General Housekeeping
To the bump in new subscribers that came in last week, welcome. I appreciate your being here and hope that what I write will continue to be of value. As a resident in counseling, I am still learning my trade; however, I was a working adult for about a decade before I transitioned into the world of psychology and counseling. I tend to veer away from politics, as professional and ethical guidelines require us not to take sides; it doesn’t stop everyone from doing that, however. As such, I strive to write about issues relating to current events as well as evergreen works that can apply more generally.
I do not respond to requests for therapy or consultation related to that field; communication does not imply a therapeutic relationship, and what is discussed here are the opinions of one professional and should not be taken as gospel or representative of the field.
In March I got into a car accident, and the experience threw me off for quite a few weeks. As a practicing therapist (a toddler-level therapist in terms of experience) it has taken me some time to reorient through several difficult client cases and a disorganized work environment. If you’re friends with other workers in MH, the private practices and community agencies can be an incredibly mixed bag of terribly controlling, micromanaging, unethically lax, or painfully cynical. It often jars me how much of a pain it is to find moderately functioning workplaces.
As an FYI, I am getting married in July. The newsletter will go on hiatus for that month, and will return in August.
As I’ve been preparing to get married, packing and cleaning up the corners of my life, I’ve also been considering how to provide good content for readers and what I’d like to continue to accomplish with this newsletter.
For the time being, this newsletter will remain free. For those unfamiliar with the inner workings of Substack, the main goal is to hit 100 subscribers. I think it has something to do with metrics and getting picked up better on the site1. 🤷🏻♀️
Regardless, I have a loose, general plan of where I’d like to go and what I’d like to do. Right now goal #1 is this:
By the end of the year, achieve 100 subscribers. As of this writing, there are 90, but I’m too tired to update the graphic. Sorry y’all. Thank you to the people who signed up after finding me on
’s link post. I’d like to be more interactive, but finishing grad school, finding steady employment, managing a case load, going through marriage prep, and planning a wedding … it’s a lot. But I’m still here and thankful that you’ve hung on through my moderate inconsistency. Bless you. 🙏Turn on paid subscriptions. They have been officially turned on, but there are no tiers as of yet with breakdowns. Right now, I’m working on what to offer through paid subscriptions. In the meantime, if you wish to donate to the cause to help me pay down my student loan debt, visit me at Buy Me a Coffee.
From the bottom of my very squishy though somewhat prickly heart, thank you for your support.
And now, for this week’s feature.
Where we work and what we accomplish is often a measure of our self-worth. Some view this as a legacy that lasts generations. For most of us, our names will not be immortalized through the centuries, though we contribute to the subtle fabric of society through our efforts and sacrifices that have a trickle down-effect to the networks we comprise and the generations we spawn.
Often we learn our jobs through experience on the job, with rudimentary knowledge gained from school.
If we find ourselves in a decent position that pays our bills, challenges us to grow, and make a good living, things are probably going well.
Other times, we enter into a work situation with good hopes and find that for one reason or another, the place isn’t as honest or good as it seemed to be initially.
Once, friend of mine told me she left a job after a month as an accountant when the supervisor took it personally that she found a discrepancy in the company expenses. That’s a pretty good reason to leave.
If you’re in a decent or good work situation and you’re unhappy …
Sometimes, we’re in a good spot, but we’re unhappy, and not entirely sure why.
A while back, a career client of mine came seeking advice about what to do in her current role. She worked for a large government contractor and was torn about leaving. The company, administrators, and managers had worked with her on giving her time off for mental health concerns, time off when she had to attend to family issues, and supported her when she had taken on new challenges or projects. Yet the client struggled to understand her sense of dissatisfaction and growing sense of discontent about continuing to work for the company.
Listening to her concerns, I suggested we meet every two weeks, to give her enough time to process and consider her movements. She was in a stable position and her husband was also working, but she’d been unhappy for some time, and she still wasn’t sure what to do.
As we talked, I asked the client to describe what her work and home-life situations were like. An initial survey and discussion of her childhood and background revealed some perfectionist and people-pleasing tendencies, and a struggle to express her own wants and needs. Her life appeared quite structured and normal, with normal up and downs around life-span development issues. Everything seemed to be approximately in order.
During our next session, the client gave me more information on her frustrations with her work. After some discussion and reflection, it became clearer that the source of the client’s anxiety was her supervisor. He had been training her to take his position for the past few years, and was subtly undermining her when she expressed a desire to change roles to a position that did not oversee hundreds of people and their different work projects. When she brought up her desire to change trajectory within the company, the supervisor would begin to redirect her to what they had been working toward over the last five years.
The client knew what she did and didn’t want. She wanted to be able to spend less time working in the evenings, rather than the day, and invest that time with her husband and children. She didn’t want to take on additional responsibilities, as she had family issues she needed to attend to, and was receiving pressure from her supervisor to do so. She desired to transfer to an internal position involving accounting and financing, which was new to her and a field she had dabbled in related to the work projects of her own department.
It took ten weeks — five sessions across the time frame — to help my client to understand where the pressure was coming from. She was afraid to speak to her supervisor’s bosses, the VPs, about what she wanted to do and go with her career. However, it was her fear that held her back. Her supervisor was unhappy at her decision, but after discussing with her the risks of quitting her job to start over at a new company, and consider the influence of her supervisor, the client spoke to the VPs. They expressed sadness at seeing her leave the department, but not only encouraged her to pursue the internal position, they helped connect her to the right department head and offered additional training for the transition process.
While a long example, the reality of cases is that situations are complex and filled with nuance. Good or bad, the client’s supervisor had an incentive for her to remain. She was his protege and he had is own interests.
Whether it’s a client or individual that I speak with, there is always more going on in a situation. Perhaps the person is having inter marital issues at home because one person is stressed or distracted, there’s a medical condition or issue, or a problem stemming from the kid’s school or the larger community that impacts you. Some of us are wired to be more sensitive and neurotic than others, or some folks are more go-with-the-flow and things bother them less. Whenever we are in a decent situation and are dissatisfied, but it’s not a bad spot, my suggestion is to take a step back.
If you have a trusted friend who demonstrates good judgement both personally and professionally, ask them to sit down with you and provide some feedback on your situation. Do an inventory of places in your life (marriage, religious issues, community issues, interpersonal friendships/outside relationships, work relationships) and assess if perhaps there is bleed-over.
For the work environment, is it:
boundaries
communications
procedures
personnel or administration
workload
or something else?
Like my client, consider what else is driving the current dissatisfaction.
Stress/dissatisfaction is a like a system of underground geysers. Over time, as the pressure builds, the pressure seeks release where it can find it, even if the main driver is what is causing the issue. Pressure seeks the path of least resistance, and goes to escape in places or ways we can’t always predict.
If you’re in a unfulfilling or mediocre situation and you’re unhappy …
This one is a little trickier, and these situations can apply just as well to the section previous as here. Sometimes if we are unsatisfied, it may be because of an imbalance issue related to the work. Do you have too much to do, or too little?
If it is too little, look around your workplace and see what could be improved in terms of systems, procedures, documentation, or other tweaks to improve efficiency and cohesion in the department or the team. Bring suggestions to your supervisor and ask if such suggestions may be welcome. You can also try having a conversation to express your desire to move up, increase responsibilities, receive additional training, and express a desire to grow within the company.
However, if the issue is because there is no further upward growth or movement administratively, consider a lateral move, such as the client in the previous section. If that is not an option, and neither is making suggestions to improve aspects of the work environment or work flow, the next thing to consider is do you want to leave?
What prevents you from leaving?
What makes you want to stay at that job?
Is there a coworker you like or other employees you are friends with that make the situation tolerable?
Is it a fear of not finding another suitable position?
If the work is boring or unchallenging, is it tolerable enough that you can accept the work for what it is, and develop other aspects of your life that provide an opportunity to grow or bring meaning, such as volunteer work or civic engagement in the community in other ways? Perhaps, you can try starting a volunteer or donation program at work with the support of your colleagues to support an underserved section of the community you live in.
The problem, as is often the case with many clients, is a lot of folks discuss the struggle of the situation, and they ask you, a complete stranger, to make the decision by proxy. A good therapist will not tell you what do, though they may tell it to you straight. Not all people, but there are some who come to therapy wanting someone just to tell them what to do, like a child might, and seek comfort. With compassion, like a good parent will, the therapist will gently challenge and push and help the client to take challenges and risks, rather than stay stuck in ruts of fear and anxiety.
Have you heard of the metaphor of the frog in boiling water? Put the frog into the boiling water, and it jumps out quick as a flash. Place the frog in the water and slowly turn up the heat, allowing the amphibian to acclimate to each temperature increase until it becomes so used to the temperature, it allows itself to be boiled to death and cannot leap.
Leaving a mediocre or unsatisfying situation is like that. Over time, we become more and more comfortable with whatever the particulars are of our specific situation, paralyzed by fear or indecision, and we are caught up in the anticipatory anxiety of all the possibilities of what could go wrong (or, conversely, could go right).
Sometimes, people just want to complain because they don’t really want to change. If they have to change, then they may have to face themselves and see what they’re truly capable of (or not). And then they’re on the hook.
Some folks just want someone to complain to and, somewhat childishly, hold onto their grudge or unhappiness because if they lose that, what else have they got (and also, may not continue to receive the attention, which is what they’re really after).
As a mentor once told me:
You miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take.
If you’re in a bad, untenable, or toxic situation:
There are numerous reasons a situation can be bad, not necessarily abusive. But if you’ve gotten to this point and identified that it is certifiably rotten, here are some reasons why the situation may be no bueno:
coworkers who are petty, gossipy, undermining, lazy, or who leech and loaf off of others
admins and supervisors who enable bad coworkers or other admins and don’t remedy the issue
lack of safe working conditions
an inconsistent or disorganized boss
a boss or coworker who violates personal/work boundaries
harassment, discrimination
disorganized leadership or structural issues and miscommunications
lack of consistent procedures and follow-through, or negligence
favoritism
Pretty sure this list can go on and on.
If you’ve done some inventory work from the previous post and considered some of the information here, these questions may help you to further consider the situation and what to do next.
First step: find and read your employee handbook and review all policies and procedures related to what constitutes an issue and how the workplace reviews and weighs in on complaints. Then consider the following:
What makes the situation untenable or toxic?
Is the issue related to the environment or an employee?
Do you want to speak to your supervisor, an administrator, or Human Resources?
If the issue is with a supervisor, to whom can you make a report?
Do you want to make a report?
What kind of outcome are you expecting/looking for/hoping for, aka gain?
What would be a positive outcome?
What are the possible negative outcomes (repercussions)?
If the situation can be remedied, would you want to stay?
What other factors would make you want to stay and why?
If you make a successful/unsuccessful complaint, what will it be like to work with your coworkers, and how will it impact your relationship with others?
Is it possible your coworkers/supervisor may retaliate?
If you plan to leave, what other work can you do?
Does the company require an NDA and does it include a non-compete agreement? How will that impact your ability to find work or work in your chosen field?
Do you have network contacts or colleagues who would be willing to connect you to another department, division, or company outside of your current workplace to another position, aka an exit strategy?
It may be tempting to stay, and people may the desire out of a fear of ability to succeed, self-loathing, a genuine fear of being unable to find another job, or, in some cases, people do truly get black-balled. Regardless, it is never acceptable to be abused or mistreated by other employees or supervisors, and regardless of the type of dysfunction or abuse, remove yourself from that situation and find another place to work, even if it is a temporary stop-gap.
Before leaving or going, having a few of these things in place may be helpful to you:
Keep a work diary with time, date, and examples of email exchanges and/or diary entries for conversations or situations when unethical, inappropriate, or abusive conduct/behavior occurs. It may not save you from losing your job, but documentation is key if you are being abused or sabotaged at work by another employee.
Have outside support — friends or a therapist can help you strategize and create a plan.
Self-care — try to take care of yourself through good diet, exercise, and sleep, which can be impacted by external stress and internalized into psychosomatic issues. Create a plan to add to your routine to help you mitigate the effects of stress.
Create an internal work support network. Ask around those trusted few work friends to keep an eye and ear out for you regarding gossip or character assassination by toxic coworkers, helping you to be on guard.
Handling the situation:
If the problem is with a coworker, take it to your supervisor first. If they deal with it, talk about steps to mitigate the issue and let them handle it. If they dont reprimand, correct, or handle the issue, then that may be a sign of dysfunction and requires another step for you to create an exit plan. Do not be a frog in boiling water!
No matter how crap the situation is, remain professional in your conduct with everyone, even people who are toxic or causing a problem. Perception is reality, and keeping your cool and your class can go a long way in supporting your case.
When making a complaint, follow through on the procedures listed. When you make your case, remain calm, polite, patient, and professional, maintaining emotional composure is key, especially if you have a fellow employee or supervisor who undermines your professional conduct and says otherwise about yours.
Understand that HR isn’t there to protect you. Sorry, but it isn’t.
A short list of resources
Not to overburden you with resources, but here are two books and the previous post on this topic that can be a helpful guide to navigating difficult situations in the workplace.
Dealing with People you Can’t Stand by Rick Kirshner
Snakes in Suits, Revised Edition: Understanding and Surviving the Psychopaths in Your Office by Dr.s Paul Babiak and Robert D. Hare
Till next time.
Pax vobiscum 🕊
Here I am again, recommending some semi-well-known person on Substack. No idea why he’s well-known, but Erik Hoel has an excellent essay that is better researched and argued on why IQ testing is not the panacea determiner for life success, something I covered in Issue #18.
For more on this topic of IQ not being a good determiner of aptitude and ability, see Rob Henderson’s issue “Nobody is a Prisoner of their IQ”.
I don’t condone the use of psychedelics, and so my point in highlighting the article below is to make note of a trend. As with all things, I caution new therapies being promoted without careful study and knee-jerk legislative reactions without long-drawn-out considerations.
The Microdose is one of several publications that reviews the trends in psychedelics. My concern is that people won’t read enough on the topic, assume it is a magic pill, and may get themselves into dangerous situations trying to work through previous trauma or adverse experiences with someone untrained medically or in crisis care, and have a bad trip. You’re welcome to disagree, but exploring the dark hidden parts of your subconscious without proper care and guidance might not be the best idea with some guy who sets up a shop for a weekend retreat in a tent in some isolated location.
Just saying. Maybe bring your SAT phone.
Navigating selling yourself and marketing is yet another reason why I left communications and marketing work and didn’t pursue business school. It’s just not my strength.