Our economy nowadays makes it hard for any adult to live without a job, employment in South Africa is divided in different types of employment. There are hustlers, slang used for business owners and there are many of adults who are employees. Being an employee requires for you to report to your supervisor or manager. All of this is done in the name of everyone trying to put food in their own table. However, no one talks about toxic supervisors or managers.
Toxic supervisors or managers are a thing of the past and the present. I use ‘’toxic’’ for lack of a better word. Approximately 90% of the time you find a superior like this in each company that is being ran. This behavior is hardly found in male superiors (from my own experience) but mostly in female superiors. It does not matter the race, tribe or age.
There are several types of toxic behaviors by these superiors but the most common one is verbal abuse. This verbal abuse could be direct or indirect, however intended for the message to reach its source. In this case, these superiors definitely have their favourite employees and non favourite ones. It is rare to find these superiors having employees who are very good at their jobs as their favourites. They normally have the least competent employees as their favourites.
There is no grey area with toxic supervisors or managers. It is just black or white. The favourite employees get treated exactly as how you treat family or a lover. The least favourite employees get treated as bad as how most people treat those who have killed a person. Most employees who are treated badly are very scared of talking about it to anyone because they are scared of losing their jobs.
No one knows the anxiety trauma this type of treatment brings upon employees that are not favourites of a toxic manager. It gets difficult to wake up to prepare to go to work because you are scared of how unpeaceful a place has become for you. You start to hate your job no matter how much you loved it. Some of these employees are literally depressed because of such.
No one talks about these things and it does not seem it is something that will change. It has been here for a very long time when our grandmothers and grandfathers were still alive. The only
thing we end up doing is that when we get a job, we pray so hard for a positive working environment.
