A COMPANY OF BACKSTABBERS

But what happens when there's not just one negative person at an organization, but a whole army of them, ready to cut each other to shreds at the first sign of weakness? Ciabh McEvenue was plunged into just such a cesspool when she took a job working at a major health care organization a few years ago. Like many of the people Maclean's spoke to, McEvenue is careful not to reveal too many details that might identify her former workplace. Given what she witnessed there, a little self-preservation is probably in order.

Her workplace was in the business of helping people improve their health, but it was run like a military dictatorship. Employees formed ranks, and each level took every opportunity to crush the one below it. The only way to advance was by playing dirty politics, which in some cases involved planting lies about rivals to bolster one's own ambitions. "It was Machiavellian in a crazy, backward way," says McEvenue. "There was always some kind of witch hunt going on and you never knew if you were the target or not."

Aside from fostering a hostile office environment, the culture of paranoia often led to mistakes. McEvenue recalls how underlings were never allowed to present their own work to superiors. Instead, as a project made its way up the food chain, successive levels of managers would take credit for it themselves, often inadvertently inserting wrong information into the presentations along the way. When things inevitably went wrong, senior management could always claim they were wrongly informed. "Then all of a sudden you'd come to work and Judy, who'd just done the project that we all thought was great, would be gone," says McEvenue.

Her experience as managing director of Tamm Communications, a full-service advertising agency based in Toronto, couldn't be more different. McEvenue immediately liked what she saw at the small company of 30 employees, which operates from a converted knitting mill overlooking the city's downtown. For one thing, people actually talk and share ideas openly. On big advertising projects, she says, everyone from the creative team to the finance department — even receptionists — are asked for their ideas. "There's a huge difference in terms of your voice being heard," she says. "It's run more like a family. I've never in my life had such intense relationships with my co-workers." And going forward, that sense of belonging is likely to grow even stronger. The firm's co-founders are in the process of distributing nearly half of the ownership of Tamm Communications to its employees.

NOWHERE TO GO BUT SIDEWAYS

Nothing kills motivation faster than the knowledge that no matter how hard you work, or how much you produce, you're going nowhere. It's a depressing realization that all too many employees face at one time or another. For Scott Orth, that dark time came — literally — during a stint at a metal fabrication plant. As a young man 20 years ago, he was stuck on the night shift, manufacturing steel carts in a searing factory. As Orth describes it, his typical night at work was "boring, hot, laborious and oppressive." It's obvious there's no love lost for the place. Why should there be? "There was zero recognition or reward for what you were doing," he says.

Orth left to pursue a career as a hydrologist and landed a position at Golder Associates, a consulting and engineering firm with offices around the world. If stamping out metal frames was a dead-end job, at his new employer the opportunities seemed endless. Before long he was sent for training to become a manager. And when he began to show an aptitude for dealing with employees, he was offered a position in the human resources department, eventually becoming head of "human development" for all the offices in Canada. "We try to play to people's strengths here," he says. "I showed some natural talent and was very well supported through training and coaching."

For some workers, the problem isn't necessarily that there are no options for advancement. It's that the opportunities that do come up are just as bad as the job they already have. Back in the 1980s that was the situation Patty found herself in. (The reason for not using her last name will become apparent in a moment.) As an office temp, arguably one of the most thankless jobs around to begin with, she printed documents for 25 salesmen. They were all run ragged trying to meet their quarterly quotas, working through lunch breaks and many weekends, too. Patty wasn't sure she liked such an overwhelming work environment, so when the company offered her a sales job, she balked. Thinking she was after more money, the company sweetened its offer. But it wasn't a question of pay, it was that she didn't want a job that entailed giving up her life.

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