Back in college, I used to laugh along with BOFH style comedy. I still do find it funny, but now that I've been on the receiving end of this brand of toxic behavior in my own life, it's all a little too real for me.
Interestingly, at my current job (research assistant at a university) I've found an almost identical culture among lab support staff. I'd chock it up to the same factors of long hours, a thankless job, and the occasional user that is in fact an idiot. It's also a field that tends to accumulate people without a lot of social awareness, but where the job involves a lot of human interaction. They're also likely the ones getting blamed for problems they don't have a ton of power to solve.
I understand why they feel the way they do, but I wish we could do without all of the abusive behavior. In the end it's real people's careers that they're taking their anger out on.
I've had research that my career depends on delayed for at least a sum total of months at this point (in only ~2.5 years of time), because of situations like this from both toxic IT and research staff dragging their feet and being hostile to work.
Back in college, I used to laugh along with BOFH style comedy. I still do find it funny, but now that I've been on the receiving end of this brand of toxic behavior in my own life, it's all a little too real for me.
Interestingly, at my current job (research assistant at a university) I've found an almost identical culture among lab support staff. I'd chock it up to the same factors of long hours, a thankless job, and the occasional user that is in fact an idiot. It's also a field that tends to accumulate people without a lot of social awareness, but where the job involves a lot of human interaction. They're also likely the ones getting blamed for problems they don't have a ton of power to solve.
I understand why they feel the way they do, but I wish we could do without all of the abusive behavior. In the end it's real people's careers that they're taking their anger out on.
I've had research that my career depends on delayed for at least a sum total of months at this point (in only ~2.5 years of time), because of situations like this from both toxic IT and research staff dragging their feet and being hostile to work.