Surviving a Toxic Workplace

Tedi welcomes his special guest, Amanda Chenkin, the Founder, Counselor & Career Strategist of Choice Career Counseling, LLC, located in Baltimore, Maryland.

Amanda and Tedi talk about how we can deal with a toxic workplace and those who cause it. Amanda shares with us some great tips and tools to surviving a toxic workplace, from dealing with it within the organization to psychological safety (protecting our mental health). Tedi and Amanda talk about HR’s role in a toxic workplace and what to do if it is the CEO or someone in management who is causing all the toxicity. This is a very informative and educational episode, one that you def do not want to miss!

Transcript:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Teddy Talks podcast. My name is Teddy Parsons, your host and continued agitator for the next 45 minutes or so. I am so excited that you are joining me today as we have real talk with real people. So, let’s go ahead and meet today’s amazing guests. I am so excited to welcome back to the Teddy Talks podcast our special guest, Amanda Chenkon. She’s the founder, counselor, and career stat strategist of Choice Career Counseling LLC. That sounds like a tongue twister, there, which is located in Baltimore, Maryland. I was just telling Amanda that she is the first guest we have on here from Maryland, and Amanda, I have to tell you, so for our international listeners, Baltimore is located 41 miles from Washington DC, that’s our national nation’s capital on the Atlantic Ocean side of the United States. What I was going to say, Amanda, is when I was thinking about Baltimore, putting the script together, and this is sad. The only thing I can honestly say that I know about Baltimore is like, where the story of the, oh, Ricky Lake was in it, the and I think John Walters is from, oh, Hairspray,

Hairspray, and then the big bridge that that freighter ran into. So that’s the two things that I can think about Baltimore.
Oh, yes, the yes, most recently the Key Bridge. Yes, many people, when they think of Baltimore, think of Hairspray, The Wire, most recently the Key Bridge incident a couple years ago, and Baltimore is a robust, beautiful city. I encourage anyone to visit, it’s, it’s worth it,
and I understand it to be a very diverse city, right?

Yes, it is very diverse. We are a majority black city, and lots of diversity, and all the neighborhoods have a different flavor, much like Washington DC, right, there’s here in Baltimore, we have the Inner Harbor, and that’s mostly what you see, and then as you get out into the neighborhoods, each neighborhood has its own story, has its own even like culture in a way, housing depends, you know, the style of houses depends, you know, is different in each neighborhood. We were an industrial city, so you know, the neighborhood I live in was near Mills, and so we have big houses where probably the bosses of the mills worked, and then I live in a row house where, you know, the regular worker probably lived, so yes, it’s a beautiful whole city. I could talk about it for ages.
I love that. Thanks for sharing all that great information about Baltimore. We encourage our listeners to learn more about it. It’s a wonderful city. Okay, Amanda, can you please share with our listeners who you are and what we should know about you.
Yes, so as you mentioned, thank you for having me on again. I am Amanda Chenkin. I own Choice Career Counseling here in Baltimore, and I really specialize and work with folks kind of anything related to paid work and how we how that interacts with other facets of our life, so I used to say kind of the intersection of like mental health and career, but I think it’s a lot more than that, so you know, living and working where we are. How are we navigating burnout, which is a big buzzword, but it is a term to describe how we’re feeling and trying to navigate our systems and situations. So those are the kinds of folks I, I really, I work with. I’m a certified career counselor. I am also a trustee on the board of directors and trustees for the National Career Development Association.

Oh, I love that. And you are also a counselor, right? A licensed counselor. If I’m not mistaken, yes.
Okay, I’m also a licensed counselor in the state of Maryland.

Well, it’s interesting because when I, you know, you also know that I’m a certified career coach. But one of the things that people don’t realize is that someone like Amanda is a certified career counselor, legally she can say that because that’s what she is. I’ve had to remind people, you can’t call yourself a career counselor unless you have all that great education like you do. You know, so I remind people of that, because they’ll call themselves career counselors. I’m like, oh, you know, what’s your designation, or, you know, where’d you get your degree in? They’re like, why? No, I’m just a career counselor. I’m like, well, you can’t call yourself a counselor for anything. I guess you could call yourself a camp counselor, but you can’t say a career counselor, because you need to have a certain education that can back that up. So, anyway, that doesn’t matter. But, so, Amanda, today I ask, as a reminder for our listeners, we’re going to, as we always do, we’re going to be sure to list Amanda’s contact information under today’s episode narrative, so you can tell Amanda when I’m going to mess up, because if I go off script, I go off the rails, and it’s a mess, so just bear with me. Um, so everyone, I asked Amanda to join me today to discuss how we can survive a toxic workplace, and what tools and resources do we need to make this happen? So, you know, before we get into our conversation, Amanda, tell me if you agree with this. That today, when our listeners, no matter where they are, around the 109 countries around the globe, they can use these tools and resources you provide, also in other toxic situations, would that be a fair statement?

Yeah, I think so.

Oh, good. Okay, so Amanda, you know, I always hit the Googler, and I learned that as of late 2025 and early 2026 roughly 75 to 80% of US employees have experienced a toxic workplace, with 59% reporting that their job negatively impacts their mental health. I find these numbers straight, staggering. Are you surprised about this? And what is going on here?
I’m not surprised at these numbers, and I think from a systemic level we’re seeing right now power by corporations trying to be taken back, right? Like, so we think back to the pandemic, we all went remote work, and people were actually, we were actually more productive in terms of turning out work for our workplaces, but when we returned to work, and particularly now, right, we’re seeing companies and organizations say, no, no, you have to come into the office, and that one taking away choice, right? Like, there are people who want, there are people who want to work in the office, right, and that is okay. It’s, I think, it’s more about choice, whether I want to go in or not, and then I can still do my job if I’m not sitting in it at my desk in a cube, or so we’re talking about that, you know, just I’ve the stress that I think most people in the US, in particular, are feeling these last couple few years does not always bring out the best in us, right, and so if I’m a supervisor or manager trying to navigate something outside of my work, you know, my in my personal life, but I don’t have the right supports in place to take care of that, then when I’m showing up at work, I’m probably not going to be the best support for my, my team, so the short answer is no, I am not surprised by those numbers, and I think we’re seeing it play out in real time, being in Baltimore, being so close to DC, we’ve seen a lot of toxic workplace experiences, and even delving a little, it. To career trauma, right, like being laid off or fired unexpectedly for no, you know, seemingly no reason. So, yeah, it’s not surprising.

Thanks so much, Amanda, for sharing that. And I’m going to say, and not getting political here, but I think the biggest offender of workplace toxicity is right there at the White House, and so it’s probably just filtering through the air there. So, Amanda, and that was my political thing for the day. Okay, so Amanda, according to news.com and I’ll include this article in today’s episode. Narrative, they state that a toxic work environment is defined by persistent negative behaviors, poor leadership, and a culture that creates fear, stress, or psychological unsafety. Key indicators include aggressive leadership, bullying, and high staff turnover. Such workplaces lack trust and transparency, often prioritizing personal agendas over employee well-being and performance. I would say also profits over, yeah. So, would you add anything to this list, or do you think it’s pretty descriptive of what a toxic work environment

is? I think it’s pretty descriptive. I would agree with you in profits over people, particularly.
Yeah, I, you know, it’s interesting because when you know they say aggressive leadership, you know, it’s I am going to ask you a lot about that in a little bit here, and then in these are the people who are shocked, you know, like people reach my out to me and want to talk about, you know, what are some strategies we can reduce our high staff turnover, and when I go in, I meet with HR, they’re great. Then I meet the CEO, and I’m like, well, unless you can fire the owner, the CEO, I don’t know what to tell you, because right there’s the problem, and they act shocked, you know, like, you know. So, okay, so we’ve established, I’m going to read that one more time, that a toxic, according to muse.com a toxic work environment is defined by persistent negative behaviors, poor leadership, and a culture that creates fear, stress, or psychological unsafety. So, I want our listeners to remember that for the rest of our conversation. Okay, so Amanda, can you please share with our listeners what psychological safety is, and why we need to be aware of this, especially in the workplace.

Yes, so psychological safety is essentially the shared belief that the team members, that people on our, that we work with can take interpersonal risks, right? So, asking maybe difficult questions, being able to make mistakes without fearing retribution, you know, being able to like challenge the status quo, so being safe to kind of do those types of things, express yourself without fear, those are really critical to psychological safety. If I am with someone, you know, if I’m in a workplace and I see team members being, you know, ridiculed for making a mistake that is a human mistake, right? Like, I am not, that’s going to register with me and probably make me not want to engage as much as I need to to help out the team, so psychological safety is established by essentially having an environment where people can freely express themselves, make mistakes and not fear, you know, retribution or getting in trouble.

Thanks, Amanda. So, you know, as you were saying that, I was thinking, especially for marginalized groups like people of color, that they really, their psychological safety or unsafety happens every day they go into work. For a lot of them, they have to deal with constant gaslighting or code switching. They have to code switch. So, yeah, so I think that adds to that. So, Amanda, what are some ways we can protect. Our mental health or ensure our psychological safety while at work. Do you have any tips, tricks, or tools you can share with us?

Um, well, you know, if you are a leader in name, so you know, C-suite supervisor, manager, you know, we can role model some of these things for our team, protecting our mental health, so finding maybe colleagues and people that we do feel safe with that we can talk to at work if that’s not really an option, or it doesn’t feel comfortable making sure that you have supports and things outside of work to help you, you know, as appropriate, you know, paying attention to what’s happening, and when you know, does this start to.. there’s a difference of, you know, there’s psychological unsafety, right? I don’t feel safe expressing myself. myself, and am I also experiencing other forms of unsafety, like harassment or bullying? So, there’s like a line, and they probably get blurry a lot, but just knowing and paying attention to how you feel. Are there projects, situations offices that you can avoid or not participate in or say no to, so looking for your allies and people you can talk to, being kind of observant of what’s going on around you, can I say no? Can I have some boundaries, and what those, what might some of those boundaries be? And they don’t always have to be big and huge, it can be sticking to my work hours as best as possible, depending on your job, so a lot of caveats here, but right, we can think about boundaries. Where can I put them in place to protect myself? If you know, not looking for another job or moving teams or doing something like that is possible. Those are probably the two big ones that I would think about immediately.

Well, and I think those are great, for sure. Let me ask Amanda, if people have PTO paid time off or vacation time, and they’re really at a place where they feel like they’re just going to walk out or, you know, explode, would you recommend taking a day off and kind of just cycling down and maybe taking a long walk or doing some yoga, or what is your thoughts on that?
Yes, so if you have some PTO, use it, if you have a lot, you know, if you have like a decent amount of paid time off, you can maybe like schedule yourself one day a month, right? And then to take off, that’s not, that’s like kind of a band aid over the root cause, but it can help, yeah, if you’re at work and you are like, I’m reaching my limit. If you have the ability, take a walk, you know. If you have an office with a door, close the door and, like, listen to some music for a minute or two. You know, a lot of companies have some EAP employee assistance program that you might be able to access that is usually part of, like, you know, your benefits, and so it’s, it’s confidential, usually like call or email as a third party organization, and they usually have counselors on staff that you can talk to confidentially, so that can be an option, you know, taking care of yourself in the deepest sense of the word, so physical movement is is great, just like regularly, but also making sure that you have strong social connections outside, you know, maybe inside of work, but really also outside of work. Work, you know, taking care of your health as best you can. The what I call, like, the.. there’s like this self-care, that’s the thing that’s like making that phone call to the doctor’s office, kind of like the eating your vegetables of the of self care, like the things that we don’t want to do, but we know really truly are good for us. Those are the pieces that I would really encourage folks to think about.

Yeah, and I love every one of those. And when it was so interesting, because as you were talking, I was going to say something about physical activity. I know when I actually used to, you know, I’ve worked on my own for a long time, but when I used to work in an office, I realized that I would take little walks around the building or outside, depending on the weather, because I thought either I’m going to punch someone in the throat here or I need to just get outside and start moving, and after I did that, it gave me a few minutes, you know, maybe I cussed under my breath or something as I walked, but I came in and I felt so much better, and so I think you’re right, you know, and get enough sleep, especially if you know you’re going into a toxic work environment, make sure you’re getting sleep, good breakfast. I love all of that. Okay, I’m going to do a shameless plug here. So we have a training coming up, and I’m hoping to get Amanda. I was going to ask her about this afterwards, but I’ll just put her on the spot now. On Wednesday, september 9, from 10am to 11am that’s Eastern Standard Time, Detroit time. This is an online virtual training called Surviving the Toxic Workplace. So, what we’re learning today, we’ll learn even more at that training on Wednesday, september 9. So, Amanda, you and I will talk about that. Love to have you come and do that with me, and so we’ll talk about that, and and then we can get some resources in that together. So, again, Wednesday, September 9, 2026 10 to 11am Eastern Standard Time, surviving the toxic workplace. Okay, that ends my sham shameless plug. So, Amanda, let me ask, after that great advice she gave us, and before we head into a commercial break here, I was hoping you could share more with us about some of the amazing work you do with your clients when it comes to making sure they protect their mental health at all times, for example, what are some programs you offer at your organization? And so our listeners can reach out to you. All Amanda’s contact information will be provided, as we always do under today’s episode narrative.

Yeah, thank you. So I work with folks one on one, and really, when I’ve actually had a couple of, well, many clients lately, you know, navigating toxic workplaces, and really, what we’re focusing on is a lot of what we, you know, what I just mentioned, in terms of like day to day self care, and but also, you know, giving ourselves space to feel the feels around what it having to be in this place, because we can’t always like find another job, or if we do find another job, that takes a lot of time, so we have to figure out ways to emotionally navigate day to day, so practicing, you know, mindful tech, mindfulness techniques, which I know is like a buzzword, but and when I say it, what we really mean when we talk about mindfulness is intentionality of my, you know, beliefs, thoughts, actions, breathing is helpful, but letting emotions like ride them like a wave, because once they come up and they get space to be felt, they pass, and then we can think with a clear head in terms of what boundaries can I set around my day, or how I’m going to work with this person or this team, so that’s like the bulk of kind of how what we focus on when I work with folks, a lot of grief is involved in. Uh, navigating this right, like we maybe like I had one person recently, right, like dream job, this was going to be great, and I did all they did all the things that we tell them to do when we’re job searching, right, like I did all the research, I had an in, I talked to people, and they got into the role, and a few months in, not good, it’s, it’s pretty toxic, and so there’s grief in that, that there’s loss in this idea that, like, I finally got the thing I wanted, and it’s not quite the thing that it was sold, so I do a lot of the, we do a lot of the emotional parts, so that the tactile like strategies can be implemented a little easier, because our brains and our bodies have a little more capacity once they’ve let the emotions process through.
Thanks so much, Amanda, for sharing that information. I love that. I especially love the breathing part, and what’s so interesting. I swear, you’re in my brain length wavelength today, because I was thinking about that, about in right, and then you said breathe, and I love it. Okay, everyone, this is a great time to take a quick break and hear from our amazing episode sponsors sit tight, don’t go away. We’ll be right back with the brilliant Amanda Jenkin.

Hi, I’m Dr. Shivani Gupta, and I know how it feels to search for real lasting relief from inflammation and joint discomfort. That’s why I created fusionary formulas to bring you the most effective natural solutions backed by science. Our tumor gold is made with the purest, most bioavailable curcumin to help support your body’s natural inflammatory response, so you can move freely, feel stronger, and live your best life without limitations. Join our community of health conscious individuals making the switch to better wellness. Visit Fusionary formulas.com

And we’re back. Before the break, we were talking about toxic workplaces and how we can protect our own mental health, along with what psychological safety is. Amanda, what can we do if the CEO, the owner, or our direct report, for example, our supervisor, manager, vice president, is the ones who are causing the toxic work environment? Do we have to simply accept this, or are there some ways we can address the toxicity before it gets too bad and out of hand,

yeah, I think there are ways to address it, depending on your situation, you know. In general, a toxic workplace, a toxic, toxic work environment can very much come from like the top down, because those folks are setting the tone for things, so if my manager, you know, person above me is really creating a toxic work environment, you know. Again, this is very dependent on where you work in your situation, but it could be useful to eventually to mention it to HR, depending on what’s happening, you might want to like keep a little notebook, confidential notebook to yourself and document things. If you do find maybe, maybe there’s another manager that leads another team that’s not so toxic, and if you’ve got a relationship with them, maybe talking to them and find and trying to see if you can get support from them in terms of influencing your team, you can also maybe, so my direct manager is really toxic, but maybe me and my teammates have really good communication, and we support each other, so we create an environment for ourselves that allows us to work together, and when our director manager, you know, we can maybe come as a team to talk to them again. This is, I want to, like, put a big asterisk and say, like, it really is dependent on your situation, because you don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you potentially, you know, get terminated because many states are at will states, but those are, I think, a couple of things that maybe we can do to try and influence our environment around us, leading by example, if we can finding the. Allies finding the people that can support us and maybe have some influence on the folks who are not being so who are creating the toxic environment and sometimes it is a conversation with HR, depending on the severity.