# Workplace Surgery: Surviving a toxic job

- **Episode:** [196](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/196.md) (2025-05-13)
- **Type:** workplace-surgery
- **Tags:** toxic-workplace, survival, career-advice
- **Time:** 38:32–44:28 (start 2312s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/196?t=2312](https://truthliesandwork.com/196?t=2312)

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[38:32] Al Elliott: Brilliant. Okay, so the second question I've got here is, how do you survive a toxic workplace when you can't afford to leave? So this person writes, I'm 29 and I've been working at the same corporate job for 5 years. The culture is toxic, constant pressure, no real support, and a general sense that no one actually cares about the people behind the work. I'm exhausted. The problem is I can't walk away right now because I'm fully supporting my younger sister while she finishes school, and financially I need to stay put for at least another couple of years. I've got long-term goals. I'd love to build something of my own one day, something that actually makes a difference. But in the meantime, I just need to get through this without burning out. Have you been through anything similar? Oh, interesting. No one's ever asked us that. How did you stay mentally strong and set boundaries?
[39:24] Leanne Elliott: Um, I have been through something similar. It's my first, my first job out of, out of my postgrad. So I will, yeah, I will, I will share with some of the things that I did. But I think what the first thing I'm hearing is a very, what seems like absolute thinking here. I can't leave my job because I have to support my sister and I need to stay another 2 years. What you're saying is you can't leave your job and not have another one lined up. You could absolutely be looking around for other jobs with the same salary, if not higher. If you've been there 5 years, this could be a really great time to think about moving on and how you can consolidate all that experience and, and show it off in your, in your CV to, to land an even higher paying role in an organisation that is better suited for you. So, I think that as an assumption is fundamentally wrong, and I think we need to maybe accept that. As scary as it is, you could potentially move on depending obviously what role you have, industry, et cetera, and how easy that would be. But you could move on. You're not stuck. You're not chained to it. The second thing I'd say, and I always say to people in this, in this situation, is take some time to take some self-respect, self-reflection, and understand exactly what it is about that environment you're finding toxic. Is it the relationships? Is it the values of the company? Is it the job itself? Is it the work you're doing? Is it your team? Is it how your current setup is in terms of remote or hybrid or in the office? Because unless you understand exactly why that environment is toxic to you, you could well move on to a different organisation that is equally as toxic because you've not taken that time to understand. So, for example, you might work in a job that the job's all right and it's given you good experience and the people are kind of cool. Um, but fundamentally your values just misalign with the organisation. It's just not ticking those purpose-led, by the sound of it, values that you have. You can find that somewhere else in the interim to refill your, your energy that, that you need. To go back to, to have I been through it, my first job, um, it was more that the work wasn't challenging enough. After about 18 months, it was all getting very samey. It was a global financial crisis. There wasn't lots of money in
[41:39] Stuart Mace: Yeah
[41:40] Leanne Elliott: in HR and people and culture. Um, previous to that, I'd started volunteering for the Samaritans, as regular listeners will know. So, during that time, I just got more involved. I got on the committee. I started to help people with the fundraising. Um, did lots of stuff with Al. Um, there's weekends we used to just repaint the outside and scrub off the graffiti and stuff like that. Um, and that really helped me in terms of my sense of self and my values because I was spending more time with people whose values align with mine. Mm-hmm. I was doing work that felt that it was contributing to something bigger. And we also know that actually volunteering is one of the few things that have been proven time and time again to actually have a direct and positive impact on our mental health and wellbeing. So, look at volunteering and how you can get those other bits and pieces. If it is a fundamentally toxic environment, if you're being bullied, if you're being mistreated, if you're experiencing discrimination, That's a very different, different thing. From what the intonation of your question, I'm not sure that is the case. I think there's just something there that isn't quite clicking. I would take some time, look at things like we've talked about, um, the VITALS model before. We've talked about the Wheel of Life before. Just, you know, Google the Ikigai
[42:55] Stuart Mace: Ikigai, yeah
[42:57] Leanne Elliott: Um, questions, um, from Jon Tarnoff's episode. Go back and revisit them. And take some time to understand why you don't like your job, because it might also be that if there's elements that you do enjoy, if you focus on those and appreciate those and be mindful of those, it can sometimes make everything a little bit easier
[43:14] Al Elliott: It's very trendy now to call everything toxic. Um, and I think that's, you know, thanks to TikTok and Instagram and God knows what else is coming down the line. Everyone's like, oh, this is toxic. I'm in a toxic relationship. I'm in a toxic work environment. That's, that's Yeah, that's, that's not necessarily true. You might just be in a job you don't like. You might have a manager you don't like. It's not necessarily toxic. So just be careful. You, like Leanne said, you are thinking in absolutes. It's, it might be a little bit more nuanced than that. And of course, the issue is that what you describe as toxic could actually be normal for the industry. For example, if you were, if you were investment banking, then I think a lot of people would look at that environment and go, that's toxic. But to people who are working in it, like, no, that's just normal. So by changing from one place to another in the same, in the same investment banking sector, you'll find that nothing really changes. But I hope that wasn't too negative. It was a little bit of straight talk from Leanne there, but with love, as it always is. And you know that you've got Leanne's email address in the show notes, so you can always drop her a line if you want to have a chat with her
[44:17] Leanne Elliott: Yeah. And as always, if you've got the means, consider engaging a coach to lead you through this period of reflection. Probably just 2 or 3 sessions would do it. And I think you'd probably get a lot of value from it