When Your Workplace Gives You PTSD

By Carrie Anton

Tucked away in my mouse-colored cube, I abandoned good desk posture recommendations and sunk low into my theoretically ergonomically correct chair. My goal was to make myself as small as possible so as not to garner the attention of my director, whose office door had just opened. Past experience enabled me to decode her footstep pattern as if I were a military operative receiving Morse code signals: her short, quick-paced steps with a hard-heel strike told me she was on the warpath — and I certainly didn’t want to be public enemy number one.

Too anxious to type, I placed my hands on my keyboard and stared stiffly at my screen, willing myself to work but not capable of thinking beyond the inevitable fury that was about to be unleashed. While I hated for anyone on my team to experience my director’s doomsday, I couldn’t help but hope that I wasn’t the one in her crosshairs.

When she stopped short at the first desk in my aisle, I knew I was safe. I breathed a quick sigh of relief, despite being aware that I was being offered only a temporary reprieve; this scene would likely play out again soon, possibly multiple times before the workday was over.

The poor soul incurring her current wrath was Jonathan*, a favorite whipping boy of the director. Jonathan was a mild-tempered man who wore his…