My reading recently turned up an article Web Worker Daily » How do you Deal with Jerks in the Workplace? «, which quotes a study saying that negative emotions in the workplace spread like wildfire.
I find this apt because I recently survived (barely) a situation where a toxic person came onto our team. Her backstabbing and gossiping caught within all the members of the team, and cat fighting erupted. It ended with communication shut down between our internal customers and us, and we were all dissatisfied and looking to make jumps to other jobs or teams. It even caused me to leave work one day; at that point I blocked all contact with the toxic person except through email.
I hated the person I became while associating with this situation. All my negative qualities were amplified, and my thoughts were dark and angry.
I have to wonder if some people are immune to this sort of thing? One of my co-workers is uniformly cheerful and positive. Another is unfailingly supportive. What is the secret? I’m not sure if people are naturally immune. I think it must be something they cultivate.
As an after-note, the toxicity has been removed now, and we are slowly rebuilding communication and repairing the damage to the team structure. Remnants of it linger, though. I see a serene teammate erupt to the insensitive remarks of a colleague with a vehemence she probably wouldn’t have shown four months ago. I myself have to guard against gossip and negative remarks with strong attention. And I am slowly reclaiming my serenity and inner peace through lots of reading and meditating.
It’s hard to develop an immunity to this kind of thing, yet some people seem to do so. If you ever figure it out, let me know