I saw this quote appear on my facebook feed today, and it took me back to the earlier days of my career when I was just beginning to lay the foundation to my professional path.  It certainly was not the people that made my job worth going to every day. In fact, as much as I wish to forget some of the people I worked with, posts like this continually bring those memories to the forefront.

Here’s my short story . . . 

Work was much like a high school playground. There was always that one person in the so-called cliques brave enough to take on the challenge of causing trouble or say not-so-nice things to other people.

Being the newest kid in town at the workplace was a tough one to push through. In my case, the people I worked with were bullies.

I remember the events clearly to this day: [1] having papers slammed on my desk while being scolded in front of others for my “so fancy” writing style, [2] having to endure the eye-rolls, hard stares and sighs on numerous occasions, [3] receiving respondes with so much sass, [4] being the subject of workplace gossip about having an affair with my boss, and [5] the time I was selected to be in a photo shoot for print ads and hearing loud remarks like, “why were we never selected?” or “we were never selected because I guess we’re not pretty enough”. I ignored the behavior and comments and went about doing my best in my role. I guess you could say that I seemed calm and unaffected on the outside, but screaming on the inside. I came to terms that the people I worked with disliked me, but that never phased me.  My goal at that time was to learn as much as I could and work my way up the career ladder.

Several years later, I was the Manager of my own team. The person who had slammed papers on my desk and criticized my handwriting applied for a position in my department. “…the one who made my work-life miserable…” I thought. Her karma came around at that time and I never offered her any roles.

Sadly, this kind of behavior persists in today’s workforce. As much as I want to rid these people from my memory, they are the ones that my brain seems to cling to the most.

I can say that I’m grateful having gone through the experience because it’s made me a stronger person on the inside, it’s probably one of the reasons why I’ve never bothered to look for jobs outside of the organization since that would require starting again as the new kid on the block. Fortunately as a leader today, I have more control over what goes on in the workplace and can now protect my staff, new or tenured, from the same experiences that I went through.

In summary, I will say that for some, it is not who you work with that makes the job worth going to every day, it’s the mindset.

“The Courage To Be Disliked“