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38 Workers Share The Moment They Realized Their Office Was A Toxic Nightmare
Article created by: Jonas Zvilius
Going to work can be a joyride for some: full of purpose, passion, and coffee breaks with colleagues. For others, it’s more about survival because bills won’t pay themselves (unless you’ve won the lottery or were born into a billionaire clan). But regardless of why you clock in every day, we all agree there are limits.
Sure, we can all put up with a little chaos, a noisy coworker, an occasional bad coffee machine day, or even the Monday blues. But then there are the hard no’s: things that make you question why you’re still sticking around. In today’s roundup, people open up about those very moments when they realized their job simply wasn’t worth it anymore.
These aren’t just dramatic walkouts or headline-worthy incidents. They’re real, relatable stories about what happens when a job slowly chips away at your well-being. From overbearing managers and shady company practices to constant exhaustion and feeling completely overlooked, these red flags were the final straw. If you've ever felt that uneasy twinge that something isn't quite right at work, these stories might just help you connect the dots.This post may include affiliate links.
#1
My dad once told me, “Never work for someone who cheats on his wife. If he’s willing to do that to the one relationship that should be the most important and sacred in his life, what is he going to do to you?”
Thirty years in business. I found out, Dad was right.
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#2
“We don’t do sick days here. I come in sick and so can everyone else”. That’s not a FLEX. It can be quite dangerous. Thanks though.
#4
Monitoring/micromanaging bathroom breaks. I was written up once for a 6 minute bathroom break and I was incredibly sick that whole week. And the restrooms were located in another department.
#6
Poor guidance followed by punishing you for not meeting goals that were never made clear in the first place.
No support. Treated with impunity if you need support.
#7
High turnover. When the majority of employees quit in a year or less, there’s a reason why. Usually it is terrible management.
#10
Two that come to mind from previous work environments that I ignored for way too long:
—People gossiping about others coworkers or former coworkers behind their backs excessively. I worked one place where some of my colleagues would not stop harping about a dude who’d worked there years ago (like he left 2 years before I even started.) Move on, for Christ sake.
—Favoritism from the boss. When he/she is chummy and friendly with his/her favorites/friends on the team, but kinda chilly with you. Nope.
#11
I just started a new job a month ago, so I can def chime in….My new boss works 7 days a week and expects her direct reports to do the same. Holding 4 hour long meetings on Sunday. Randomly calling you via google chat.
#12
Coworkers trying to take credit for your accomplishments. Had one of those that always tried to pass off my work as their own (luckily boss knew she was pathological liar).
#16
Nobody in the company has gotten a raise in 10 years because the owner says "we are doing bad" yet somehow can still hire more people.
#17
Too many temps means the company doesn’t value it’s workers enough to create full time positions.
#19
When the assistant manager tells you that a dude touches all the female employees so don’t feel special when it happens to you.
#21
“We are family”
I find this generally means they think they are more important than your family.
#22
I don't even know what you'd call this other than outright toxic. I had a boss who just NEEDED a man. Like incredibly smart woman, but all she could think about was landing a husband. She was seeing a guy, he broke up with her via text during working hours, she left work, drove an hour plus to his house and broke into his apartment to confront him. All while facetiming us. That was just one instance of her going crazy. If a single woman applied to our department forget it, that's competition for the men and she's not getting hired. She was a terrifying woman.
The job I had after that: I got food poisoning. Never had food poisoning in my life. I thought I was dying and was on the verge of going to the ER. When I went back to work after calling out SHE CALLED ME OUT IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE TEAM for calling off sick. I had never called out before and it turned out it wasn't food poisoning; my direct supervisor had the stomach flu and gotten me sick. I was already thinking of looking for a new job at that point, but getting yelled at for using my own sick time had me sending the resumes like my life depended on it.
#23
There are a lot of signs, but some general ones: more of the work goes out to vendors rather than staying in-house, your company doesn't backfill managerial positions, they start to change the review process, the company "culture" shifts i.e you could have sworn it felt a lot friendlier, but a lot of the people that made it that way are gone.
#24
My last job, a co-worker (web developer) lied to our boss about my work (SQL DBA). Nothing said at the time to me. 6 months later, it showed up in my review. Not only that, but the same co-worker wrote sloppy code that allowed a hacker to get in and flood us with email spam and delete some data. She got praised for blocking the spam, but nobody thanked me for identifying the actual data hack, finding her bad code, or checking the logs of what they did.
I got a pay cut. I think they were looking for excuses to save $. Started job hunt immediately. I have a much better job now.
The company owner didn't know about the hack until I told him during the exit interview.
#25
"We're like a family here." Yeah nah. In my experience, that usually means problems get swept under the rug, drama, excuses for unprofessional behaviour, etc.
#26
I hate when personal boundaries are violated and personal moments of employees are discussed.
#27
Lots of fluffy "perks" like team-building exercises, wellness initiatives, and playing games with your Myers Briggs results instead of good pay, career progression, solid benefits, and job security. Feeling good about yourself has a long pathway to follow before it even starts to pay the bills.
#28
Consistently promising you a promotion or a raise if you do xyz/extra work and always delaying the said promotion.
#29
Turnover and undervaluing their employees’ happiness. Also - if they make excuses for the turnover without being accountable. They kept telling us that turnover was natural during growth. I recently left a job that I was at for six years and it was only until I found happiness at my new company that I realize I was gaslighted and manipulated for six years.
#30
I didn’t work at this company but during an interview with the CFO, he told me that I was too good to work there. I took that as a red flag.
#33
When the entire company strategy is focused on securing the next round of funding and not on long term growth/profitability. Any company that recently did mass layoffs.
#34
If you feel uneasy, unnecessarily stressed, or angry/upset during the interview process.
If you feel negative feelings during the interview process, it's an indicator of how you'll feel while working for the company.
#35
When you take a look around your workplace, and realize that you have worked there longer than 50% of your co-workers, it's time to go...*something* is going on.
#37
When they reward your good work with more work and constantly multiply your responsibilities, but don't raise the pay. And when you complain, they say "you're supposed to do everything that's has to be done".
Nope. Want me to do more work, pay me more.
#38
You start calling out (or wanting to) for no good reason. This isn’t really something that management or coworker are doing but this is treatment of a larger issue.
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