Working for a bad boss

Couldn't help but share this....

"A study of 3,122 Swedish male employees found that those who work for toxic bosses were 60% more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke, or other life-threatening cardiac condition. Other studies in American workplaces show that people with toxic bosses are more susceptible to chronic stress, depression, and anxiety, all of which increase the risk of a lowered immune system, colds, strokes, and even heart attacks. Some studies show that it may take up to 22 months to recover physically and emotionally from a toxic boss. While the idea of quitting may seem scary, the reality of staying in a job with a toxic boss can be even scarier."

https://hbr.org/2018/09/what-to-do-when-you-have-a-bad-boss

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Danielm7

Great stats, stress kills, everyone knows it's bad but I doubt most realize it's that bad.

DatabaseHead

Thanks for posting this. Rep

Basic85

This is why I vet the heck out of employers I interview with. I do not want to end up in a nightmare job.

Rinzler

I had a toxic team lead who turned a good team into an awful team. Gave bad reviews for reasons unwarranted and its that person's words against yours when your concerns were brought to upper management. This person thought he/she got the better of me but I played my cards right so I am at a better place. There are others who also played their cards right so they are also at a better place. As long as upper management enables this behavior this person will continue his/her agenda. It seems the upper management has been turning a blind eye because I hear that this person is still there...

10Linefigure

Yep makes sense. People tell me all the time about how they dislike their boss or just other people who have power / influence in their organizations and abuse it. Treat people right. Tomorrow the sun will come up no matter what. Is what they are doing, or want to do, or think the company is doing, really that important? Answer: no. It's not. So be nice you only get this life once.

<<< Extreme dislike for rude people. Feels chronically confused by the entire spectacle of mistreating people.

PCTechLinc

I actually used to be this kind of person. I wasn't a manager, but a supervisor. My manager pulled me aside and told me what I was doing, and how our workers were feeling about my negative attitude. I took it to heart and made a decision to change. About 3 months later my manager and coworkers praised me for how much I changed, and how they enjoyed working there so much more.

Remember, there IS an "I" in TEAM... it's hidden in the A-hole.

DatabaseHead

Basic85 wrote: »

This is why I vet the heck out of employers I interview with. I do not want to end up in a nightmare job.

Isn't it great having a good job and interviewing with people? I am myself 92% of the time (guessing

.... No acting, I can hear their voice get weird and I'll ask them what's wrong? It's almost become a game on phone interviews. Ironically enough, when I miss on the job, one thing never fails. We really like candidate X he had the best personality we came across. We felt he was a great fit but unfortantly he didn't have enough experience..... Could be lies, but I don't think so.....

A lot of the interviews I am going for have certain tools I barely used ~1 year or not at all so what they saying makes sense.

UnixGuy

PCTechLinc wrote: »

I actually used to be this kind of person... My manager pulled me aside and told me what I was doing...

Good job on changing!

Amazing how many people aren't aware of the effects they have on others.

UnixGuy

I found those numbers confronting.

We all know there is a connection between anxiety/depression/heart problems and having a bad boss, but "hose who work for toxic bosses were 60% more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke, or other life-threatening cardiac condition"

greg9891

UnixGuy wrote: »

Couldn't help but share this....

"A study of 3,122 Swedish male employees found that those who work for toxic bosses were 60% more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke, or other life-threatening cardiac condition. Other studies in American workplaces show that people with toxic bosses are more susceptible to chronic stress, depression, and anxiety, all of which increase the risk of a lowered immune system, colds, strokes, and even heart attacks. Some studies show that it may take up to 22 months to recover physically and emotionally from a toxic boss. While the idea of quitting may seem scary, the reality of staying in a job with a toxic boss can be even scarier."

https://hbr.org/2018/09/what-to-do-when-you-have-a-bad-boss

Realized this 3 years ago.......

Tekn0logy

Lesson of the day: Like what you do and the people you work with. Don't eat with the toxic boss either as the effects of eating a healthy meal are negated. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/well/mind/stress-may-counteract-effects-of-a-healthful-diet.html?src=recg

UnixGuy

greg9891 wrote: »

Realized this 3 years ago.......

I know it's personal, but are you able to share some of the details with us? it can be very helpful for us

DatabaseHead

Tekn0logy - Thanks for posting this link. Good insights

Agreed with Unix, if you wouldn't mind sharing Greg. I've had some horrible bosses early in my career. Talk about a nightmare, I eventually quit with no job. I delivered pizza's after graduating from college and quitting my job in HR, which I had held for ~5 years.

Sheiko37

I'm surprised how little scrutiny anyone's given the study so far.

Having read the abstract, you could also conclude that people who are just generally more critical of their peers or superiors tend to correlate with ill health.

You could ask a Scientology member to rate their superior, they'd probably give a glowing review.

UnixGuy

Sheiko37 wrote: »

I'm surprised how little scrutiny anyone's given the study so far.

Having read the abstract, you could also conclude that people who are just generally more critical of their peers or superiors tend to correlate with ill health.

You could ask a Scientology member to rate their superior, they'd probably give a glowing review.

and some people swear that earth is flat...that doesn't constitute as a finding either.

I'm not an academic research expert, but the link to the study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2602855/

I'm not sure how many times it has been reviewed as I haven't really checked, but looks like it has been cited several times from the link:
"A recent meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies examining determinants of cardiovascular disease, suggests an average excess risk of 50% in employees who are exposed to an adverse psychosocial work environment (eg, high job strain).¹ These results have considerable clinical implications, especially since psychosocial stressors at work are relatively common"

I didn't feel the need to verify each study because Harvard business review is reputable so I trust they've done that, and the results aren't really outrageous. The relationship between heart problems & stress isn't anything new, that's why I didn't go into each link to verify each study

EANx

Sheiko37 wrote: »

I'm surprised how little scrutiny anyone's given the study so far.

Having read the abstract, you could also conclude that people who are just generally more critical of their peers or superiors tend to correlate with ill health.

You could ask a Scientology member to rate their superior, they'd probably give a glowing review.

If you dug a bit, you would find where it was published and what the peer-review criteria is. Took me about three minutes. https://authors.bmj.com/after-submitting/peer-review-process/

This doesn't seem to be a "pay for publication" journal, to quote "Occupational and Environmental Medicine is adopted as the official journal of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians of London."

N7Valiant

Truth. I got sick pretty much every month in retail. Been working IT for 7 months and never got so much as a cold yet.

FluffyBunny

UnixGuy wrote: »

Good job on changing!

Amazing how many people aren't aware of the effects they have on others.

Aye, therein lies the rub: many of the bad bosses will not recognize themselves in that label. They'll say that they're "a strong personality", "a driven boss", "someone who puts their foot down"! But they won't see themselves as "bad bosses". Possibly quite the opposite.

victor.s.andrei

FluffyBunny wrote: »

Aye, therein lies the rub: many of the bad bosses will not recognize themselves in that label. They'll say that they're "a strong personality", "a driven boss", "someone who puts their foot down"! But they won't see themselves as "bad bosses". Possibly quite the opposite.

Inability or unwillingness to admit one's failures is a hallmark of a bad boss.

Excessively throwing around jargon, acronyms, and other fluffy language - "driven boss" or "strong personality," for example. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Deal plainly with others. Anything else is a bad boss.

victor.s.andrei

Basic85 wrote: »

This is why I vet the heck out of employers I interview with. I do not want to end up in a nightmare job.

It is possible to vet an employer thoroughly, only for everything to go wrong - for example, your boss quits before your first day, and nobody tells you that you have a new boss who hates you from day one and wants to make you go away.

UnixGuy

FluffyBunny wrote: »

..."a strong personality"...

Oh dear! I've yet to meet a person who claims to have a "strong personality" and not be a terrible incompetent boss/professional.

XiaoLi101

Thank you for sharing this info. Yes, working environment really has an impact on the health of employees. If it's toxic, both your mental and physical conditions will be affected. Working with a leader is different from working with a boss. A Leader is someone who understands his followers beyond the professional boundary. He knows that he is dealing with human beings, not machines. A boss doesn't understand people — treating employees like robots. This is enough reason to leave your job. On the other hand, there are unreasonable excuses to leave your employer. I found an article on this matter:https://www.infotechresume.com/lame-excuses-quit-current-job/According to this post, hating your co-worker is one of the lame excuses for quitting your job. Another one is feeling overworked. In this case, I think you just have to take a vacation. If you have other reasons for leaving your employer aside from having a bad boss and want to know if they are valid ones, you may check these articles:https://www.thebalancecareers.com/top-good-reasons-to-quit-your-job-2061010https://www.cleverism.com/10-good-reasons-leaving-job/