29 People Just Shared The Final Straw That Drove Them Out Of Their Toxic Workplace For Good

11.

“I worked at an animal welfare nonprofit in a medical setting, and the emotional burnout among staff was atrocious, not to mention the physical exhaustion after working 50+ hours a week doing hard manual labor. Staff continually requested decreased patient numbers so we could work fewer hours and not feel so drained, and were guilted because we were ‘putting ourselves over the animals.’ Everything that went wrong was excused by saying, ‘Think of the animals.’ Like, sorry, we can’t help animals if we’re all burnt out. People were quitting left and right, THEN management went ahead and fired several long-standing employees, so we lost a lot of really good trainers for any new staff they were able to hire.”

“On top of all this, a member of management was engaging in frequent and blatant sexual harassment, as well as sleeping with some of her direct reports, and upper management did nothing. The culture got so bad that a few people, including me, experienced suicidal ideation. Expressing this to management got us written up. The day I quit was one of the best days of my life. I now have a job where my starting pay is $5 an hour more than my pay after four years at the nonprofit, and in my eight-hour workday, I have approximately two hours of actual work to do. I’d forgotten what it felt like to come home from work and still have energy to play with my cats, cook dinner, and go see friends. If you’re being abused in a job, do everything you can to leave. It will never get better, and management and HR will never do anything to help you. I promise that capitalism doesn’t care about you. Just get yourself out.”

—ssketchator1