I hate to generalize, but this is kind of what I believe: If you live in a poor area, most of the workplaces around you are going to be toxic.
I kind of thought that I had it figured out: cut my expenses as much as possible, I was okay with low pay as long as I could pay my bills, and I didn't mind working hard. I did my best every day.
My wife started working three years ago, and I started staying home with the kids. I still have low-grade PTSD from working there for five years. That was the thing I didn't anticipate. It's like… why did they have to take that too?
My wife is a social worker. I was working full-time at entry level jobs in health care while she finished school. She's had four jobs in three years, and two of them were toxic. She finally found what seems to be a decent place.
I dislike this sub for two reasons: first, I like working. I like doing things that are useful for other people. That's what work is. Second, there's too much complaining about pay. Usually complaining about pay is about ego. People fundamentally feel like their worth as a person is based on how much money they make, or how big their house is, etc. You can't critique the system without criticizing ego=pay.
Toxic workplaces, I've found, are just what happens to a workplace that is chronically understaffed, under-resourced, and unaccountable or poorly-trained management. Corporate budgets are effectively ways of creating false feelings of scarcity, and this creates all kinds of social dysfunction, it's like a deep part of our monkey-brain, cliques develop, and we turn on each other. Combine that with job insecurity, and you're destroying people's mental health.
There has to be a better way. I just don't know what it is.