TW: suicide TDLR: because of a very toxic workplace, can I force my employer to provide severance so I can leave and have the time to find a new job?
I need to quit my job. It’s become very, very toxic and I don’t want to work in that environment any more. There are several reasons, but the main issue is one particular person that was hired about a year ago. I don’t see this guy going anywhere soon. He is very, very good at what he does, which is very, very niche.
But he thinks he knows everyone else’s job better than they do, and he has no understanding or desire to work WITH anyone and doesn’t care about communicating in a professional way. He and I are peers and we should be able to work together on some projects–each of us bringing our experience to bear. Instead he takes over any project we try to work on and insults my team and my team’s work product. I would welcome his constructive input, but I’m not kidding, he’s like trying to communicate with a schoolyard bully. Just one recent example when he saw an item my team had produced and that had already been approved for use by our mutual boss was that it “looks old and cheesy and makes the org look old and cheesy, you should let my team re-do it”–that’s a mild example. He copied my boss on the email with this comment and my boss emailed me seconds later asking me to please not respond.
So the way my boss is handling this guy is to try not to set him off and ask his more professional employees to not engage with him–not to require him to not treat everyone like a jerk. My boss has even advised a colleague of mine to “learn to speak asshole” in order to communicate with him. Also, I have a staffer reporting to me now who previously reported to him because no one can work with him because he’s so awful.
Back to my original point–I need to quit. I’ve been applying for jobs, landed three interviews and two of them moved on to multiple rounds of interviews. No offers yet. It's so hard to look for a job while working full time. I feel like I’ve trotted out so many lame excuses to get away for interviews and I hate lying and sneaking around. I don’t feel like I have the time to look as aggressively as I need to. We’re approaching a very busy season that will require quite a bit of travel and I’d rather not leave in the middle of it. But I don’t think I can handle continuing to work with this guy and continue not responding to insulting messages.
Because of this toxic situation is there any way to leave my job in a way that would require my employer to pay me severance? This one colleague is a constant issue, but there are other, maybe even more egregious things: at the beginning of 2021 another colleague of mine took his own life-in his office at work after hours. Our exec staff, despite the urging of other leadership and staffers, chose to do nothing to honor or acknowledge him. My CEO openly endorses an approach with vendors, partners and employees of contentiousness and creating “gotcha” scenarios that embarrass people. At the start of 2021, I had 9 employees. I now have 15 and have absorbed two departments–no pay change. I could fill a folder with dozens of interactions with the nasty guy where he hurls insults, attacks my employees, goes around me and insults my employees, copies multiple departments on insulting emails.
I can’t afford to just quit with no other income, but I feel like I can’t stay–and its my employers fault for letting this environment continue.
I’d love some advice.