The Karmic Workplace

Matthew Gates 5m 1,162 #karma

The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.

If you are familiar with karma, you know that basically the saying is, “What comes around goes around” which means that there are consequences to every action, good and bad. Make no mistake about it, if you water a plant from the time it is a seed, talk to it, care for it, and give it sunlight, it will grow into a plant. On the other hand, if you did nothing for the plant, left it alone, not in soil, nothing would happen. This is the most basic concept of karma.

Karma can be quite dramatic, even taking years to do anything. The deeper meanings of karma can be that today, you may speak bad about someone, and tomorrow, someone will speak bad about you. How you treat others is how they will treat you. It is the beauty of karma, but when it comes to karma, a lot of patience is required. Karma always gives everyone what they deserve eventually, good and bad. There are times even when you do your best and karma still dishes out some things that make you question why you deserved such a consequence in the first place.

When it comes to the workplace, karma is at its absolute powerful, but with such power comes time, which is the ultimate reality and power in our universe. Several months ago, I wrote an article about a boss who had been fired. I had used my own karma of goodness, not evil, to write the articles from my experiences of dealing with that boss. In addition to an endless supply of unique content, it provided me with the ability to have patience with that boss, who spent years trying to fire me. This is not to say that all of those years were bad, but when you have a boss like that who adds on top of your existing anxiety and PTSD, the workplace becomes a war zone. This boss did, however, teach me a lot about how to work and be a professional, about not just always being a workerbee, but about creativity and critical thinking.

My experience with a toxic boss is not uncommon. You would be considered lucky if you managed to go through your life without a toxic boss. The results of a toxic boss, especially before a company terminates this boss, is that a good amount of otherwise good people either quit or were fired for reasons that could otherwise seem personal with a toxic boss. However, the place of work is one that is professional, so revenge and becoming toxic yourself, while it can happen, is not as common of an occurrence. There are people who do seek out revenge and are often met with the karmic results of their actions, which often leads to them being fired, not because of what their toxic boss did to them, but because of what they did to their toxic boss.

In the case of the workplace, I had heard my boss had been fired. I did not celebrate, but it was more like a great relief. There is no reason for me to celebrate someone’s demise, unless I’m winning a game against them. I do not believe in retaliation or revenge in the form of harm. However, I must admit, I had gathered enough evidence and data against my former boss, and was ready to hit send to the Human Resources Department, before I simply left it in Drafts, and eventually, after his firing, I deleted it. I still do have the evidence on a hard drive somewhere, but rather than retaliate, I decided it would be best to let the karmic workplace take effect.

After his firing, over 6 months later, he was rehired back by my parent company, but not hired back into my department. When I had heard about it, I was upset and somewhat angry at the fact that my company could do something like that. Then I began to think about karma and my former boss’ actions. I never wished anything bad but only desired to see karma finally make its rounds. And finally, it did, but not in the way I expected.

Due to COVID-19, the parent company had laid off massive amounts of workers, only to realize that was probably a mistake because media and advertising never do sleep. There are several departments within the company that have a high turnover rate because they rely on the metrics of a system that can read the amount of errors that an employee makes. During quarterly reviews, this is discussed, and it is determined whether that employee will remain or be let go because in the industry I work in, mistakes must be rare.

As a result of the high turnover rate and the economic and employment rates, it is becoming increasingly harder for companies to find reliable people who want to work, especially college graduates who are new and may be turned off by the operations of the department. To try and increase the workforce, the restrictions of a college degree in the Liberal Arts, English, Language, etc. was removed.

My former boss was hired back to receive this new flow of workers who may or may not have a college degree and he must deal with younger people who are not yet considered professionals. Having worked in my field for over 10 years, I’d like to think I am a professional at what I do. With the influx of new workers, there is a new load of stress and training on the plate, because there is an expectation that must now carried for a new team to be exceptional, and that includes a lot more time training, disciplining, and critiquing a new team.

After hearing of this news, I could not wish bad upon my former boss, but only that the team assigned is successful, because overall, if that team is successful, then the company I work for is successful. There are good things that happen and bad things that happen and much of it is out of your control. While karma may eventually get around to you and everyone you know, including those you wish “something bad would happen to them”, karma always ensures that something does happen. With the good comes the bad and with the bad comes the good. This is the way karma has always worked.

My former toxic boss has a new set of responsibilities with a new team and a new agenda. Of course, it helped to know someone in the higher ranks, but having worked for the company for over 20 years, that is an asset to the company, not a dud. As I have come to appreciate, karma did its job of removing my former boss from my life, and although still working at the same company, I do not have to deal with the stress and PTSD any longer. Karma finally arrived and this is the way of the karmic workplace.

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