago, right up through this meat grinder of a so-called "second chance" you've given me. i guess i am only surprised that you fired me right in the middle of a field trial where i'm a member of the team of two that handles every sample that comes through.

just because you don't like what my data says doesn't mean it's bad data. 'nuff said.

if you're restructuring, why can't i be absorbed into another function of the company? why do you have to look me in the eye, lie to me and tell me that you think i'm a great scientist, but apparently not one who can learn how to contribute to other functions that i am fully capable of doing and you know it?

what's this bullshit about "effective immediately"? (don't @me about MA at will employment, i know the law but i'm talking here about decency, which i guess is a foreign concept to you.) shouldn't i be given a couple days to tie up loose ends, tell you how to find my shit, and say a non-rushed goodbye to those of my colleagues who i did come to like? and ESPECIALLY because i had requested several days of pto THAT YOU HAD APPROVED starting literally the next day? this feels like a move for YOU, so you don't have to look at me any more than you have to after you made this decision.

also, in the state of massachusetts, it would be polite to lay people off with enough lead time that they can acquire health insurance in a timely manner. assembling the necessary documents takes time, and the last day to sign up for the next month's coverage is the 23rd day of the prior month. lesson learned: negotiate a severance package that includes health coverage. again, i understand that decency is a foreign concept to you.

what gives you the right to play games with people's lives? this thought really took shape as my nutbag ex-manager continued to arbitrarily fire people, including one on an O1 visa. consider my situation: i had been at this company for 5 months and got laid off. any decent manager looking in would see this and immediately recognize that the problem is with the company (funding?) and the management rather than with me, a young scientist who hasn't even been given the standard amount of time to fuck up learn the ropes (1 year) before being shown the door. alternately, what gives you the right to brand me as someone who behaves poorly? (because that's the only other reason a stranger would think that i was laid off so quickly?) for example, my friend and former colleague, upon finding out that i lasted only 5 months at the company, immediately asked if the company was having money problems, but he's someone who knows me and knows that i'm not a jerk, but that's not immediately obvious to a stranger. what gives you the right?

you are running your company into the ground. i don't care if your science is impeccable (it's clearly not based on my data), but it's clear to me that your company is going to fail if you keep treating your employees like this. the consensus among former employees of the company, both the ones who were laid off and the ones who left of their own volition

i hope you fail. i will gleefully eat my popcorn WHEN it happens.

also, i want my stuff back. (i wouldn't have forgotten it if you'd given me more notice!)

to be continued.

also, am i supposed to talk about my feelings too? overwhelmingly angry that at an incompetent inexperienced and scared manager treated my life/career/future as a gigantic joke to her, but also disappointed in myself that i signed on in the first place, and sad to have lost a year that i could have otherwise spent building my career to this total nonsense. bad times all around.

[thelikesoffinn]

Workplace Trauma is fun, you guys.

So. Fun.

[serenity-song]

As someone who survived severe burnout, ptsd and depression, can confirm creating environments where these issues aren’t rampant would probably save a lot time and money.

But what do I know? 🤷🏻‍♀️

[vashagurdzhi]

In Her Head

In her head, when the bullying happened the first time, she didn't immediately react. When she saw her classmate getting hospitalized after being forced to gorge five scoops of food more than could be taken by someone diagnosed with GERD, she didn't feel angry or speak her mind about how unnecessary it was to enforce discipline in that way. In her head, when the tactical officer said, "be my rat", she accepted like a stupid docile lamb. When the same officers were violating the very rules they were enforcing, she just shut her trap.

In her head, she didn't make waves or react when the antagonizing and leering came her way. She just kept her head down, allowed herself to be ridiculed for not knowing anything about the environment she had willingly entered--although, in her defense, the training was supposed to be for that, right? To learn and to understand the workplace culture.

In her head, she didn't disappear into the night. She didn't listen to the people who were encouraging her to speak up so that things could be made right inside that unspeakable place, who, in the end, really just used her to advance their own agenda but left her high and dry to fend for herself.

In her head, she focused more on getting out, no matter what the moral and emotional cost may be. She focused on just getting past it all instead of feeling everything there was to feel.

In her head, she made it through without and everybody loved her and nobody spoke up about the things they experienced. In her head, she was transformed into the mute and blind follower that they wanted her to be.

But this is is the catch: this more peaceful alternate universe wasn't her reality. It was all just in her head.

In reality, she stood up, she spoke up, and she did what the others couldn't. She did it all alone. The institution wasn't bad; but the fucking middle management were, and nobody was going to call them out. So she did it.

But instead of the happy ending where wrongs were righted, where the culprits were punished in the social guillotine, she was branded a troublemaker. The odd one out. The one who wanted special treatment. She was blamed for not knowing what she was getting into.

Her sense of right and wrong was repeatedly gaslighted. The kindest advice she received was to lie low and just take the blows. The cruelest was that she was a good-for-nothing ingrate who shamed the workplace that took her in after a two-year-long employment drought brought by the pandemic. All she wanted was to make it better, but in the process, her character was brutally assassinated, with its corpse ridiculed for being a weak fucker who only knew how to whine.

She wasn't whining.

She knew things weren't right.

But try as she might to get this point across, she could not .

Because she had lost her power to speak.

She lost her drive to make the world a better place, which should have been the beating heart of the institution she was part of.

And so when more things went wrong, as is the case when you start to realize that the place you are in is not the place where you belong, she could not say a word due to the trauma of mishandled justice. When she started to lose her head, hungry competitors banked on it and further pushed her down. One even went so far as to push his hands in places where she does not want him to.

In the end, she went out with a bang. She dropped out in attendances. She tried for a few months, but her mind has quit and her spirit has been defeated. Some do-gooders tried to save her with bandages, but blood has already left the body she drags to work everyday. There were moments of light, but the ever-changing landscape of this unspeakable place would snuff them out at the very last minute. She attended meetings but forgot what they were for the minute she stepped out. And then, when chances to rile them up one last time hit, she took them.

One minute she was in, the next she was out.

So-called friends were shocked but not devastated. Naysayers cheered. The ugly envious ones spread rumors. But when this all happened, she was already basking in the aftermath, puffs of breath heaving from her mouth as she released all the toxic air she had to breathe in while inside.

The institution wasn't bad.

But how does one account for all the things she experienced?

In her head, she knew the answer.

In reality, she is just lost, as if waking up from a dream that she wishes to never see again.

[serenityscribes]

That feeling when your therapist says he thinks your PTSD is officially in remission.

[saturn-garden]

love that this episode was essentially "guys we really need to have a team meeting about the date for the Mysterious And Most Certainly Horrifying Project/Maybe Ritual also the labourers are probably about to unionize" and Gwen fighting for her life for like the 12th time in one week

[outlaw-monarch]

And they called this person's SPOUSE and EMERGENCY CONTACTS. They were harrassing & trying to use the person's PARTNER and FAMILY against them. That is next level bad behavior.

[godslittlesadge]

watching link click and the story's great i love it but also most of my reactions so far have been. good god the gang needs a HR guy so bad

[catholicguiltcore]

when diane neal said olivia and casey had sexual tension i firmly believe she forgot that we couldn’t see what happens off camera which must be where the sexual tension was present

[family-trauma]

Lately I've been absolutely burnt out. Not only has my personal life been toxic and draining, my work has became the same if not worse. Trying to stay afloat and keep everything straight has been extremely exhausting for me.

I thought going to a new job will help reduce some of the toxicity of the previous one, well I was so wrong. The new job turned out to be 10 times worse. With too many managers and politics being played, the environment has been unnecessarily toxic even though the work itself is good.

Please send some good wishes my way so I have the strength to handle all of this. 🙏

[starwarsgrl77]

[gecko-s-greenhouse]

yes it was, and there exists content on the internet about similar events. google "workplace trauma" to find out how commonplace it is

was my brief stint at this dumpster fire company a traumatic incident?

i burned out within 2 months.

my manager destroyed my self-confidence.

i exhibited self-destructive coping behaviors (regular mid-week alcohol consumption, revenge procrastination).

definitely spent a nonzero amount of time dissociating.

i was almost certainly depressed. definitely thought at times about the sweet release of death.

it's definitely a lot better now that i'm not there anymore, but are the strategies that i'm using to recover the appropriate ones?

[loveguts]

i’m not a transandrophobia truther in the slightest don’t get me wrong, but i think some people on here really need to realize and comprehend the fact that cis women, way WAY more often than not, hold extremely significant social and political power over trans men the vast majority of the time in our day to day lives

[mariemariemaria]

Does anybody else feel like mental health awareness has done very little to help them in material reality

[candiedstardust]

We were having some moral dilemmas at work today, and after sulking about it to my 23yo lead, who doesn’t watch /any/ Star Wars btw, looks at me and goes:

“Good soldiers follow orders.”

Bestie couldn’t understand why I was suddenly horrified. Like? Hi?? Hello???