THE JOURNAL
Illustration by Mr Donghyun Lim
It was fun, until it wasn’t. When he started his new job, Gareth was laughing – his company was doing exciting things, he was able to work from home full time, the money was good, the benefits were good and the work itself was stimulating and challenging. It was a role in which he believed he could make a positive impact on the company, and in turn feel valued as an important member of the team. After a gruelling six-round interview process over the course of two months, he’d landed the dream job.
But, four weeks later, Gareth had a review. “It was very intense,” he says. “The type of appraisal that I would have had after working for a business for six months to a year.” His manager told him he was underperforming, and that if he didn’t turn things around in the next four weeks, his position would be “untenable”. Criticism, Gareth tells me, is something to be embraced, something invaluable that can catalyse personal growth. But this felt different. To be dressed down so brutally after four weeks – one of which was spent onboarding – while he was learning new processes and systems, it felt like he was being attacked.
The situation continued to sour. Communication with his manager turned argumentative and bitter. He would dread his weekly one-to-one meetings, and before long, he was “working weekends and holidays to prove my worth and commitment to them,” he says. “It affected my sleep, caused arguments with my partner, became all-consuming.” He was spiralling. Finally, Gareth quit, feeling terrible about himself. It had been only three months.
You can probably empathise. Clashing with coworkers is so common that, according to a recent study, 43 per cent of UK employees have quit their jobs because of bad management, with 53 per cent actively looking for new roles due to toxic colleagues and toxic work cultures. In the US, 75 per cent of workers say interacting with their boss is the most stressful part of their day – a sobering statistic when you consider that half the average person’s waking hours (and oftentimes more) are spent in the workplace.
Mr Raul Aparici is a psychotherapist and faculty lead at The School of Life, an organisation that helps people lead more fulfilling lives via books, classes and therapy. He says that he isn’t surprised. “People are intrinsically stressful to be around,” he says. “If we don’t have a handle on our own emotions, or spend enough time on our self-awareness journey, we’re going to be walking triggers – waiting for someone to say that one thing.”
The key is to remember that, ultimately, we’re working with, and for, people. Messy, complex people. “The world of work often replicates the dynamics of your family life, and the expectations you had growing up,” Aparici says. “Did you have authoritarian parents, with whom you couldn’t find your own voice, and so you had to always be compliant? When your boss is stern despite best intentions, it might elicit some reaction in you that’s not fully adult.”
“Put a timeframe on it. At the end of the month, do an audit with yourself”
Instead of harnessing your inner child and flipping the finger at a coworker every time they get your back up, what would happen if you decided to take on the role of the compassionate adult? What would happen if you were the one that was measured, self-aware and vulnerable in the right way?
The secret, according to Aparici, is to figure out how you can separate yourself from your work – otherwise any criticism of your work becomes a criticism of your sense of self. Just because your project is being criticised doesn’t necessarily mean you’re stupid. If you’re able to find that separation, you’re less likely to be affected by negative feedback at work, and more able to feel curious about the colleague who’s throwing shade your way: what’s going on in their lives that’s making them behave this way?
For Ms Gemma Perlin, a behavioural change coach and hypnotherapist, it’s important to empower yourself in situations where you feel powerless. “If you anticipate a confrontation, create a mental anchor that helps you stay calm and confident in the face of aggression,” she says. “Think of a time when you felt incredibly calm, and go back to that moment. Notice what you saw, heard and felt – the sensations in the body.” This technique, she says, is also an effective way to channel the deep reserves of resilience you have inside. “Humans have all the resources we need, we just need to know how to connect to them.”
Beyond that, she believes you should do everything possible to improve your life at work. If you do end up leaving your job, then at least you can do so with less self-loathing.
“Put a timeframe on it, and do everything you can within that timeframe,” she says. “Get external support during the process, so you’re not alone with it. At the end of the month, do an audit with yourself. If you feel like you’ve done everything you can, you’ll be able to feel like you’re not quitting, but moving on to do something better instead.”
Dealing with one difficult colleague is one thing. What if you’re surrounded? For James, a communications manager, this is his daily reality. “Although not a single one of them has a background in marketing, they are insistent about getting hands on,” he says of his executive leadership team. “There’s an attitude that anyone could do it. It’s a tough pill to swallow, this lack of respect for my expertise, for someone who’s part of a team that puts a lot of research, time, thought and effort into the decisions we make.”
“We can’t control a situation, we can only control our response to it”
Despite several attempts at reasonable and open communication, James is constantly shut down at work and feels unvalued. It’s resulted in low quality work, with which he’s unsatisfied – produced purely to appease his colleagues and avoid a “frustrating stalemate”. As the problem is systemic, he’s resigned to the fact that his working conditions won’t change. And, as a father of two young children and the one who brings a steady income to his household, he feels there’s no other option but to grin and bear it.
“We can’t control a situation, we can only control our response to it,” Perlin says. Rather than trying to force other people to change, she suggests regaining some agency and control over what’s happening to us. “You have a choice, you can leave.” But if your personal conditions mean you absolutely have to stay, acknowledge that it’s a decision you’ve actively made – that you’ve weighed up the options and have done what’s right for you and your dependents.
“Think about how you can detach yourself from what appears to be a torturous situation and choose to interact with it in a different way,” Perlin says. “When your opinions are dismissed, use the NLP [neuro-linguistic programming] reframe technique to see it as an opportunity for personal growth. Instead of feeling frustrated, ask yourself, ‘How can I improve my communication and influence skills?’ This shift in perspective can empower you to adapt and improve.”
Aparici suggests thinking about how you can make new opportunities to enjoy your life within the framework of your decision. “Can you find that one colleague you can think about differently?” he says. “Art allows us to find the beauty in very ordinary things: you go past a field and you wouldn’t look at it twice. Then you realise Monet painted it and suddenly you look at it in a completely different way. What would it mean for you to get re-enchanted with your job?”
Here, the old adage “a problem shared is a problem halved” also has value if you’ve decided to stay in a less than ideal job. By building a good support network around you, you’re more likely to be able to deal with the negative effects of the workplace. “Communities allow us to push through,” Aparici says. “If something terrible happens to you but you have good community support, you’re a lot less likely to develop PTSD than if something less serious happens, but no one is there to help you with it.”
Ultimately, the world of work is, like many other aspects of our lives, complicated – with countless variables, countless possibilities. Different types of teams, different management styles and different individual personalities all mean there is no one-solution-fits-all fix for those struggling with difficult working relationships and environments. There are unacceptable behaviours, and leaning on your HR team and the support available to you in your workplace is a good first step. But the best thing, for Aparici, is to work on your resilience and your self-awareness. Taking the time to learn about yourself, who you are, what your values are and what you stand for.
“If you’ve done the work and are sure of yourself, external factors like that narcissistic colleague trying to make your life hell will have less of an impact,” Aparici says. “But insight alone is not enough. Self-awareness, followed by action, is where we can really start to change things.”
