Navigating Toxic and Stressful Workplaces as A Professional and Person of Color

Navigating Toxic and Stressful Workplaces as A Professional and Person of Color

You’ve been offered the job of a lifetime and you walk into that job fully prepared to succeed.  You are a professional afterall.  You check off all of the marks:  Education, Experience, Credentials.   You make sure that your hair is under control, and if you are a black woman you get that corporate wig or you slick your hair back into a relaxed bun even if it destroys your edges.   You speak the way your other colleagues talk to put them at ease.   You make sure you have the right outfit for work each day even on casual Fridays you refuse to wear jeans.  Sometimes you even hold back in your opinions, afterall you don’t want to appear as aggressive.  You work overtime and hardly take lunch breaks.  You pray to make a difference or continue to advance in your career. A few months or years go by and it hits you that you are stuck in your career.  You suddenly begin to second-guess your decisions.  You are facing sexism, racism and microaggressions but have no way to prove it.  You tell others your experiences and they tell you to be grateful to have a job, question the existence of your problems or worse tell you that this is life.   Worse you have no language to  communicate what is taking place.  

The harder you work the more pushback you receive.  Your voice is not counted and if you make even the tiniest mistake you will experience an admonishment. And you encounter a lack of empathy.  You wonder what’s going on?  You do your best to double and thrice check your work. You show everyone that you can outwork and outperform. However, you are being pushed aside slowly but surely.   Your boss, a powerful person has a disdain for you but you can’t prove it and runs the office like a their private fiefdom.   Your colleagues fall into two camps holding on for dear life or aligned with a boss who has created an untenable work environment.  Or you had a great boss but now he/she has left and you are on your own support wise.  You start experiencing the physical manifestations of a toxic and stressful work environment. You have no one to discuss any of it and your morale becomes low and you become depressed.  You are thinking of leaving but don’t have options on the table or have left but now ruminate if you made the right decision.   You are ashamed, however there is support.  

As a personal coach and advisor, I hold space for professionals who have been left disillusioned and shattered by working in toxic, abusive and stressful work environments.  If any what I have said resonates with you, let’s speak further.  My name is Olajumoke Adeola Osode and I am passionate about my work. You can check out my website www.olaosode.com for further details or contact me at olaosode@gmail.com.  It shall be my pleasure to hear from you.