I recently had an experience that sparked another realization about just how much dealing with years of toxicity in the workplace has skewed my perceptions.
Almost 2 years ago, I realized I wasn’t happy where I was in my career, and needed to make a change. Since then, I spent a lot of time reflecting on what it is that I really want to do in the next phase of my life, researching career paths that would let me do that, getting some additional training, and working toward stepping onto my new career path (all of the good stuff included in Leaving Libraryland!).
And then, a connection shared a job announcement on LinkedIn that felt written to draw me back into the library. I originally clicked on it to evaluate whether to send it to a friend, and wound up deciding to go ahead and apply for it myself. (I also shared it with my friend and encouraged her to apply, of course.) The listing was for a department head, but it repeatedly described building a culture of coaching and mentoring, which is what I love doing. There were other expectations included, but getting to focus a good chunk of my time on coaching and mentoring and building a shared vision among a department, with a solid salary instead of the risk that comes with self employment, was enough to tempt me into applying!
When I was invited to a first round interview, I felt ambivalent. Was I really moving forward, or was I trying to step backwards into the safety of a more familiar role? Working with a coach, I realized that it really was a step forward, because I’m clear on what I’m moving toward – opportunities to focus on coaching and mentoring, regardless of context. It wasn’t that I just got scared and applied to any library job, the universe put that listing in front of me and it will be a learning experience either way.
So I prepared for the interview in the sense of reading through lists of common interview questions, and thinking of experiences that would be relevant examples to discuss. But I didn’t prepare the way I would have if I were seriously looking for a library job. I approached it with the mindset that if this is a good fit, then they’ll appreciate my authentic answers, and if not, then that’s better to learn early.
I guess I didn’t read through enough of those lists, because one of their questions caught me completely unprepared. Something along the lines of:
“Tell us about a time when you saw a problem and took steps to solve it instead of waiting for someone else to take care of it?”
I completely blanked. Especially because the wording came across like they have an issue with people who see something that needs to be done, but just leave it for someone else to take care of, so show how you’re not like that.
I think my initial response was something like, seeing something that needs to be done and just doing it is just what you do when you’re as understaffed as we were, so nothing stands out as memorable.
So we skipped that question, went through the rest, and came back to it at the end. The previous question was something about a time when you advocated for your team, which brought to mind two situations. I responded to that question by talking about how I led my department in evaluating and redesigning our liaison program, creating not just a plan for what we have, but a chart of what we could do with more positions, which the dean could use to advocate for more positions. The other situation involved stepping in to file a Title IX complaint regarding the way someone else was treated.
So, when we came back to the problem question, that’s what I talked about. I gave a super brief overview of what had happened with that specific incident, and stepping in to escalate the situation so that my pre-tenure colleague didn’t have to.
And the first follow-up question was whether there were some steps that could have come between that incident and the Title IX report.
So I just made myself look like I jumped from one incident to the nuclear option. Brilliant.
I stammered about how of course, I had talked to the Associate Dean and the Chief Diversity Officer (CDO), and there was a lot going on and the Ombuds had been involved, but it came out in a jumbled mess because that was an incredibly traumatic time for a lot of us.
And that’s the focus of this long, rambling post.
After dealing with years of toxicity in the workplace, my perceptions are skewed. If it doesn’t involve at least 2 of these – Ombuds or Title IX or HR or external mediator for meetings or complaints to upper administrators – how do you call it a problem?
When I think of problems I faced as a librarian, I think of the Dean who treated people so badly that something like 2/3 of all library employees stayed late on a Friday (on a campus that was usually practially empty by 3pm on Fridays) to ennumerate their complaints to the Provost. That’s the one I filed the Title IX complaint about. Things were so bad that this person “stepped down” after only 8 months in the position. During that period, though, we lost some good colleagues to other positions while other colleagues were open about having to discuss anxiety medications with their doctor.
When I think of problems I faced as a librarian, I think of years in a department that was so toxic that we had an EAP counsellor and then someone from the campus Ombuds office faciliate our meetings, and all of the awfulness that led up to that. I think of the time that department head came back from a conference and bragged to me and another collague about in interaction in which she “found an insecurity” that person had, “but I didn’t use it, I’m saving it for when I need it”… But we somehow weren’t supposed to see through it when she tried the same tactics on us. And I think of how I became “the problem” when I stopped being easily manipulated.
After a few hours to ponder and google, I realized that the search committee was probably looking for an example more like the times I responded to a student in a mental health crisis or when I took the initiative to contact ITS about a tech thing that others had been just working around or something.
But those aren’t filed in the “problem” drawer in my brain anymore – it’s overflowing with much bigger stuff. The mental health crisises could have become problems, but I or we were there to get them to someone who could help in time, so it stayed just a thing that happens sometimes, and anyway, that’s just about responding as a decent human being, not about “problem solving”. And the tech thing? That’s just another day in an understaffed library where, if you don’t do it, then it probably won’t get done.
I share all of this to say, if you’ve been through some serious toxicity at work, it’s never too soon to start working on your healing, because you never know how it’s going to show up. If you’re not sure where to start, I’m happy to recommend some coaches who focus on healing, but I also recommend finding a good therapist.
And, I’ll add on a plug here for the value of sending interview questions in advance, so that the candidate has time to think of relevant examples that fit what you’re looking for.
If they’re working with an idiosyncratic mental filing system due to past trauma or neurodivergence or any other reason, then it may take longer for them to recall a relevant example. That extra time will improve your chance of getting answers that speak to what you actually want to know, instead of just testing for who can access and sort memory files the fastest.
And I’m also happy to discuss strategies to make your hiring process more inclusive. This isn’t a core part of my focus moving forward, but it’s a topic that I spent a lot of time learning about when I was in a position to be involved in faculty librarian hiring.
If you’ve also been through a really toxic working environment, how has that shown up in unexpected ways for you, and what helped you move forward?