WHAT’S THE POINT…Of a job that costs your sanity?

 

She sat staring at the bright screen until her eyes hurt. Fifteen new emails. It was almost 5 PM, but her manager decided to give her additional work just five minutes before she could go home. 

She was exhausted, but there was work to be done. If she was late, it was okay; her family would understand. 

They were ecstatic when she received her acceptance call. It was as if she were the chosen winner. She received congratulations, but most importantly, she was told that her life finally had meaning now. That she was now going to be worth something. 

She smiled but lowered her eyes so that no one could see the disappointment in them. Her life was worth to no one unless she was contributing financially. Her family had already begun to create a list of items she would buy with her first salary. 

Her job didn’t turn out to be the way she imagined. The commute was tough but bearable. The office environment was what stunned her. Her manager was friendly and supportive, but only for the first week. 

As the second week began, she was regularly criticized for not doing her job properly. Her instructions were vague, and when she sought clarity, she was shut down and insulted for not having the intelligence to comprehend what was expected of her. 

She wrote down notes of all her instructions, desperate to improve and show that she was capable after all. Her manager would compliment her efforts in the morning, but by midday, she would be the target of his criticisms once again. 

She wasn’t proactive enough. She was being a paper pusher. Her efforts resulted in nothing if she wasn’t working “smartly”. 

She returned home in tears, but her family reminded her that this was her entrance into the real worl,d and it is tough out there. She would have to learn to deal with these challenges every day. 

She understood at first. Of course, this was her first experience, and there were bound to be challenges. She should consider herself, if she wasn’t up against the ruthless people she had seen in TV shows. 

Weeks turned to months, and the situation didn’t get any better. She worked hard but was told she was making too many mistakes. She worked long hours, gave up holidays, and even worked on the weekends. Yet, her work was constantly criticized, and even when she managed to create an error-free document or presentation, her manager found a way to put her down. 

He would tell her that she used the wrong font, the wrong colors for the slides. She should have used the internet or even AI for help. 

She did that, taking all this as constructive criticism. This was supposed to help her build herself. Or so she told herself. 

One day, she was thrown out of a meeting and publicly humiliated by her manager, who accused her of not sending an email on time. An email, she had no idea she was supposed to send, or that it came under her job responsibilities. 

She returned home in tears, inconsolable. Her family reminded her that she should consider herself fortunate to land a job in this economy. There were many more talented and skilled than her with better experience and education who were struggling. At least she was getting a regular paycheck. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t enough compared to her job responsibilities. It was something. 

As months passed, she withered. She was no longer the blossoming woman who had ambitions and dreams to build a better life for herself. What she felt didn’t matter to anyone. 

When she considered leaving or began looking for another job, her manager threatened to fire her. She couldn’t bring herself to imagine a reality where she would be without a job. Her family would taunt her for not being able to cope in a competitive workplace. She would be made to feel inferior for not handling herself well in a competitive world. 

They blamed her for her inadequacies. The manager must be right. Perhaps she wasn’t good at her job after all and should consider herself lucky to even be given this opportunity. 

Except that is not what really happened. She was hired so that she could be exploited. Her manager saw that she was desperate and took advantage of her plight. He knew she wouldn’t even negotiate the salary because she was too eager, too foolish to do her research about the job market. 

She had been hired as a punching bag for the manager to vent his frustrations when he faced challenges in his career or received negative feedback from his superiors. 

He knew she wouldn’t leave. She would remain at this job for years, at the same measly pay, barely able to buy food. 

But she would stay. He had made sure of it when he made her second-guess her every action, or when he told her she had forgotten to send an important email when he had never told her in the first place. 

He had manipulated her into seeking out his approval to create a dependency on his feedback. He had broken her confidence, and since she hadn’t quit in the first month since he had begun his play, he knew she would not leave now. 

And he was right. 

Not all workplaces are toxic. There are good bosses and nurturing work environments. There are workplaces that put employee welfare first. But then there are those workplaces that look to hire talent at a very low rate. These employees are subjected to emotional and mental abuse through gaslighting methods and constant criticism. 

They pick the candidates they think they can exploit and push them to the breaking point several times. 

Not many employees are able to leave this toxicity behind. Their families usually encourage them to stick it out and learn what they can from this experience. They are given so much work that they no longer possess the energy to search for another job. They are broken to be used. 

The worst part is that they get away with it. The system dictates that the company is always right, and if the employee leaves, it is because they were not strong enough to take on challenges. 

If their resume shows that they worked at a company for less than six months, then that means they are job hoppers and shouldn’t be invested in. It doesn’t matter that they left because they were in a toxic environment. What matters is that they stuck out through it all to show they are capable enough to handle complicated challenges, even if it comes at the cost of their mental health. 

We live in a society that rewards those individuals who continue in a toxic environment and call it growth. But we look down upon those who deign to stand up for themselves and are assertive enough to leave when they know they are being trapped in a vile game of exploitation and manipulation. 

The above scenario is a composite of various true-life experiences found online. There are several employees who go through this every day. Who is going to tell them that the constant abuse they are being subjected to is not acceptable?

Who is going to explain to their families that encouraging them to continue in toxicity will not benefit them in the long run? Yes, they may receive money out of it, but it will never be enough and it shouldn’t come at the cost of a loved one’s mental health. 

It’s time we stop romanticizing endurance and start recognizing abuse. It’s time we start asking, “Why was this allowed to continue?” The longer we ignore toxicity, the more we normalize the destruction of human dignity in the name of professionalism.