How to survive a toxic and micromanaging workplace
Toxic environments often involve multiple managers constantly observing your work to point out flaws while giving completely contradictory instructions. Being forced to figure out these conflicting demands and handle hostile coworkers alone causes intense physical panic, like an anvil on your chest. Long after leaving, you may still need therapy to cope with the lingering trauma of this bullying.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Document all suggestions and ask management to explain how to balance conflicting advice.Did this help you?
- 2Ask micromanaging bosses to physically demonstrate the tasks they are demanding.Did this help you?
- 3Create a paper trail of incidents to force administration to handle hostile coworkers.Did this help you?
- 4Connect with former employees who left to find better opportunities.Did this help you?
- 5Focus on work-life balance just to survive the rest of the contract year.Did this help you?
- 6Going to therapy to process the workplace traumaDid this help you?
- 7Reaching out on forums to find others who experienced the same abuse for validationDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I am really wondering if there are any lurkers out there who were bullied by a well known woman nonprofit CEO in the Boston area in the 2010s and even though the time has passed..still think about the trauma she caused.”source ↗
“Just a girl who had it come in therapy tonight and thought I'd give it a whirl...”source ↗
“I didn’t work with this person but man one of this shittiest bosses I’ve had was a mid level manager at an amazing organization in Boston.”source ↗
“I’m a first year elementary teacher in a micromanaging school with a dual sped ell cluster.”source ↗
“We have really low test scores so they’re constantly walking through our rooms with clipboards and 5+ admin to tell us what we’re doing wrong.”source ↗
“We’re given completely different information by multiple people and then told to just figure it out.”source ↗
“I’ve started drinking more and some days I feel like I can’t breathe. It feels like there’s an anvil on my chest and I physically can’t breathe.”source ↗
“My aide is illiterate and openly hostile towards me and admin so far has had me handle it.”source ↗