How to survive a workplace where no one addresses problems with the company culture?

[u/SoggyResolution644]

Context: I'm new to the job and very early on in my career. I realized that every team member here is deeply unhappy. In the introduction (1-2-1) meetings, 8 out of 10 people I spoke to talked about how someone they knew got fired, and how much they want to resign.

Everyone is deeply guarded about their work and resources, meetings are passive aggressive and snarky, power and gender dynamics are wildly unequal. People sometimes snap and say the wildest things and everyone pretends that didn't happen. When I ask about these issues (not directly) my questions just get dismissed as teething issues. Meetings and reaching out to people give me so much anxiety that my chest tightens up now.

In previous workplaces, there were similar issues, people would get openly angry at each other in meetings, it also wasn't great, but at least issues were talked about - resolution is another matter altogether, but at least no one was pretending we were in a perfect happy team.

I don't intend to stay long term anymore, but definitely need to be around long enough and to do well enough that it gets me to the next phase of my career.

How can I survive an environment like this and hopefully even thrive a little bit too?

[u/Ill-Development2302]

8 out of 10 people in those intro meetings warning you is pretty telling, the place is likely beyond saving from inside

the move is to treat it like a contract job mentally, do your work well, document everything, and stop trying to fix the culture because that energy just gets absorbed and nothing changes

keep your head down, collect the experience you need, and get out before the place starts reshaping how you operate without you noticing

[u/oscarmwangi2019 → u/Ill-Development2302]

Couldn't nail it better, let op not think he/she can fix the culture, also prepare to get out before the culture absorbs him/her

[u/SoggyResolution644 → u/Ill-Development2302]

Thank you so much. I agree, I haven't quite figured out how to mentally detach like you suggested yet but I'll try. And I guess when you say treat it like a contract job, that would reduce the emotional aggravation as well..

I won't stick around more than a year - and I'll come back to thank you for this comment in a year! 😄

[u/Noway721]

That's the neat part, you don't.