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Is Not Taking Any Shit From An Employer A Bad Thing?

I understand that not everyone is fortunate to have money saved to be able to have the leeway to leave jobs whenever they feel like it and so forth. But I just feel like people have lost their sense of self-respect when it comes down to employment.

I am a firm believer that if you are working at a toxic place and are being harassed or bullied, to stand up to that behavior and tell them that you're not going to take their shit, and if they continue you fucking quit and never look back.

I have known people who have not had a savings who have done this in the past and they end up finding a decent job that doesn't treat them like shit. Do you feel like job Seekers don't defend themselves anymore?

96 comments

  • I have been homeless and I have been well-paid while taking shit from my employer. Taking shit while well paid was way harder on my mental and physical health. Homelessness was uncomfortable and scary, but taking shit while being highly paid degraded me, made me weaker, made me less happy, made me slowly but steadily think less of myself.

    • Wow I'm sorry you had to experience that man. I know better things are on their way to you.

      From what you've said, what would you say to the ppl who think taking shit from an employer is 'fine' ?

      • Either it’s not shit they’re taking, or it’s not fine.

        The mismatch between respectful treatment and non-respectful treatment will cause a constant drain on energy and health, and it will recalibrate one’s own sense of self worth via the mechanism called “cognitive dissonance”.

        How does cognitive dissonance come into play here? If a person says their being treated in an unacceptable manner, but they behave as if it’s okay for people to treat them that way, the difference between these will cause cognitive dissonance. Given the brain works to reduce cognitive dissonance over time, if the person doesn’t quit then it will alter their sense of boundaries and what is acceptable. In short their self image as to their level of dignity will fall. They will come to view themselves as someone to whom it is acceptable yo act abusively.

        And a person it’s “okay” to abuse is a low thing indeed.

        It will manifest in some way. Likely there will be a reduction in self-care (why take care of someone not worthy of being taken care of?). It can manifest as resentment and hatred toward others. A person can become really touchy and self-righteous, as a compensation for the creeping subconscious belief that they are worthless.

        Because the cognitive dissonance operates on other levels too. If they try to maintain their self worth, sometimes they’ll try by tearing down others. They’ll distract from the feeling of unworthiness by seeking to establish that others aren’t worthy. This can be attacks on others’s character, arbitrary abuse of others.

        It can manifest in a desperate attempt to gain respect through people pleasing. That can lead to overpromising, which eventually becomes broken promises, low performance reviews, and termination.

        And the cognitive dissonance operates in the mind of the manager as well. Let’s say a manager is exhibiting two conflicting beliefs:

        • I’m a good person who treats people fairly (mental thought), VS
        • I’m treating this person poorly.

        How does the manager’s mind resolve this conflict to reduce cognitive dissonance? One way is it finds excuses to punish the person. In order to create congruence between “I’m a good a manager” and “I’m treating this person poorly”, one way to bridge that gap is to add in “They did something wrong”.

        Generally speaking, abuse transforms the abused person for as long as they acquiesce to it. It also transforms the abuser. Neither person benefits in terms of mental health. Both may be engaging in the pattern out of a mistaken belief it will bring them financial benefit. But long term, abuser and victim are both poisoned psychologically by their two, independent, decisions to allow the abuse to exist.

        One might even go so far as to say groups of people have cognitive dissonance acting at the collective level (individually occurring in each mind, but interacting in complementary ways to enable and support each other). At a collective level, a society might proclaim “All people are inherently valuable”, but if that society allows abuse to continue, embedded into its institutions, that conflicts with the stated societal value, and it starts to produce a new unconscious (and therefore harder to grapple with and control) belief that “People are shit”.

        I am not kidding, at all, when I say that my health was fine when I was homeless, but my health suffered massively when I put up with abuse at work. These findings are backed up by scientific studies on heart attacks: turns out if you compare heavy workload vs lack of respect, the lack of respect is a better predictor of heart attacks than is the heavy workload.

        And in my case I didn’t even keep the job. Those mechanisms I described led to my status within the company falling and falling. I got overloaded with work and not listened to when I had issues. I eventually got fired. So for me at least, trying to sacrifice my dignity for money just straight up failed.

        I now make $47k, and my finances are more stable than when I was making $105k.

        I don’t know about others, but for me money doesn’t even work right for me if I’m not acting according to my conscience. I saved nothing during that time I tried to sacrifice my dignity.

        It’s a real life example of a “deal with the devil”. He promises you great things, but ultimately the terms of the deal are that you lose your soul.

        In the words of one of my favorite psychology professors:

        If you ignore that thing that’s calling you forth, you will pay for it like you cannot possibly imagine.

        That sentence echoed in my head as I wallowed in abuse (a relationship this time, not a job). I was trying to accept it. But a little voice inside me would not accept it. It said “this is wrong. It can be better”, and that quote scared me.

        Because abuse isn’t level. It gets worse and worse the longer you put up with it. It only feels level because as the abuse gets worse, your ability to perceive it as abuse is getting worse at the same time.

        It’s a pathway to ruin. And there are forms of ruin worse than having to sleep in a homeless shelter, having to carry a knife to defend against psychos, worse than extreme hunger, sleep deprivation.

        That’s what I would say, if I thought there was any chance they’d listen.

        ACCEPTING ABUSE DOES NOT WORK

  • You should leave if you feel that your job is making you miserable. Start interviewing on the down low, and leave once you have something lined up.

    There is no point in trying to stay at a place you hate because you are guilty about that your work is going to be piled on to your coworker. They made their choice to stay, you've done your best to help them, but you should put your own well being first and foremost.

  • If you're worth your words.

    If you bag groceries, no one is going to give much of a shit whether you stay or go. On the upside, you probably won't care much either as most employers in 2023 are as replaceable as their employees.

    Keep that in mind and you'll never get burnt, so long as you live somewhere with a varied enough employment scene for you to bounce around. If they're as replaceable as you, it's good peace of mind.

  • Some people definitely aren't in a position to fight back. If you're living paycheck to paycheck and barely getting by, your employer might know that you can't afford to be out of a job for any length of time. Then, they might abuse you because what are you going to do? Fight back, get fired, and then become homeless? Nope. You'll take whatever your employer dishes out on you.

    Other people are in a position to fight back. I'm lucky enough to be one of those people. I watched my father waste his life doing extra work that he didn't get paid for. He'd go in early, bring stuff home to work on late into the night, and bring extra work home for the weekends. It's not like he was paid extra. He was salaried and was paid the same if he worked 40 hours or 80 hours.

    In the end, he was fired when he was close to 60 - too early to retire, but too old to find a new job because he would likely retire soon. So he retired before he was ready and now lives on a very limited income.

    When I got my current job, I was asked to check a generic "info@" email inbox. No problem. I routed the emails to people who could address them. My boss called me in one day to tell me that he expected me to check this inbox at night and over the weekends too.

    Now, I'm Jewish and observe the Sabbath. My boss said "I can't tell you to violate your religious beliefs, but I REALLY need you to check this every few hours every day!" I told him that I wasn't going to check it on nights or weekends. He insisted I needed to because someone might email with a medical emergency. (Without getting into my employer, it was plausible that someone would email us about medical stuff in general.) I told him that if someone was having a medical emergency and, instead of dialing 911, they emailed our "info@" mailbox, they deserved to have their emergency wait until Monday morning. In all the time i monitored the inbox, I only got one email that was even slightly an emergency (and even then, it was more of a safety concern than an actual emergency).

  • Fortunately, here in Germany we have very strong employee laws and regulations. Employers can do much less shit to employees than in the USA for example.

    Boss yells at you? Sue them. Boss fires you for no real reason? Sue them. Boss verbally attacks you? Sue them. Boss does not pay you on time? Sue them. Boss makes you do useless nonsense work? Sue them. Boss demands you to do overtime without compensation? Sue them.

    You'll always win AND you will keep your job and get compensation.

  • I used to be one of these people that just eat shit all day at a toxic workplace cause I thought "oh Im the new guy I have to prove my worth and work hard to get to a point of respect and earning more money" and at every job I'd do as much as I could til I'm burnt out and still being paid shot and treated like garbage. Even moreso than in the beginning because they got used to how much extra shit I'd do for them for the same pay. This happened at multiple jobs through multiple years of my life and I'd always get to a point where I'd quit or stop doing extra and get fired cause I burnt out doing everything I could with no return. After the last real job I had I quit and never looked back and I realized now that it was never my fault for not putting enough effort in or being lazy or whatever the case may be. Every time I quit it was gonna be because I would have had a mental breakdown if I stayed and my family always gave me shit cause I'd never have money saved up. It's scary AF sometimes and not everyone can get away with being in a position where you can leave a toxic workplace just like that and survive. I do think more people should be able to at least stand up to their employers and get what they deserve though. If they can't quit that's the next best thing. Or better yet get together with fellow employees and start a union. I'm freelance now since that last job and I have been in a couple terrible work droughts but I have been trying as hard as I possibly can to make it work and never have to work for someone ever again.

  • There can be a strategic long term play when it is valuable for you to "take shit" from an employer.

    A perfect example is if you are trying to move up in a career, and your industry requires experience and a specific level of title before you'd be considered by employers you'd prefer to work for. If you don't have that experience and title, you simple won't even be considered by the employers you like. However, if there is a shitty employer that will give you the job and title (because they can't keep staff because they're shitty and have high turnover), then it may be worth it to "take shit" from the shitty employer for a year or so to gain the experience and ability to put that position on your resume to make yourself eligible for the good employers you like. Another good reason to work for one of these "taking shit" employers when you're moving up is you can make your mistakes here. Make your mistakes in your new position at a place you hate, so when you go to the place that treats you well, you perform much better because of your knowledge and experience.

    Also, I've worked for some shitty employers because they pay significantly more than good employers (again because they have to because otherwise they can't keep staff). This should only be used as a short term play because that toxicity can damage you long term. You don't want to be a lifer at one of these places, but if you have a goal that requires more money, then working for one of these and "taking shit" from them may be worth it to achieve your personal long term goals.

    If you're career driven, "taking shit" strategically can be valuable. Your co-workers who refuse to "take any shit" will likely continue to have their jobs, but they'll see themselves passed over for promotions and raises. They'll watch as you continue to rise in the organization, and see when you've learned what you needed and jumped ship to another employer that treats them well where they don't have to "take shit". They'll chalk up their lack of advancement to being unfairly passed over, while you are two to three promotions above them, making more money, having better/more interesting work, and "taking less shit" than them.

    • I get what you are saying. But I don't kiss ass

      • There's a difference between "taking shit" and "kissing ass". You're welcome to believe them the same, but understand that the consequences impact your employ-ability. There's a whole set of skills about managing workplace boundaries. Its not a binary of "taking shit" all-or-nothing. Its picking your battles and choosing to refuse to do things that would harm you physically or mentally, or those things that are simply annoying or hits to your pride. If you have to maintain your "not taking shit" image because of ego, I can tell you that will likely be very costly to you.

        I can tell you from far up the chain (just because I'm older and have been doing this longer) there are zero jobs where you can avoid "taking shit". It comes in different forms. Right now you're talking about your direct manager or supervisor it sounds like. The higher up you go it comes from even higher bosses, government agencies, vendors you're forced to deal with, regulatory auditors, insurance companies, then, paradoxically, employees you manage.

        There is no "taking shit"-free job. That only comes when you exit the workforce...which is one of my goals I'm working is to speedrun to earn enough money to do that before age 65 or 67 assuming you've saved appropriate to allow you to do that.

  • It depends. You have to make a benefit-risk-downside analysis, such as whether the job pays well, what your other prospects are pay-wise, if another job might have a better or worse working environment in terms of supervisors and colleagues, how convenient the job is (work from home? commute across town?) and how switching jobs will look on your resume, as in, have you been there only 6 months? 3 years? 6 years?

96 comments