Toxic Behaviors We Love To Hate! Happy Valentine's Day!

Forget chocolates and roses—Stella and Roberta are serving up a brew of workplace reality in the Toxic Tea Room podcast. This episode, they're dissecting the love-hate dynamics of Valentine's Day and how it mirrors our relationships with toxic work practices. From the passive-aggressive notes to the stifling effect of micromanagement, they're spilling the tea on what makes workplaces tick... or explode. Get ready for a dose of tough love and hard truths that will make you rethink your office dynamics.

Your hosts will cover off-putting toxicity like office romances (and the subsequent favoritism), micro-management ("Don't stand/Don't stand so/Don't stand so close to me"), poor communication (why speak when you can scream?) and many more.  Grab your coffee or champagne glass- we don't judge here- and commiserate with the Queens of Anti-Mean.  Wait- is that even a thing? Who is writing the show notes this week? Seek help, for heaven's sake!

And for a new twist on relaxing after a hard day dealing with bossholes, consider the array of products from Canna River. Canna River provides legal hemp and CBD products right to your home!  Canna River products are non-GMO, cruelty-free, gluten-free and lab tested! AND they plant trees (and not just cannabis trees!). Enjoy legal cannabis (the gummies are so good!) for a whopping 40% OFF EVERYTHING for their Valentines Day special! Use code LOVE at checkout!

If scripting or journaling is more your style, we recommend Therapy Notebooks!

Finally, after a brief hiatus, we have curated a Spotify list sure to jazz up your Valentines Day- Toxic Tearoom style! Enjoy! XOXOXOXOXOXO

Spotify Playlist

Workplace Romance- Rise People
Bad Company Culture- Built In
Signs It's Time To Leave A Toxic Workplace- Forbes
Workplace Psychological Safety Act- Information and resources

Send us your stories for a future episode! theteabag@toxictearoom.com

Visit our site!

Transcript

>> Speaker A: 0:01

The Toxic Tea Room podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Even though you may love us or love to hate our topics. Neither the toxic tea room nor its parent, that one, Booth Productions, LLC, is responsible for the statements or opinions of its guests, submissions, or content derived from publicly available sources. Content should not be interpreted as target hitting specific companies, organizations, or individuals. Even though we love and hate how some of you operate, the Toxic Tea Room podcast and that one, Booth Productions, LLC, are not responsible for any actions taken by individuals as a result of any content produced on this podcast. Listeners are encouraged to vet any recommendations with certified professional personnel. For more info on our disclaimer and to read our blog with fun Valentine hearts throughout, visit our website at www.toxictroom.com. I'm, Stella.

>> Speaker B: 1:00

And I'm Roberta. Welcome to the Toxic Tea Room.

>> Speaker A: 1:18

Huh?

>> Speaker B: 1:18

Yeah.

>> Speaker A: 1:19

There is such a love hate relationship with this holiday, depending on where someone's at or their situation, right? I mean, if you're single. Meh. If you're married and hubby doesn't perform. Grr. And if you're one of those people who are truly in love, maybe you don't think much of it or you're lavish with gifts. But how does all of this relate to the toxic tea room? you may ask? Well, we thought we'd have an episode that focuses on what you love to hate about toxic workplaces.

>> Speaker B: 1:54

And there's plenty that we love to hate. We've compiled a list of the most toxic things we love to hate, like lack of communication, micromanagement, favoritism, incompetent manager bossholes, and other love nuggets, like unfair pay, underappreciation, lack of stability, lack of direction, some other fun behaviors that we hate. We do invite our listeners to rank these as far as what is the thing you love to hate the most?

>> Speaker A: 2:31

Yes. Because. I don't know. I think that lack of communication can touch so many different things, but maybe not even in the lack of communication, but also in the style of communication, that it can become super toxic. Right?

>> Speaker B: 2:48

Yeah, I mean, for sure, like one of my pet peeves and listeners have heard me say it, there is no reason to yell, let alone scream, in the workplace. well, I take it back. There's two reasons that you can scream in the workplace. One is you're trying to alert everybody to an emergency. Like there's an emergency, everybody get out, whatever that emergency is. two, if you are on fire, please scream if you're on fire, to draw attention to yourself so that someone can put the fire out. Other than that, it just doesn't belong in a professional setting. Raising your voice is a sign that you are losing control. And if you are trying to control through intimidation, by elevating the volume of your voice, you're drawing attention to how weak you truly are. It's the most paradoxical thing. But, people have grown up in dysfunctional homes where hearing somebody scream is a trigger for them also, which is terrible. But I mean, at the end of the day, it just doesn't belong in the workplace. I refuse to scream in the workplace. I refuse to raise my voice. If I feel like I get to that point, if I'm at that level of frustration that I feel like I need to raise my voice, I walk out of the room. I don't want to be part of that kind of culture. Certainly we know what that culture is like. We've participated in cultures that simply think that you could just scream at people and that's totally okay to do. It's not. It is one of my biggest pet peeves. I hate it. I, love to hate that. Stella.

>> Speaker A: 4:32

Yeah. So we talked about a little what we didn't really talk about, but the lack of communication that, ah, is definitely a toxic, behavior because communication is how people survive in most businesses. the style of communication, like yelling, but there's also like a passive aggressive style, of communicating, or like, you communicate very aggressively all the time. And a lot of people, surprisingly, don't really know how they come across. So it's so important in your communication to understand how you're coming across, huh?

>> Speaker B: 5:17

Right. I would agree. I mean, I think some people know exactly how the freak they're coming across. Yeah, some people, the passive aggressive intentionally. I don't think anybody can accidentally be passive aggressive. So if somebody goes to you and says, wow, saw your report. Hard week, to put enough time into it, you're an asshole. What the shit is that? That's not an accident. You're not accidentally communicating that way. aggressive sometimes is difficult because a lot of times it's easy to confuse direct conversation with aggressive conversation. I tend to speak directly. I want you to know exactly what I mean when I say what I mean. And it's not always going to be pleasant, but it's going to be direct. What it's never going to be is something that is intentionally hurtful because it's work. This is our professional feedback. This is not a personal rip you to shreds and have you go home and hit the bottle so you don't kick the dog. That's not what should ever be in place. But direct is direct. It's not aggressive. The whole point of communication is that three basic elements are required, right? This is true of any communication. You need something that is speaking, making the noise. So you need the transmitter, that's the speaker in this case, and you need a receiver. So that's the person that is receiving the communication. And then the medium is typically air. So if we look at this and say that in a meeting, if I'm m transmitting directly, you also need to receive it. As humans, we bring our worldview to every communication. And if our worldview is that I hate there so much, everything she says is just like she speaks in bullet points, then it really doesn't matter what the person speaking is going to say, because you're prepared to receive it in the most negative way. So we're not talking about communication in how we need to be active listeners and good communicators and separate our personal worldview as much as we can when listening and actively challenge ourselves. Did I interpret that correctly? That's not what we're talking about here, folks. We're talking about lack of communication, as in, the information doesn't get out. That should, that is critical for us to succeed in our individual roles within an organization. Or the fact that when the communication, when the information comes out, that it's delivered in such a way that it's painful or humiliating or discriminatory, or even microaggressions, which is tied in there with that, passive aggressive microaggressions slide in there like butter. They're just. Stella, for someone born in Costa Rica, you speak such good English. What the fuck?

>> Speaker A: 8:30

I get that all the time.

>> Speaker B: 8:31

Such a microaggression. It's just like, also what? I should speak like these because we don't speak like these. Like what? I don't get it. It's things like that, that I think we're looking at when it comes to just poor communication overall is one of the most toxic behaviors and candidly, one of the hardest to fix in an organization that's already suffering from it.

>> Speaker A: 8:56

I totally agree. And don't forget that, people that do speak a different language first, a lot can be perceived as toxic. For example, let me give you an example. I had, an asian friend that said, oh, he's fat. They don't mean to offend. I honestly don't think that they mean to offend, but in their culture, it's totally permissible to say things that directly I don't know, maybe that might be.

>> Speaker B: 9:35

I was going to say that might in, some areas, but you just go right up to somebody and call them. You might be squared up. I don't know. It's not my recommendation, folks.

>> Speaker A: 9:48

Right, yeah. No.

>> Speaker B: 9:49

You got to consider the worldview not only of where you come from, but where you are currently.

>> Speaker A: 10:00

I'll come up with a better example next time.

>> Speaker B: 10:04

I think we're going to need t shirts that say you're fat.

>> Speaker A: 10:11

And not the bhat.

>> Speaker B: 10:13

Oh, my. Who's there? 1994. Okay. Anyway, let's. Let's shift to my.

>> Speaker A: 10:30

I'm glad I can make you laugh, dude.

>> Speaker B: 10:35

Yeah, you got it. Let's shift to micromanagement. Oh, my God.

>> Speaker A: 10:42

Got to love this one.

>> Speaker B: 10:44

This one, fascinates me. You and I have both led senior leadership roles, right? But even in our very first management job, think back like, you were not there literally watching every move someone made. because, they have to have the room to use their skills, their talent, and their time toward what you are asking them to get done. Your job as a manager is to move things out of their way so they can get something done to coach them if they're struggling. Not to say, did you check box 32? Yes, I always check box 32. Can you show me that? You checkbox 32? Why are you here? I mean, when someone is that level of micromanagement, again, just like the screamer, that is their sign of insecurity that they feel since they're responsible for you, they literally have to watch over you as an overseer, not a manager. It's the worst. Operating under somebody like that, it's terrible. Fortunately, I have been blessed where I haven't had too many micromanagers. But, it's astonishing to me how if someone's a micromanager that doesn't stay in managing entry level personnel, if somebody's a micromanager that follows them throughout their career path, and that's where it can get really interesting. When you yourself reach a senior manager and up position and somebody is still managing as if they're a front level supervisor for entry level employees and you still deal with

it. don't forget the weekly report is due on Friday at 08: 12:15

00 a.m. It's due every Friday at eight a. m. You've never not

received a Friday at 08: 12:20

00 a.m.?

>> Speaker A: 12:23

Why?

>> Speaker B: 12:23

continue to remind me about it. It's just such a waste of energy. I think for them and for everyone else that they want to control everything that's going on.

>> Speaker A: 12:31

Yeah. And I get not wanting to fail as a manager, but that's coaching. And the other thing I was going to say about this is, I wonder where micromanagement is learned. Like, we touched a little bit about insecurity and wanting to make sure, but, I think of the mothers that try to control their kids. Every action.

>> Speaker B: 13:01

Helicopter parents.

>> Speaker A: 13:03

Yeah, exactly. And you wonder if that type of behavior is, a learned thing that you can't let people, you don't trust that people are just going to do what they are supposed to do.

>> Speaker B: 13:21

That could be part of it. That could be part of it. I think there may be schools of thought here, and I'd love to hear what our listeners think. Feel free to write in about your favorite micromanager and favorites in air quotes. You just can't see me because this is a podcast and we're not on YouTube yet.

>> Speaker A: 13:39

Not yet.

>> Speaker B: 13:40

Hint, hint. Anyway, we need to. We will be. But here's. Here's what I mean. If you are as know. Expand upon with that, stella. Somebody that needs to have that level of control, and it's hard for you to trust that somebody else can do it the way that you know it needs to be done. And where I have seen that is when people that are promoted from within. So I used to do this exact role, and now I'm responsible to watch people doing this exact role, and I want them to do it the way I did it. So there's part of that. But I also think there are micromanagers that just are control freaks, period. Has nothing to do with trust. It kind of blends into some of that psychopathic behavior where I want to manipulate, I want to control. And if I get the sense that this annoys you, guess what's going to happen every single time I am going to micromanage the shit out of you, because that is a manipulation technique that I can use against you, particularly if I only do it to you and you don't see me doing it to anyone else. It's horrible, but micromanagement is a toxic behavior. definitely. It stifles growth, stifles growth, stifles creativity. I mean, if you just want a bunch of robots working for you, get a bunch of robots. It's 2024. Have you not seen Boston technologies videos? Those things creep me out and frighten me. What is happening with those things? But if that's what you want, go do that. Get that. Get yourself some. You should be cheering for AI then, because it'll do whatever you tell it to do. But if you're going to manage people, you have to recognize they're people. And just as you don't want someone breathing down your neck when you're perfectly capable of doing the job that you were hired for, don't do it. If you find yourself slipping into that behavior, check yourself. And there might be hope. But I've never seen a micromanager sit back and go, you know what? I spend way too much time doing things that you guys are hired to do. I should just let you do your jobs and just be there to support you. Like anybody that has that epiphany. I mean, congratulations. I m am giving you a standing ovation. I've just never personally seen it. Candidly, I've never seen someone come back from the brink of boss hole and say, wait, this is not what I want to be. Anywho, hey, did you know that 36 million heart shaped boxes of chocolate are sold for Valentine's Day? And almost a quarter of a billion roses for the same day. How about 145,000,000 valentines exchanged? And that's not including those cute little ones that the kids do in school. It seems like making someone feel loved and special is pretty commonplace after all. want uncommon results instead? Escatenna has a proven record of fast tracking results to the bottom line in sustainability, supply chain business management, fractional services, and much more. Chocolates get eaten, flowers die. But uncommon results will bring you love from shareholders and customers alike. Visit escatenna.net today for a free consultation. That's escatena. Net. Start feeling the love.

>> Speaker A: 17:21

And speaking of love, how annoying is it when there is favoritism, whether it's because there's a brown noser, an office affair, or just that manager prefers somebody's personality that can create such a bad vibe around the workplace. And, let me tell you, unfortunately, I've been on the receiving end of favoritism, like starting in classrooms, because I was a goody two shoes in the class.

>> Speaker B: 17:59

You were?

>> Speaker A: 18:00

Not that I didn't.

>> Speaker B: 18:03

I don't mean to sound surprised. Let me be clear. I don't mean to sound surprised. I am surprised. I'm quite floored, but proceed. I'm sorry for interrupting.

>> Speaker A: 18:18

A few jobs ago, and, I don't know, a few jobs ago, I had a counterpart, and the manager didn't look upon her favorably because she always had an issue. She always brought stuff up, and everything was a disaster. Every day you came in, you knew you were going to hear, oh, my gosh, this is such a disaster. Like, oh, I can't believe this happened. So it was always drama. But I feel like that manager, because I wasn't drama, did start to favor talking to me and not with her, instead of addressing, hey, this can't be a dying situation every single day. Why don't you calm down, take it down a notch. there was not that counseling for her or coaching for her, and instead, it was more of a favoritism type of situation for me, where you got to benefit.

>> Speaker B: 19:32

Yeah. Imagine, how she went home every day and the cell phone conversation she had with whomever had to listen to her talk about her day. But you were part of that conversation every time. Because I can picture on the phone saying, oh, my God, where do you listen to this? I mean, holy shit. So, you know, I was telling you about Stella, this good two shoes that thinks everything's freaking fine, and she's so Pollyanna, and she paints everything in the positive light, even though the dumpster is on fire, even though everything's bad, even though nothing's documented that should be documented. Oh, no, here's Stella. It's okay. We'll get through it. And then I got my boss looking at her like, maybe Stella can handle this. You seem like you have a lot on your plate. I have a lot on my plate because the dumpster's on fire, you son of a bitch. But now Stella's like, Stella gets all the projects. You know, that was happening. You know, that was what was going on.

>> Speaker A: 20:34

And I wouldn't say, when people see the glass half full or half empty, I see it half full and half empty. Like it is what it is, right? Like, I'm all about.

>> Speaker B: 20:48

But when everybody looks at it, when somebody rather not everybody looks at it half empty, it's always half empty. And they're like, yes. Can you not see that it's half empty? Like, look at the top. If the top is full and it's not full by default, isn't it half empty? Those people exhaust me. I have a favoritism story I'm going to. This is a real story, but I'm going to change names to protect the innocent.

>> Speaker A: 21:18

Yes.

>> Speaker B: 21:19

And not so many innocents, but we're going to go. So there was a woman I worked with at a previous employer who I'm going to call Linda. No, her name wasn't really Linda. So if you worked with me before and your name was Linda, I am not referring to you, okay? I'm just using Linda. So Linda was a. Linda was. Had a lot of energy in certain meetings and would put even more energy in hateful things. So you know how you hear about people that are two faced? Yeah. So for those of you that are fans of Game of Thrones, and you can imagine the wall of faces, that scene. She had to have that many. Like, I envisioned her picking her faces for the day and just putting a few extra in her purse so that she could just whip out and use whatever ones she needed at the time.

>> Speaker A: 22:17

Damn.

>> Speaker B: 22:18

She was a lot. And she would have her super sweet, class a employee face on to anybody at an upper level and then put on her, I am your worst nightmare face. To everybody who worked for her and anybody who she felt was a threat against her, she was a lot. She was also an asshole. You know what an asshole is? The ones that are in meetings that find it critical to raise their hands and ask or say something so that everyone remembers they're there. She was one of those. She would raise her hands. and my favorite one. And there were. Hang on, I'm counting in my head. There were roughly six people in the room. And so if anybody that is listening that was in that particular meeting will laugh right now, because we all heard the same thing. So Linda was talking about some issue. I don't even recall the exact issue. But then she said, we can't make decisions in a vacuum cleaner. I swear to God. That's what she said. I was taking notes on something else, and my head snapped up, and somebody else's head snapped up at the exact same time. We looked at each other, and we were just, like, mouthing to each other, what the. And she was perfectly fine with that. She did not realize what she said was completely inaccurate. And it got me thinking. Do you know what making decisions in a vacuum means? Do you think it's literally a vacuum cleaner?

>> Speaker A: 24:03

It's kind of hard to get in a vacuum.

>> Speaker B: 24:05

How do you make decisions in a vacuum cleaner? To this day, I think about that every now and again. And to this day, I'm like, did you have to talk so bad that you forgot that vacuum is something distinctly separate from a vacuum cleaner? There's a vacuum in space called a black hole. There's vacuums of thought. There's vacuums of talent, which clearly you didn't fill. There's all kinds of things, but she was an asshole that way. Like, she just had to speak up. So she was an incredibly annoying person. But one thing she did to gain favor is not only brown nose, she certainly met all of those things, but she liked to play the victim to those that would hear her out, so they granted her extra space. Like I was told directly, once you had a good childhood, Linda didn't. Linda had a difficult childhood. Then I hear all these details about Linda's childhood.

>> Speaker A: 25:08

Wow.

>> Speaker B: 25:08

Now, here's the thing. You don't give me that kind of information about someone I'm really having a hard time stomaching. I hit Google. I sure did. I found out that every single bit of that story was, at the best, over embellished, and at the worst, a damn lie. But everyone, at the senior level had heard that story and gave Linda some room because, perhaps maybe that's just she didn't have the kind of advantages that you had. I had advantages. That's fun. I don't think I had any advantages. I'm a daughter of immigrants. I had to work hard for everything I have. This is somebody who you help pay for their school and hired because one of your kids was friends with her. And I had advantages. Eventually, everyone did get sick of her shit and she quit. But favoritism is more than just literally favoring someone. Sometimes it expresses itself in giving people far more room than they should have. And, when she left, there were so many text messages flying around with people holding shots, glasses of champagne. I kid you not. Everyone's like, ding dong, which is dead, thank God. Linda.

>> Speaker A: 26:39

Linda is not Linda. Because that means beautiful.

>> Speaker B: 26:43

No.

>> Speaker A: 26:44

Or pretty.

>> Speaker B: 26:45

No, she wasn't. No, she wasn't Linda.

>> Speaker A: 26:51

Linda is not Linda.

>> Speaker B: 26:53

No. And I won't say she was faya either. But what I will say is she was really a, difficult piece of work. I'm trying to be a better person this year. I have all kinds of things I could say, but I'm not going to because why bother?

>> Speaker A: 27:07

Well, we love to hate favoritism.

>> Speaker B: 27:09

We love to hate favoritism. Let's shift a little into what you called Stella, the smaller love to hate topics. And I love how you make these smaller. Like, unfair pay, I think, is a big freaking topic. You're just like, unfair pay. We're women. It's a big topic.

>> Speaker A: 27:32

It is a big topic. But as it pertains to a toxic workplace.

>> Speaker B: 27:40

Follow me.

>> Speaker A: 27:41

when you accept the job, you're accepting the pay. Now, granted, people have to get paid, so they have to accept a job even if they think the wage is much lower. But you make that decision, it doesn't mean you have to be happy with it, but it's not something that's actively making it toxic. For you day in and day out.

>> Speaker B: 28:10

until you find out.

>> Speaker A: 28:12

Until you find out other people, homeboy.

>> Speaker B: 28:14

Are making more than you. Which is why a lot of employers try to keep salary secret.

>> Speaker A: 28:24

Yes.

>> Speaker B: 28:25

However, there is a trend underway. I got to give Gen z credit here because they're the ones that are starting it to say pay needs to be transparent.

>> Speaker A: 28:38

Exactly.

>> Speaker B: 28:39

If the job pays a range and you accept the range at start. Look, there could be variations as to why somebody makes more than you. It could come down to their past experience, which means they don't need to train. They should be able to step in and get going. It could mean that they have some, incredible performance and that you didn't know about that when you joined. But this person's a rock star, and that's why they're getting paid more. There could be a number of reasons, but it shouldn't be based upon the fact that you got a couple of extra body parts. It shouldn't be based upon the fact that you might be a couple of shades lighter. It shouldn't be based upon the fact that you don't have an accent. It shouldn't be based upon those things. If you're going to have variations in pay, it should be merit based, experience based, and if you're transparent with your pay, you don't have these issues. But when you come in and you're killing it and you're working your ass off, and then you find out that someone that isn't killing it isn't working their ass off makes more than you, I promise you. That doesn't just become an irritant, that becomes something that sticks in your craw every single day, and it's like walking on broken glass, right? Because you see this person in a meeting, and they're on their cell phone, and you know that that son of a bitch is making more than you are, that does get toxic quick. What about underappreciation? That's a tough one for me, because it is tough. I think it ties to so many other things. Like, you can feel underappreciated if you do everything you're asked to do and you don't get recognition for it. You could feel underappreciated if you work the extra shifts, for example, whenever it's necessary. And then the one time you really need to be off that day because something unexpected came up. You have to find your own replacement for your shift, as we've heard in so much of hospitality and service. And then there are people that just feel underappreciated because they feel entitled. And that's, to me, not the same thing. Like get over your entitlement, I don't know. And lack of succession planning. Let's talk about that one. Lack of succession planning.

>> Speaker A: 30:58

It's tough when you feel you're in a critical role and you want to take a vacation, but you don't know who or there isn't a person that can step in without a lot of training or they're only going to do this part. so I guess it's not just succession planning as in where am I going to go in this company? And why have you made it that my role cannot be or doesn't feel like it can be replaced. And people tend to feel that way if they're self motivated and they want to do a great job. But then not seeing a way out is what I'm referring to with lack of succession.

>> Speaker B: 31:56

And that's interesting because some people intentionally paint themselves into that corner because in their mind they feel, if I'm irreplaceable, that's security for me.

>> Speaker A: 32:07

That's true.

>> Speaker B: 32:08

And if you do that to yourself, okay, then that's what you did to yourself. If in your mind, that's how you have job security is make yourself so vital that you can't even take a vacation. First of all, there's nothing on an, a performance review that is a scale of one to five for martyrdom, so just knock it off. but two, you have put yourself in a position where you have a false sense of security because believe me, lots of positions are. Now you look at it and say, okay, can we just use AI for that? And if you have not allowed yourself to share the knowledge, you have to share the role and be able to take your vacations when necessary. I mean, again, it's just, to me, another insecure behavior along those lines. But I do think succession planning is important for career progression. For sure, you need to be able to see a path. And again, I think this is another trend that Gen Z is pushing of, okay, if I choose to join your company, tell me what my upward mobility is and what's your investment in me so that I can do that. And those questions are coming out in interviews, which I think is fabulous.

>> Speaker A: 33:25

Yeah. And there's the other flip side to lack of succession planning, and that is if someone leaves, and now you have to take on a lot more because the company didn't have a path for if someone leaves. Right.

>> Speaker B: 33:45

That's a really good way, especially with some of the layoffs that have occurred. It doesn't even mean somebody's leaving because they found something better. You could just be stuck doing the work of two people because that's what's necessary right now. And some of that planning, it didn't happen on our layoffs and lies episodes. We talked about that. I don't understand how a company. What was the review we read? on our last episode? They hired people go through this whole hiring process because it's not like you're getting hired and starting the same day. You go through background check, drug test, whatever the hell it had to go through. And now you start and you're there for a couple of weeks, and they have to let you go. You're not going to convince me you have any planning in place, let alone succession planning.

>> Speaker A: 34:37

Exactly.

>> Speaker B: 34:37

So all of that is just, candidly, just poor planning. And that is a toxic behavior for sure. I totally agree.

>> Speaker A: 34:45

Yeah.

>> Speaker B: 34:45

I got to go into my most hated behavior that I love to hate.

>> Speaker A: 34:54

You love to hate this. I do, too, by the way.

>> Speaker B: 34:56

I know this is my number one, though, and I'm going to apologize in advance. I'm getting on my podium. This is the start of my TED talk for today. Mobbing is another behavior I love to hate. Yes, I hated being a victim of mobbing. I hate seeing people dragged into mobbing a target. Mobbing is school age bullying on a grand, even deadly scale. You are serving a, game master like some cosplay hunger games trilogy, participating in hopes to escalate your career or more commonly, save your own ass from being the next target, all the while tearing bits of someone's psychological and even physical health, reputation, and paycheck, all to hopefully please the master. Ironic, though, the target and the conspirators are all typically the same rank and file in the organization, and they're scheming and disrupting one of their own to soothe the typically fragile and threatened master. I need our, listeners to understand something on this topic. When you participate in mobbing behavior, you could be directly or indirectly responsible for someone's life. Listen to that again, because I'm not kidding. When you are told to set up a sabotage meeting to set up a target for a failure, exposing them to shame and verbal abuse, you are causing psychological harm. Period. When you know there's a plan to drive that target out of the company and you stay silent, you are just as responsible. I'm not being this direct just because I was a victim. I'm one of the lucky ones. People have spent decades on their education and their careers, often accomplishing significant success, only to be berated, excluded, gaslit and ridiculed, and so much more horrific behaviors simply because one weak, threatened, yet powerful individual decides to create and feed the mob. People have lost their lives. People have lost their lives. This behavior is not federally illegal yet, but there is a group of professionals that are working to ensure that this becomes illegal and that these participants are held accountable. And I will send a bouquet of white roses personally to the game master who led the mobbing crusade against me. When the Workplace Psychological Safety act becomes law across the land, you know who you are. And I can't wait to have that shit delivered to your office, homeboy.

>> Speaker A: 37:44

Damn mic drop. Well, save your money on the roses, people. The game master deserves nothing from you. In fact, if you are sending anyone flowers, it should be to the fine team at hire my mom. Hire my mom has been a matchmaker since the 90s, helping top tier candidates get great roles at vetted, nontoxic, top tier companies employers. Did you notice the latest job report? Good candidates are getting hired. If you want to add the right talent to your team, visit hiremymom.com. Use code toxict room at, checkout for the 15% off job listing.

>> Speaker B: 38:28

I can buy myself flowers.

>> Speaker A: 38:33

Well, this has been a less than romantic episode, Roberta, but still love you, though we would love to hear from our listeners on what you love to hate at your workplace. Share with us. Keep sending in those stories to the teabag@toxictroom.com.

>> Speaker B: 38:50

Write my name in the sand.

>> Speaker A: 38:54

Please subscribe and follow us on, LinkedIn x, Instagram and TikTok.

>> Speaker B: 38:59

Talk to myself for hours say things you don't understand.

>> Speaker A: 39:07

You can also support us by supporting our various affiliates. Look on our blog for additional information. We have a new affiliate that can help you chill out.

>> Speaker B: 39:18

I can take myself dancing I can hold my own hand and hey. We will share this episode and resources in the show notes and on our blog@toxictroom.com. Blog.

>> Speaker A: 39:34

And remember, these toxic traits aren't healthy and certainly won't dazzle you like a Valentine's Day gift. Always keep striving and loving, regardless of what comes your way.

>> Speaker B: 39:45

And I can love me better, than you can by bitches. Happy Valentine's Day. Bye.