Toxic work traits- Information hoarding

[Anonymous]

My vent- an office I work extremely close with constantly hoards information. They often won’t tell me key pieces of information and then later on I realize they knew it all along. I’ll spend days or weeks trying to find out what I need to do to get my job done. Another time I will be going crazy trying to find tech solutions, calling IT, looking through manuals and it turns out they didn’t want to give me higher permissions within the program. For no reason. So the reason this program didn’t work for me was because a lot of the settings weren’t enabled. This has gone on for years. It’s their entire office and it affects quite a few managers, not just myself.

What is this? It’s like their toxic trait at work. I’m not even sure what they get out of it- power?

[Anonymous]

Wow, that brings me back. In my case, the situation was rooted in sexism where the women were never given as much access as the men, and in turn were never able to perform as well as the men because of the limitations in the tools we had access to. We were all in technical positions but I literally had to buy my own reference materials (books as well as online access) to do my job. It became clear that I was always going to be treated as a junior player even though my skill set exceeded that of some of the men.

I stayed and took it for a couple of years, but the best move I ever made was to quit that job.

[Anonymous]

Welcome to politics. It’s all about power.

[Anonymous]

Omg this happened to me in a business policy group in grad school. It was AWFUL! I literally lost my mind. Not only did they information hoard, they also made meetings and then decided as a "team" to change to a different location or time, so I would show up and wait for a long time only to realize they met at another location or at another time. It was the worst year of my life.

[Anonymous]

Is there another name for this?

[Anonymous]

Job security

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Job security

Or the coworkers know that they might be found out, and replaced. OP, they sound terribly insecure. I worked in a place like this. It does not get any better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there another name for this?

This is DCUM...it’s called gaslighting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Job security

Or the coworkers know that they might be found out, and replaced. OP, they sound terribly insecure. I worked in a place like this. It does not get any better.

The worst offenders were the inept and lazy higher ups who lucked out completely (to get where they are), and they know it. The higher ups trained people who were not a threat (to the higher ups), but refused to train those who they knew were more educated and more experienced - *especially* (more experienced) in what the higher ups were *supposed* to be doing. The higher ups simply wanted to reign over the lesser experienced and rule like the dark ages. As long as the minions were in their places, while the higher ups got to do what they wanted (that is, being inept and lazy) without being called on it, the higher ups kept peace. It is as toxic as it sounds.

[Anonymous]

I had this happen once. I just started copying the person’s boss on every request. They had to eventually stop their stupid games.

[Anonymous]

My office doesn't release information to other offices often because other offices can't keep their mouths shut about political things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My office doesn't release information to other offices often because other offices can't keep their mouths shut about political things.

OP here. This isn't political. I really can't figure out why we can't get certain information. I'm just as high up as they are, in fact my boss might be more senior. I think they know that there's little that I can do about it.

[Anonymous]

Hmmm, my office is like this. In our experience, it's the fallout from a paranoid, mistrustful culture.

[Anonymous]

I had this happen to me at my last job. It was miserable, and had implications for my performance. I ended up leaving. There are better places to work.

[Anonymous]

My boss did this with meetings he wouldn't let me be part of, relationships he wouldn't let me have with external stakeholders.

Information was his "power" and he wouldn't share it. So as much as he said he one day wanted me to take over the department (in 1 - 2 years), he was in no way ready to share his perceived power. And when it came time for layoffs, guess who was let go... me. But really for the best. I don't need that kind of toxicity in my life.