Sooner or later you probably will work in an environment that is toxic. If and when that happens, it likely will rank last of all the jobs you’ve ever had. Following are considerations for when your job sucks.
Studies show that the average American will work for seven different employers over the course of his or her career. Odds are that not all of those will be pleasant experiences. You will take a job for money, or convenience, or because your spouse took a new job, or necessity, or some reason other than desire- hoping that it will work out and not be too bad.
That hope rarely turns out.
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I Had 3
I have had three jobs that made me physically or emotionally ill as I drove into work each morning.
Over-Qualified With No Peers
The first one was when I was in college and working a summer job before my senior year at UT. I worked at a Pepsi-Cola canning and bottling factory. My reason was the money factor- it was 10 hours a day, 6 days a week with a start time of 6 a.m. (it was a summer job, and people drink a lot of Pepsi’s and Mountain Dew’s in the summer). I was the third-most educated person in the entire plant after the plant manager and the chemist who made sure the formulas were mixed correctly. There just wasn’t a lot to talk about- not that you could hear yourself over the machinery. But I knew it was temporary, for the summer only, so kept telling myself, “I can do anything for three months.”
Prestige Isn’t a Good Reason
The second job was one I took for the prestige of the position. I had a Great-with a capital G- job as Director of Leisure Services for the City of Cookeville, TN. Then, I was recruited to be the Director of a large city-county department with an outstanding reputation built by the previous Director. I didn’t know until I was already on board that the person I reported to, a) had been acting Director in the interim and was not going to relinquish that authority, and b) was a micro-manager. I was miserable the two years I worked for him. He was the first actual cowardly leader I had ever encountered. It was a major wake-up for me that not every person in a high administrative position was worthy of being there. I left that job voluntarily, with no job to go to. Being constantly questioned and ordered to have every routine decision approved by him was a miserable experience.
Learn From Every Experience-Even the Negatives
The third job really defined the term “cowardly leader” for me. It was all politics, all the time. The Mayor was running for re-election so almost every decision was made based on whether it would gain votes. Policies were ignored- in fact I was told directly that “The Mayor breaks whatever policy he chooses to break.” I was released a week after the Mayoral election was held.
What Can You Do?
I watched Lone Survivor over the weekend for the third time, after reading the book (which covers a lot of the behind-the scenes emotional roller coaster that the families were going through back home before they were finally notified as to what happened with their sons/husbands) when I was in Iraq. It reminded me of lessons I had previously learned:
You Work For Your Brothers and Sisters
Navy SEALs- in fact any military unit of any branch- have one fundamental goal: Protect each other. They fight for, protect, and if necessary, die for- each other. The same goes for you. When your work environment sucks and you work for a cowardly leader, remember that you aren’t doing your job and remaining professional for that person. You’re doing it for your staff, your colleagues, and the citizens- the parents and kids who live in your community. THAT’S who you work for.
You Aren’t Going to Change Anything
This is a lesson I have had to re-learn many times. Frustration overtakes caution with me, unfortunately. But just as the SEALs in Lone Survivor couldn’t change the situation they found themselves in when they were surrounded by the Taliban, you can’t make a bad work environment or cowardly leader magically become better. The quicker you accept that your environment is what it is, the easier it will be to make changes from within it.
The Present Situation Will Change
Regardless of how crappy your situation is, it will change. It may change for the better-or worse- but it will change. Just when the SEAL team thought the firefight had died down, they were fired on with Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs). Be prepared, and hope for the best but prepare for the worst. A great example of this is The Stockdale Paradox.
The Stockdale Paradox
Jim Collins, in his landmark book, Good to Great, introduces what he termed The Stockdale Paradox.
Admiral James Stockdale was shot down and spent years as a POW in the infamous Hanoi Hilton while in Vietnam. When Jim Collins interviewed Admiral Stockdale for the book, Stockdale said: “I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade”.[19]
When Collins asked who didn’t make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied: “Oh, that’s easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart”.[19]
Stockdale then added: “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”[19]
Witnessing this philosophy of duality, Collins went on to describe it as the Stockdale Paradox. In simple terms, it is to never lose faith that things will eventually get better, combined with the conviction that, at least right now, they most certainly will not.
I am not implying that anyone’s work situation- yours, mine, anyone’s- is anywhere in the universe near what POW’s at the Hanoi Hilton had to endure (Admiral Stockdale received the Congressional Medal of Honor for, among other things, his courage during his captivity). But having the mindset that you can tough out anything now, knowing that eventually it will get better, is a mental toughness that will serve anyone well.
Takeaways
- The grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence.
- That light at the end of the tunnel might be a freightrain heading your way.
- It’s critical to face current reality while doing your best work in a negative, unprofessional environment.
- The current situation will definitely change. Possibly for better, possibly for worse, but without question change will happen so prepare for it.
- Most importantly: Always remember why you do what you do, and who you do it for.
III-5
