MILLIONS of Britons are still working from home, but are you trapped in a toxic workplace – in your own house? Here are some telltale signs it might be time to move on.
Bullying
You’ll be doing something important like having your daily mid-morning wank when a co-homeworker walks in and orders you to stop. The same bullying prick – invariably your partner – will shout at you when you eat the last can of beans for lunch, or deliberately talk loudly on their own Zoom call while you’re trying to concentrate on The Wheel of Time. If the bullying escalates to things like stealing your dinner money, inform your line manager, which is you.
Lack of a stable working routine
One day you’re at the kitchen table, the next it’s piled high with yesterday’s dirty plates and you can’t fit your laptop in without sending half-drunk mugs of cold coffee smashing to the floor. So you have to slump down on the sofa with your tablet – again. What next, lying horizontal in bed? It wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened in this badly-run workplace without a facilities management department you can call when you run out of bog paper.
Bad leadership
Every company needs a firm but approachable boss at the helm. Instead there’s just clueless you, frantically clicking on emails to get on a Zoom meeting that started ten minutes ago. Worse, the toxic boss in your head may constantly undermine you with comments like: ‘You’re crap at this, imposter. Get a job more suited to your abilities, like KFC. Oh God, what have you forgotten now, you useless twat?’ Unfortunately you can’t ask HR to have a word with your own subconscious.
No work/life balance
It’s clear to anyone that you’re spending too much time on ‘life’ and really neglecting your work. How are you supposed to knuckle down to work when you drank two glasses of wine at lunch and are still drowsy from your nap? Worse, you’re probably missing out on seeing your office colleagues grow up. Did you miss Graham from marketing’s 42nd birthday party in the office because you were busy with your kids? Time to rethink your priorities.
Zero perks
There are no perks in a toxic homeworkplace. There are no magic markers to steal, and free, slightly-dried-up egg sandwiches during meetings are a thing of the past. No milk magics its way into the workplace fridge, and it turns out nespresso pods don’t replenish themselves. In fact you don’t even have a nespresso machine, despite dropping loads of hints at the workplace Christmas do. Which was crap last year – just your kids opening a load of presents.
