Is Your Workplace Toxic?

I asked you guys to submit questions about difficult workplace questions or difficult clients and some of the questions are fantastic and I'm going to start off um with three different questions what's this one this one and this one um the first one comes from Monkey circus how do you quote avoid being the type of project leader you hated working for when you were starting out well that was mostly paying attention to how I felt working for a supervisor and then wanting to make sure that I never did that kind of stuff I've had supervisors shame me I've had supervisors humiliate me I've had supervisors performatively dress me down in front of a room I've had supervisors tell me that the thing I was going to do was stupid and I was going to fail at it I mean I've dealt with the gamut uh as we all have as every last one of us has um having a job is uh it's not I was going to say unfortunately but it really is just like part of being in the Working World under late stage capitalism is you'll be saddled well I mean really almost under any economic circumstance I get I'm not sure I can state that outright I mean at any rate it's a bigger philosophical question bosses be bosses and work be work and like you're we're all going to deal with that and I have dealt with the gamut that was the first question monkey circus how do you avoid being the type of project leader you hated um a second question that is along the same lines Susie Revenge says how do you know if you have a toxic work environment a really fantastic question is there a way to recognize it including whether you unintentionally may be the cause of it another great question and then Vicky blly asks a third question and all three of these I'll address um we ask questions all the time about the people who won't play nice but how do you deal with the folks that are too helpful too helpful um you are describing I think a person who lacks boundaries which is a really particularly difficult thing to deal with at work um so let's talk about toxic work environments um the first past that you think of when you think of a toxic work environment is of course you know uh uh people that punch down um who years and years ago I read an account from a comedian that got a tour of Saturday Night Live set during its first season and John Belushi was giving them a tour of the behind the scenes at SNL and one of the the things that Belushi said to the person they were giving a tour at was I only ever yelled at the executives I never yell at the staff and I love this what he's really saying is I don't punch down um Tom Hanks gives a little talk about this in uh uh uh Saving Private Ryan how complaining goes up the chain of command not down um punching down I.E yelling at the staff in at the crew I think is one of the like the the lowest hanging fruit of crappy workplaces um supervisors who feel like humiliation or shame or belittling or disrespect are ways to run a crew um you cannot demand respect unless you give it you can only demand respect if you give it otherwise you are saying that the rules apply to them and not you you um so those aspects of workplaces uh belittling shaming disrespectful distrust hostile blame supervisors who are always looking for someone to blame again these are all lwh hanging fruits and anti-work uh the subreddit I'm I spend half of every day on there uh is replete with stories of that but there are more subtle ways to have have uh toxic work environments or toxic co-workers um one of them that I have an issue with is people who won't take blame Buck passers I had a workplace years ago where we had a buck passer a bright young kid who they were sort of a legacy hire there was a little nepotism in their hiring they were good at what they did but there was a little nepotism in their hiring and at the beginning of their work they didn't take a lot of blame for stuff that went wrong and I'm saying that in a kind of a neutral way because it's not always incumbent on you to take blame for the stuff that you got wrong sometimes you just got to take the blame it doesn't matter it doesn't matter um sometimes it's incumbent on you to fall on your sword especially if I'm a supervisor working under a supervisor and I've got folks dude I'm Falling on My Sword all over the place for my people I'm not goingon to tell him that they screwed up but this kid was a buck passer and he always there was always a reason why something went wrong instead of I'll pay attention I'll get that better next time um however and actually so after about a year of working with this guy I was like I don't think I'm ever going to work with that guy again and within the next year he had some Epiphany and I never spoke to him about it and he ended up becoming one of the best people I've ever worked with frankly it was that like significant of a shift in cont ious um defensiveness is often unwarranted it is a natural place for us to go but when you are a supervisor and you hear a butt yeah no that wasn't my fault that's really not the discussion we're having again and some workplaces place a high level of of of of uh importance on who gets blamed for what and I have worked for large multinational Fortune 500 companies in which that is the case um one of the things that happens in Fortune 500 companies is they don't like laying lots of people off at once because that's bad for the stock so they just are constantly laying people off in small ways and what that yields in terms of a toxic work environment is a situation in which whoever screwed up most recently was the first person to get fired ever every quarter and can I tell you what it's like to work for a company like that they can't make any decisions because nobody wants to make the wrong decision because it doesn't matter how well you're doing at your job if you made the most recent wrong decision you are out um companies that do that do great for their bottom line and they Savage their institutional knowledge that is how you eliminate all your institutional knowledge is Con L trying to lower your payroll cost by firing whoever screwed up most recently you you and when you destroy the foundation of your institutional knowledge then you just get people who are coming in and Reinventing the wheel every single time um complaining complaining is a a a minor but can be a major complaining and gossiping can absolutely create a toxic work work environment I worked for a guy I worked sorry no I worked well um yeah no I'm going to name this outright not the person but I worked on Bicentennial Man in the model shop um we were making hand props uh all the little hand props you saw in um in by Centennial man were built in this room in Treasure Island with a whole bunch of my colleagues from mm and we did some great work there it was really really fun gig the supervisor on that man he was just the worst supervisor I have ever worked for I I'm not even sure I can remember his name it's fine because I wasn't going to mention it anyway um what was so difficult about him as a supervisor he would insist on how you built something in a way that was unnecessary micromanaging and it yielded a poorer product and it was like enraging to work for him on that front cuz you'd be like you hired me to build a model and now you're stopping me from building it in this way that is efficient will look good will be durable it was like a constant micromanaging um and also on that job was an agitator there was someone who kept on walking around going man they're screwing you they're screwing you they're screwing you which again that certainly might be the case but this guy would be like Adam you got to stop working so fast man you're raising the bar here and they're going to expect more from the rest of us that that didn't go well with me I'm going to work as fast as I work um that's that's my you know that's how I like to work um wait wait wait boundaries right folks that are too helpful so look I think many of us can identify many toxic workplace environments I think subtly toxic work environments are environments where there's not a lot of yelling or uh uh or shaming but it is a blame based culture um but the much better question and it's one we all ask ourselves should be asking ourselves all the time is am I creating work or taking it away when you are working on a project you get this area that you are dealing with and other people have their area that they're dealing with and when you need a lot of support for your area from other people you are creating more work than you are doing here's a great example uh your relative you haven't seen in a long time comes to your house and you're cooking dinner and they say can they help but as they move around their kitchen they have questions about where every last thing is and you're spending so much time ACC climatizing them to the kitchen that you're not getting your work done that's fine that's like what it is to have family and what it is to cook over the holidays but in a professional environment that can be a freaking nightmare and I think we've all worked with people who add drama and labor and decision making to their portion of the job that is unnecessary and so I spend a lot of time thinking about my favorite people to work with and what do they do well my favorite people to work with and for over the years have been clear in their speech clear in their expectations clear in their critique and advice about moving forward and they have been what I call self-contained like the problems they're encountering aren't my problems I am dealing with my problems and they are dealing with theirs um self-containment is a great way to ascertain uh how you are to work with and for me I'll admit I haven't always been the easiest person to work with not because I punch down I don't uh but I certainly noticed at a certain point on MythBusters that like look I was dealing with a lot on that show I was in the middle of a divorce for the first two three seasons uh I was going to court a lot I was having custody battles about my kids it was crazy stressful and there was a moment in which I noticed that the crew was accommodating my mood now if any of my old Miss Buster colleagues are watching this they're probably smiling um it took me a took me a while to realize that uh and I'm not you know I'm not proud of that that that I I don't want a whole crew adjusting to my mood I know that I'm the business end you know one of the five business ends of this television show and I got to get this stuff on camera but like we all got to get the job done um and I wasn't happy at that thought that I was creating an atmosphere in which people were and it wasn't like people were again walking on eggshells around me like I was going to burst at them because that's not the kind of cooworker or boss that I am but that doesn't mean that it was easy to work around me when I was in those moods [Music] um I have said this a lot but I want my Tombstone to say it was nice to work with I don't have to be the best person you ever work with but I'd like to be nice to work with I'd like to I'd like us all to get the job done um wonderful questions uh monkey circus uh sorry yeah monkey circus Susie revenge and Vicky BL I really appreciate uh I really appreciate that asking yourself about what creates a hostile or toxic or difficult work environment is a process again it's and if you Google like I did before this live stream ways of identifying toxic workplaces there are tons of wonderful lists that people have concocted that include much of this and some stuff that I that I added okay thank you so much for watching if you'd like to support us even further you can by becoming a tested member uh details are of course below But it includes all sorts of perks and we're building them all the time you get Advanced word and behind the scenes photos of some of our projects questions you get to ask direct 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Channel: Adam Savage’s Tested

Views: 253,195

Keywords: tested, john belushi, john belushi snl, punching down, adam savage, adam savage tested, adam savage job advice, toxic workplace, toxic work environment, toxic job, toxic workplace culture, toxic manager, toxic environment at work, toxic workplace signs, toxic workplace behaviors, toxic boss, bad work environment, toxic people at work, toxic work environment signs, antiwork reddit, signs of a toxic work environment, toxic work culture, signs your workplace is toxic

Id: CzjftlUQs4g

Length: 14min 24sec (864 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 08 2024