A toxic job should be avoided at all costs because the longer you are stuck in a stressful, backstabbing or exploitative work culture, the harder it is to escape it.
“Once you start working for a toxic culture, people are reluctant to leave because they think, ‘Well maybe it’s just me,’ or ... ‘Gosh, someone is going to do something about this,’” said Mary Abbajay, president of the leadership development consultancy Careerstone Group and author of “Managing Up: How to Move Up, Win at Work, and Succeed with Any Type of Boss.”
Toxic jobs mess with your head. When you see your workplace as a danger zone, you sleep less, stress more and your mental health suffers. “If people stay too long, their self-esteem gets decimated and they don’t think they are good enough to do something else,” Abbajay said.
In fact, bad company management accounts for up to 8% of annual health costs in the U.S. and has been associated with 120,000 excess deaths every year, according to research by Jeffrey Pfeffer, an organizational behavior professor at Stanford University.
That’s why it’s so important to trust your instincts if the vibe at your new job feels off. There are many red flags that a workplace might be toxic that you can spot even on your very first day. Here are some of the earliest signs to watch out for:
