Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Straight Shooter Recruiter. My name is Emily Durham. I have been in talent acquisition for over seven years and my goal is to make content that helps you thrive and you're nine to five and beyond. One day, I'm going to add that effect in there for real, and you're gonna hate me. Every time I do that, someone always comments in Instagram and my dms through like Emily, who told you
that was funny? And the answer is nobody. Nobody told me, but I laugh doesn't account for something today's episode And actually a lot of our episodes moving forward actually have a little bit of spice to them. We're switching it up a little bit because if you remember, if you're an og listener, you know that I always used to have a segment at the end of the episodes answering your most popular questions. But I have actually made a complete form
where you can send in your questions. Whatever it is. It can be super specific, it can be generally, can be a topic. Whatever you feel like you need information on, you can now submit it in the link that is now in the description of this episode. So every single episode moving forward We're going to cover the topic at hand, as we usually do, and then at the very end we're going to be answering your questions. I'm
so excited. The questions this week are spicy, they are difficult, They probably apply to a lot of you, so trust me, you don't want to miss this. I am so jazz Let's get into the episode. We have all had that one coworker who is just a walking red flag, or that boss that goes out of their way just to make your life more difficult. My personal favorite is the boss who's always taking credit for your work,
like slayh buddy. Do not love that for you? And I really just want to spend a little bit of time today talking through your toxic coworkers and your toxic boss and what we as a collective are going to do about that so they don't ruin our careers or our mental health. The reason I really wanted to make this episode now is because this is one of the most commonly asked questions. And yes, I've got some really juicy questions from our listeners
at the end of this episode two. But I also made a TikTok about this gosh. I think like four or five days ago and it's straight up going viral. We're almost out a million views already, which is super bananas. So I know this is something we all are experiencing and feeling, and don't worry. I'm also going to spill a little bit of tea, if you will, on what's happened in my career with some toxic people as well.
Okay, I'm going to start off with the obvious, which is, how do you know if this person is toxic or if you know, we just don't have the best working relationship. Honestly, if you have to ask yourself if that person is toxic, chances are they are. Most of us try to see the good in other people. It's really not in my nature, at least to look at someone and assume the worst, and I think
for a lot of us that is true. We look at our coworkers and we want to assume that they're smart and that they're competent, and that they're capable. And it's not until they show us that they aren't you know that we start to have some problems. So if you are here, chances your coworker is toxic. But some sheer fire ways that you can like for sure. Determine that and differentiate that is, are they making mistakes at work that
are genuine mistakes that just so happen to be inconvenient. Is it maybe a one off chance that they were rude to you via email, like it doesn't happen all the time. Maybe Susie was just having a rough day. Or is this systemic? Are they consistently doing the same things that kind of make your life difficult? Are they constantly being rude or abrasive or taking credit for
your work. The best way to differentiate if they are just like kind of crap at their job or if they're legitimately toxic is just the consistency and the intention. Do you think they intend to be rude or are they just not very good at their jobs? And how often is this happening? Is this an everyday thing or like a once in a while they were kind of not
on their a game? You feel me? And the reason I think this is important is we really don't want to label people as toxic or have that mindset in our own heads that they're toxic, because frankly, that's going to impact how we interact with them, how much we trust them. The relationship on the team. I always encourage people to enter these situations with empathy,
with an open mind. You assume the best in your team, but you know, if the shoe fits and they're coming across as toxic, then we need to protect ourselves so we are not getting in a dangerous situation mentally or in our work. I'm going to keep it so real with you. Dealing with a toxic co worker is so much easier than dealing with a toxic boss because in theory, if your boss isn't toxic, ultimately you can go to them when you have these issues, not gonna lie. I have had several
situations where I have worked with an extremely toxic coworker. Some of the things that I experience were as like constantly sending me the wrong instructions, like they would ask me to do work, but then they would kind of mess up the instructions every time, so then it looked like I didn't know what I was doing. Or they'd be super gossipy, like they'd gossip about other people constantly, would be negative, they talk poorly about our boss, like really
just a very negative energy that they brought to the team. But there are a billion different way that people can be toxic. They can speak poorly of you. They can be like a mean girl or bully, or is someone who's not inclusive. They can be someone who's kind of trying to trick you with work, you know, like they're going to start sending you their work
to do or wrong instructions. They're basically someone who probably isn't very secure in who they are and frankly, probably isn't great at their job, so they're going to try and manipulate the situation so that they can manufacture it such that they always come out on top and you always come out on the bottom either way. I think someone who is behaving this way it's a sign of insecurity.
Like I have a difficult time believing that you, as a person want to do this unless you are deeply insecure and aren't, like, you know, confident in your own abilities without having to orchestrate and manipulate people around you. Now, But that being said, sometimes people are toxic without intending to be toxic. Maybe they were starting their career at a really toxic company and they just think this is how stuff works. Probably it shouldn't be how stuff
works, but maybe that's the case. For them, right is they have this toxic one off situation and that's what they think is normal, and now that's how they operate. So again, go into the case with empathy if you do come across a very toxic co worker. My number one piece of advice is get every single thing in writing. When they ask you for something, go back to them and say, thank you so much, I really appreciate it. Can you please write that down via email? It's how I
track my deliverables. No it's not. I don't care if it's not, because you want to know what we're doing. Number one, we are protecting you from that person coming back and saying, oh, you did something wrong, or oh I didn't ask for this. I asked for that. Oh, clearly you're not good at your job. I should talk to your manager. No, no, no, We've got it all in writing. There
is zero room for confusion here. Plus, if they start getting rude or snippy or snappy or any of those little words that I just made up, the good news is we have it written down. Yeah, we have that written down, So we have an entire paper trail, and if things start to get messy, you loop in your manager for your backup. That is all you need to do. I don't want you being like the deliverer of justice. I don't want you being the crypt keeper. I don't want you
taking on any additional responsibility. Ultimately, protect yourself by having a paper trail and then flag it with your manager. Go talk to your manager, tell them what you're experiencing, and don't come across as like a tattletale or like you're being Cattie. Sit down with your manager and say, I've been struggling working with Susie and I need honest feedback. Is there something I can do
better because here's what I'm experiencing. And if you frame it that way, I guarantee your manager is going to say, Okay, something is wrong with Susie. Let me go talk to her manager. And then suddenly it's not your problem. But you are reaping the benefits of having that conversation. Now, Bestie, bestie, bestie. If you are dealing with a toxic boss, I am going to give you some tips, but I'm going to keep it real with you. You should not have to deal with someone in leadership
making your life difficult. The entire function of having a boss, the entire point is for them to help accelerate your career and best in your growth and ultimately make your life easier. Yeah, is actually a part of your boss's job. Think about what they're getting measured on. Yes, they're getting measured on whatever the relevant results or KPIs are in your team, but they're also being measured on their ability to manage a team to help with scheduling to be
a part of your career development plan. So if they're not capable of doing that, hello, they're not good at their job and probably not a good person. Like wouldn't you want to see the people on your team succeed? And there is a difference between not being good at your job and being a little bit toxic. You know Q the Britney Spear song. We all know
and love it, but there are some differences there. Some of the most common ways that I see people talk about their toxic bosses is most particularly with them taking credit for their work, with them being really manipulative, so they give feedback in a way that's kind of like designed to make you feel bad, where they pick favorites or they're not honest about their expectations of you. They set you up for failure with the projects. All of these things are
valid. All of these little things that kind of may you feel like you're not good at your job, that is not your fault. That is the fault of a leader who clearly either doesn't want to be a people manager or ultimately is more worried about their own growth and their own development than yours. If you are finding you're experiencing that toxic boss, do not love that for us. A couple of things I want you to do. Number one,
nothing wrong with you asking for everything and writing from them as well. I also think that's a great way for you to track your deliverables. That's a pretty standard thing to ask. However, if that's not going to cut it, and I honestly, in most cases like this, I don't think it will cut it, you probably will need to step it up a little bit.
Book a one on one meeting with your manager, sit down with them and say, Hey, Susie, I'm starting to feel a little bit like there's an opportunity for us to adjust our communication style, and I just want to understand what I can specifically do to improve my communication or my deliverables, so then you can pause. They might say okay, yes, I find when you email it's a little confusing, so things get lost in translation or this or that or the other. Chances are though they're going to say,
no, everything's fine, and what are you talking about? And this is where you're going to come in with the kicker, and you're going to say, my career is really important to me. I would love to understand a bit more about what the expectations are of me and this role, and if there's areas of opportunity for me, because I've been noticing that on certain projects
XYZ keeps happening. That's where you're going to insert some of the struggles you've had and you just want to avoid that to make sure that we're able to deliver the best results for our customers. That is the most perfect way to handle that. If that manager has emotional intelligence, they're going to be able to read between the lines and basically say, Okay, you're not feeling good about our relationship, here's what we're going to do about it, and they're
going to be there to support you. I got bad news. If your manager already is not thinking of these things, I highly doubt you having this conversation is going to change anything. So if you do have an exceptionally toxic manager and you're brave enough to have that conversation, which I love that for you, you've got two other roots before we quit. Actually you've really only
got two roots in total. You can go to their manager. And that's a little shifty, that's a little question marky because sometimes that can be perceived as like, oh, you're going above somebody's head. It's a little scandalous. You shouldn't be doing that. I'm kind of of the opinion I don't give a shit. I really don't care. And you want to know why. It's either I go above your head and try to get you to improve, or I'm quitting. So that is one thing you can do, is
go to that person's manager. And the other option is leaving. And I'm going to be so real with you, probably that is the option you're going to have to take unless you're comfortable accepting this treatment from your manager. Whoop, did you just hear my emails? Go off slay? That was literally my manager emailing me. Except he's fantastic, so no complaints. But I literally want you to go in have that conversation and then be ready to walk
away if nothing changes, because you cannot change a manager. And if anything, sometimes when you bring this stuff up, they're just going to turn around and make your life hell. So be ready to have the conversation. But my advice start looking for a new job. All right, It is time for Questions of the week. Friendly reminder. If you want your question answered, you can always go down into the link in the description and send it
in. How should I deal with a toxic manager who reports to another toxic leader that supports her no matter what. The leader really has an army of people mentality, and those are the people she supports, and those are the people who support her. Some people have been around for over a decade honestly without doing any real work. This leader invalidates any claims or issues that people might have regarding some of her direct reports. What should I do? Oh
my gosh. First of all, thank you so much for submitting this. This is literally like a layer of toxicity and a layer of nightmares. And like I said, when you are having a toxic manager or a toxic person in your life, one of the easiest things you can do is go to your manager or your manager's manager and basically ask for backup, but because you have so many toxic people at this company, there's really no where you can go in order to get this resolved. And you are to literally hate my
response. But when there is a toxic culture at a company, it's not just a toxic person or a toxic one or two people, but the actual fabric of this company is toxic. Otherwise all of these people would not have been hired into these positions, they wouldn't have been promoted, they wouldn't still
be in the role without really like producing any tangible work. This is a company that probably doesn't value their people and doesn't value the leadership, because a good leader, when you raise a concern would say, oh my gosh, how can I support how can I help you? How can I be there for you? What they're instead saying is, oh, you've a problem, Okay, have fun dealing with that by yourself, Thank you so much. Like that is not the kind of place that is going to enable your growth.
And let's say you do stay there. Okay, let's say you don't leave this company. What are you going to do? Get promoted and work with these managers directly? You don't want to do this, so as much as I would love to tell you, go talk to your manager, tell them how you're feeling. You have and guess what the company has shown you time and time again, they literally don't care. My biggest piece of advice for this one, I'm so sorry. This is a quite your jock moment.
This is a hashtag quit your job moment. Dear Emily. Are we saying Dear Emily? I love that? Can we please start doing that? Like a Dear Emily segment? I'm reaching out because I made a really good friend at work. She and I started working together on the same team last year and instantly hit it off. We started to hang out outside of work over the last couple of months, but lately I've been noticing things change while we're at work. When we hang out outside of work, we don't really
talk about the office or our jobs. It's just like a normal friendship. But lately, when I'm asking her to do tasks for us and our team while we're at work, she starts to complain or asks me to do it myself. When I send her emails, she often doesn't reply, and when I bring it up, asking her to complete her portion of the tasks or projects. She simply brushes it off and tells me to take on more responsibility. I'm starting to feel taken advantage of and it's impacting my friendship. What
should I do? Oh my goodness, gracious. First of all, what a juicy question. I love the juicy questions. And I'm sorry that you going through this because it is so hard a to make friends as an adult, but be to take a work friendship and make it a real life friendship. That is hard. That does not an easy task to be doing. So I'm sorry that you are going through this, but holly crapically, Okay,
here's my general advice as I'm breaking it down. Number one, I understand that this is impacting how you see her in your real life as a friend, because you're looking at her at work and it's like, dude, you're kind of being an asshole, Like you're not being a nice person to deal with. I always think the best thing to do is have honest communication and conversation. I would sit down with her at work, and it doesn't have to be anything super formal, but maybe when you're like grabbing lunch,
you're grabbing coffee. Let's pretend her name is Susie because that's the name I always use. You could say, Susie, I love hanging out with you. But I've actually noticed every time we've been working together on projects recently, you haven't really been submitting some of your work or completing some of your work. Is everything okay? Start there. You want to make sure, like maybe she's going through something, maybe she's feeling insecure. Be a friend first
and ask her if she's okay. If she responds and says no, everything is fine, that's when you can say okay, because I've noticed that I've had to take on a little bit more work, and I want to make sure that we are splitting up the projects how we're supposed to be based on our job description. So if you're okay with it, maybe we can talk about how we can mitigate this in the future and break apart some of our responsibilities more clearly. AKA, let's make a list of the things that you're
responsible for so I can hold you accountable to it. Chances are she's probably going to say okay, Like if this is a real friend, maybe she's just having an offseason or is not feeling great, you know, mental health, all of those good things maybe she's just feeling a little bit disengaged or stressed out, and if you provide her with a little bit of structure and like a list basically of things she's responsible for, that might be enough.
Like that might help enough. However, if it doesn't and she resists and is like, what are you talking about? Like, no, we're fine, no where this, that's where you kind of have to say, Okay, totally get it, and you're my friends. This is kind of uncomfortable for me to talk about. But here are the three or four examples where that wasn't the case. So I just want to make sure we're getting ahead of this. A reasonable person is going to respond to that and understand.
An unreasonable person is not going to respond well to that and probably won't respond at all. So you need to remember that even though this is your friend outside of work, the fact that she's not supporting you at your job probably
is indicative of how much respect and care she has for you generally. So I think it is right to impact your friendship because a real friend would not be putting you in this position, at least not without some kind of a disclaimer like, hey, I've been really distracted the last couple of weeks. Sorry, I've had a rough week. Likes, that's fine, that's life.
We all go through that. But also say, sit down, have a conversation, focus on how she feels, on empathy, and on finding solutions together, and if she is resistant to that, it's time to talk to your manager. I'm sorry, but her inability to do her job should not be your problem. And I know that is a hot take, but that's that's how I feel. That's how I feel. I'm ten out of ten excited for next week's episode already, and to day's episode isn't even done.
Like that's just where we're at. Because the questions y'all sent in are so juicy. We're going to be talking about how to ask for more money, how to deal with difficult people. We're going to be talking about international jobs, international students, maternity leaves, like we are going to get into literally everything, and your questions are good, and honestly, they're kind of entertaining. I hate to say it, but your workplace drama it's kind of
a slay And I'm excited. But I can't thank you enough. I really hope that this episode was helpful, gave you kind of like a leg to stand on. You feel me something to really help you back up dealing with that toxic as coworker, just so you don't have to deal with it by yourself. Don't forget Submit your questions with the link in the description of today's episode. Check me out on my other socials at emily dote dot recruiter, as well as my YouTube channel. Why is my voice doing this? S
O S What was that? I just got so raspy. I kind of liked it. It's kind of a vibe. But that is it for today. I am ready to go make my second coffee. This is it's actually seven and so it's oh my god, my voice am I okay, Oh my god, it's seven am. So I'm recording this literally like right before my work started, which is why I was surprised I got an email, But say Levy, and I'm actually going to go start my nine to five job now. So you and I are in the exact same boat. Bestie.
Thank you so much for hanging out with me, and I'll talk to you next week.