How to Protect Yourself in a Toxic Workplace

Human Resources is not your lifeboat, so plan accordingly.

Human Resources sounds like a pretty self-explanatory department, doesn’t it? In a way, it is, as they do provide resources for certain humans—but it’s lacking specificity. Human Resources has the highest goal of protecting the company, which translates to protection for the people who are highest on the company’s food chain.

You might be thinking, “Brittany, that’s so dramatic. Human Resources gave me a cute mug on my first day and I got the H.R. manager’s business card and they said to email them for anything.”

Yeah…same. But the truth is that most people learn about Human Resources the hard way. For me, it was a combination of intuition and paranoia that saved me thousands of dollars in the end, and my hope is that you’ll benefit from my neuroses.

My story began when I was a production assistant and had to work five days a week with a producer that absolutely hated me. Why did this person hate me, you ask? It was just one of those “day one” things—they took one look at me and decided, nope. And hey, I get it. None of us are for everyone, especially when you have a laugh like mine. But this person went above and beyond by making it known, to me and everyone else, that they thought I was quite dumb and incapable. And one day, I got fed up.

On that fateful fed-up day, I decided to tackle the feud head on, and asked the producer to have a conversation in the conference room. I’m not really sure what I thought was going to happen, but I ended up flipping my lid and telling them off.

Leaving the conference room, my face was hotter than the sun, knowing I had just yelled at someone who ranked higher than I did. An instinct told me to walk directly into my boss’s office, and so I did.

I immediately laid it all out and told them what had just happened. But what did I have, other than a story about how I just rattled the glass walls of the conference room?

Actually, I had something quite valuable: it was essentially a tracking history of all the microaggressions that came from this producer. Months prior, when I felt the incidents stacking up, something told me to start keeping track of our conversations. If something went down with that producer, I’d type up the details with time and date, or copy-and-paste the instant messages into an email to myself in order to keep a running file (everyone shared computers in the newsroom and this is before the days of Google Docs). I didn’t know it while I was doing it, but I was preparing for a meeting that was not yet on my calendar. In my boss’s office that day, I knew it was time to share the list I had been compiling.

This launched the part of the story that includes Human Resources, as my boss felt it was serious enough to involve them. That was also the point where the process became shrouded in mystery.

I did trust my boss, the information they were relaying to me, and their earnest desire to advocate for me, but I couldn’t help but wonder…why didn’t Human Resources reach out to talk to me about what happened? They allegedly gave the producer a talking to, but why didn’t they have any questions for me? Weren’t they concerned about my allegations?

I also didn’t have answers to questions like what, exactly, was the producer disciplined for? What disciplinary actions would be taken if their behavior continued? Would H.R. check in with me to see how things were going?

I never got any answers to those extremely important and incredibly valid questions, because I ended up landing a new job, and promptly bounced the fuck out.

But that’s not the end of the story.

I ended up with another opportunity to see what Human Resources was all about, and this time, it went much deeper. The short version is that I, along with a couple other colleagues, reported my supervisor for creating a hostile work environment. Over time, through many conversations with my other supervisors and the Human Resources department, it became clear to me they were going to prioritize the (allegedly) hostile supervisor.

When push came to shove, the same H.R. department that had initially attempted to quell my fears of retaliation, was now handing me a severance agreement while telling me my position was being eliminated (it wasn’t).

What you might have guessed by now is that, similar to my early days as a production assistant, I had been keeping extensive records of every single conversation I had been having, both leading up to my complaint and every single detail that followed. It proved to be crucial evidence when I needed to hire a lawyer and negotiate my severance. Without that evidence, I would have had nothing to back me up, and I would have been out on my ass with their extremely lackluster initial offer.

So, what can you do to protect yourself like I did? First up: check your intuition. That’s honestly how all this started for me—I knew I was being mistreated, and I felt I should keep track of it. If you think some shit is going down at work, you need to be accountable for taking reasonable steps to protect yourself (including, but not limited to, refining your radar for awful people).

It’s also more than just taking notes on conversations, though that is the starting line. Here’s the breakdown:

1)    Keep track of LITERALLY EVERYTHING. That literally is literal. You’re far better off with a boatload of evidentiary support to sort through, rather than not enough. Copy and paste emails into a Google Doc and forward the original to your private email address (we’ll come back to the importance of this in #2). Copy and paste Slack conversations into a Google Doc. Make sure your history is turned on for G-Chat and if theirs isn’t, copy those conversations too. If there’s a face-to-face interaction, write down the day, time, and details, and if you feel safe doing so, tell a trusted friend in the workplace. If you think this sounds like going to ridiculous lengths, trust me when I say it doesn’t feel ridiculous when a payout is on the line. And most importantly: never put it off; always save the information as soon as it happens. And make sure to…

2)    Move anything you might need for legal purposes OFF your company email and computer. Fact of the matter is, H.R. is watching you – that’s not paranoia, that’s policy. In many companies, H.R. is allowed to poke through everything you do on their server. And fact of the matter is, they can quickly lock you out of that server and use anything in your history against you, because their job is to protect…say it with me now…the company. So do yourself a favor and keep ALL your evidence in a place you can access it, in case you come to find yourself locked out of your company email address.

3)    When you can, put it in writing. At this point, you might be thinking, what the heck is the point of reporting anything to H.R. if they’re just going to turn their back on me in the end? I’ll tell you what the point is: more evidence. For example: when I first went to Human Resources about my supervisor, I followed up our meeting with an email to that H.R. representative, and it recapped my complaint in detail, as well as the evidence I provided in support of that complaint. It proved to be another crucial piece in increasing my severance. Putting it in writing via email correspondence creates irrefutable documentation that you did your due diligence to protect your work environment.

Conflict in the workplace is intimidating and uncomfortable, no matter what department your adversary works in. Fighting for your livelihood can create an urgent sense of desperation. It’s a sensation I am all too familiar with; I remember my chest tightening as I asked a search engine all sorts of questions, though I was unsure of what I was even looking for.

Outside of the technical details, it’s important to know you are your best and biggest advocate. I realize that when it comes down to the moment of standing up for yourself, it can suddenly feel like you’ve been hittin’ the hooch and you have no clue what you’re doing. Following through is part of creating a foundation within yourself that you will stand on for the rest of your life. You will have to be brave, because growth is uncomfortable.

It’s also true that you don’t just ~wake up~ with a sturdy sense of self. It takes time to foster…and that’s a conversation for another newsletter.

If you think there’s someone who might benefit from this advice, you’d be doing me a solid by sharing it with them. And it truly LIT ME UP to hear from so many of you about the first newsletter, so please do reply and comment with anything that’s on your mind. And once again, thanks for coming along for the ride. I’m glad you’re here.