TLDR: I have an unfortunate knack for landing myself in radioactively toxic companies. I know to look out for the obvious “We are a family” wording in descriptions or interviews, but what are some other major (or less even obvious) red flags to look for?
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My first “big girl” job out of college was fantastic. I had the most nurturing and caring mentor for a manager and it was thanks to her that I had a baseline of what decent management ought to look like otherwise, I would've thought all of the managers I've had after her were the norm.
Because, after I left, my first job after that was so toxic I spent every morning dry heaving in the bathroom before walking to work (every single work day for the first three months). I watched people walk out during lunch and never appeared again or just clocked out on day and never came back the next. Heck, I watched girls come in and straight up disappear forever after only a week or two.
The next job was a keep-lights-on job to escape that firm, 8 months fully remote. Literally, the golden child of mentorship programs. They had their flaws, but they weren't comparable to their pros. It was a boring and very pidgeon-holed job (my ONLY job was to settle assets in the FA department). Finally, I found myself a permanent position as a senior accountant.
I thought I found my forever home. The manager was apparently amazing (kind, sweet, a bit shy, and very nice and a SUPER team player). I met him and during the interview (in retrospect only) something did feel off, but I couldn't put a finger to it. I wish I listened to my guts. I never do, because usually my guts are very wrong. Unfortunately for me, this time my guts were on point and I didn't catch on (lol, darn betrayal!)
There's 20+ pages of every time my boss has made me cry or have a panic attack in my journal. That's 20+ pages of practically font 8, squished together handwriting, pages of everytime I had something negative to say about the guy. Once, I spent more days of the week crying than not crying because he kept laying on me about my performance. Mind you, at the time I was already doing my best in an environment that was more scarce than the wastelands, while already helping improved certain processes and it was still not enough. questions for our 1:1 at the end of the day, instead of asking them throughout the day (again, I DO ask throughout the day, he just doesn't respond lol). Or, he trains (what others in the department have said took them months to understand) in a single hour, I go off to do said task which happens during close, gets 90% of the task correct but there's some points wrong and then demands why I didn't inform him that I didn't understand the task “at all”.
There's 20+ pages of every time my boss has made me cry or have a panic attack in my journal. That's 20+ pages of practically font 8, squished together handwriting, pages of everytime I had something negative to say about the guy. Once, I spent more days of the week crying than no crying because he kept laying on me about my performance. Mind you, at the time I was already doing my best in an environment that was more desolate than the wastelands, while already helping improve certain processes and it was still not enough.
My best friend laughed but is concerned that that's two jobs (she doesn't count the temp, fixed asset job in between) in a row that I find myself in a horrible environment and says that I seem to “have a type with bad bosses.” I wish I never left my temporary FA job to rush into a forever-perm position/company. I wish I didn't believe the HR and my boss' boss that sold me on how great this guy was because of course they would. HR and finance sit together and are best friends.
But I'm horrible at rooting out a bad company. I get that, sometimes you can do your due diligence, and still strike dung instead of gold, but I'd like to do a little better next time with vetting my future jobs. Especially those that I'm intending to stay at for at least 3 years.
Besides the very obvious “We are a family here”, what are red flags for companies. The less obvious things like “we have recently gone through a merger” meaning that “everybody and their mothers are stressed.”
Or maybe, I am missing out on something obvious (I used to think “We are a family” was a great thing!) and just not knowing it.