This may not help at all, but I worked at a toxic workplace. I got good at recognizing when I was being manipulated. Eventually, I learned that if I hid the hurt and acted as if the jabs didn’t hurt, it would send the toxic folks into a toxic rage, but the ironic part is that they could not complain to management about me not being affected.

One day, I was called from one of the people from a recorded line (certain customer facing phones were always recorded, you could even hear the beeps). After the call, I told my manager, we went to HR, who pulled the recording and that person was moved to another area. I left shortly after for other reasons.

The only way to win the game is to not play.

It sounds like you currently care more about the people at your job than your job itself. Perhaps you can tell yourself to flip that?

We are a reflection of the people around us. Maybe next time your colleagues are lazing around, instead of joining them and ignoring the work, you can join those two you admire and ignore the others?

For some of us, being treated unfairly is just another part of life we need to get used to. I’ve had to deal with this a lot with my bio family. I feel that even though it was really shitty in a lot of ways growing up, you learn to be grateful for the lessons it teaches you. The men who are being stoic are really just conserving their emotional energy in exchange for their mental and physical energy because they probably don’t have much of the former. We’ve had to learn well to compress emotions as much as possible just to live in peace. We conserve our emotional energy for the things that matter most to us and yes, it feels like shit sometimes. But it’s a familiar feeling. It makes us us.

I suspect the answer is they just don’t give a fuck. Unless it affects their job, they just don’t care.

You say the workplace is women-dominated. Are there any women not participating in the drama? Asking because you didn’t mention and, in my experience, there usually are a couple quiet no-nonsense ones. Perhaps they could be more relatable to you.

As a welder turned machinist, is it really so hard to act like an adult as an adult? I’ve seen a bunch of different shops around my area, and hands down the old heads are the worst when it comes to drama. They’re so focused on status and seniority that they forget that it’s just a job.

That being said, work how you want to work, not how you see other people working in your role. “Good enough” is fine for learning, but i want to be good at what I do, not good enough. I like my paycheck, and I like feeling like I earn it too.

I’m actually in a position where I got a raise at work and acknowledgement from my peers where I feel like I’ve been doing average work. I could take that to mean that I’m doing good enough and I can coast. That would be totally normal. But I’m looking at it as encouragement to continue to develop my craft. I tried out some shit on a lathe the other day I’ve only ever seen on crazy Instagram videos, but it worked for what I needed to do, and the part came out acceptable in the end. Now I can continue to expand my experience with confidence.

In the show Severance, you have a innie and a outtie. That’s me.

My innie is here to do the work and make money. Sometimes my innie hangs out with coworkers. Or acknowledge their major life event. But innie does marketing work and adds more garbage to the garbage pile.

My outtie has a family. He loves his family. He takes them to plays and dinners and outdoor events. He paints and watches lame TV. He tells his wife how beautiful she is, his kids how proud they make him.

Their two lives are separate. Innie is focused, driven, direct, and some what of an asshole to get the job done. Outtie is loving, spends time with his family, and paints.

Am I thick skinned? No. Innie is just willing to suck corporate dick and do a song and dance so outtie can enjoy life.

Stoicism isn’t a state, it’s a practice. I think the Buddhists act the same way. None of us will ever become truly “enlightened” but if we keep trying we become better ourselves.

I cannot change your emotions or actions towards me; I can only change how I respond to your emotions or actions towards me. It’s obviously way more complicated than that but yeah, you might be a candidate to read some Seneca or Epictetus. Not going to be a cure all but might help you as you navigate this fucked up world.

Because I am completely dead inside already. My skin isn’t thick; it is simply necrotic.

Don’t you find it tiring? Doesn’t it make you feel like shit when you go back home? Don’t you feel taken advantage of?

I find it so much more tiring to be caught up in what other people are doing.

I realized a while ago that life isn’t, and will never be, fair. If I spend all my energy on thoughts that include the word “should,” I won’t have the energy for myself when I need it or others when I believe they deserve it.

Being anything else just isn’t worth my time or energy and makes me unhappy.

there are 2 men that seem to be completely stoic (I don’t know what word would describe them better): they ignore drama and jabs, even if directed at them

It may be that they are just oblivious.

Years ago my wife and I noticed a difference between the men who worked for her and the women who worked for her.

She had to take a woman aside and tell her that her shoes weren’t appropriate for the office. The woman heard, “she thinks I’m a slut.”

The men would hear, “she thinks my shoes aren’t appropriate for the office.”

Science indicates that women generally have more brain space devoted to communication than men. That is typically accepted to indicate that women communicate better than men, but it really just means more of their brain is involved.

Like a person with macular degeneration seeing hallucinations because their brain is trying to fill in the missing information, some women will hallucinate information that isn’t in the communication.

They will also think they are communicating in ways that aren’t conveyed with words. Many men will miss subtle, “read-between-the-lines” subtext because they just don’t have the neural real-estate to deal with it.

Women are also more likely to care about what other people think, simply because they are more likely to be at risk if they piss off the wrong person. Men can usually be a bit more chill because less of the population can threaten them. So it’s entirely possible that those two men don’t care because they know no one is going to kick their ass, so there’s nothing to get upset about.

Men will care a lot about actual aggressiveness. When you’ve had to be stitched back together after being jumped, passive-aggressiveness doesn’t seem like that much of a big deal.

Get fucked and/or fired a few times for no good reason. That hide will thicken up might fast. Forces you into a new perspective and resets some priorities.

I’ve learned that the boss can and will be a prick as he pleases (always dudes in my case). Hes going to do that and you can either fight with him and get fired or backburnered, or you can just eat shit and move on.

You can get into pissing matches with peers, but the person who wins is the person the boss likes more. If it isn’t you, accept defeat and move on.

Modern work is just the act of eating shit for money. There is no dignity, there is no payoff. You are just giving untalented clowns what they want in exchange for money. I don’t think any of us wanted it this way, but here we are.

I have fully been broken and institutionalized by the system. I have zero hope of ascending to some lofty position by virtue of my intelligence and hard work. Those who run everything pick their own. Unless you grew up with parents who run everything, there is a very low chance you ever will. They pick their own kind, anyone else is a liability.

I’m one of those efficient employees who sometimes get taken advantage of. I generally don’t let it bother me because I’d rather just get the shit done. And they know you get shit done, that’s why they give it to you lol. It’s almost a compliment in a way? Shoot, they may even thank you, like “I’m glad you’re here” or “now that MelonYellow’s here, I know we’re good.” And of course - management loves you. Being cool with the higher ups is a perk in itself, should anything come up.

Of course some days it’s annoying, but it takes a lot for me to show it. Because I dislike whiners. Unless it’s egregiously unfair, I just do the assignment because it’s not worth rocking the boat. And guess what? The people who suck at work suck in their outside lives too. At the end of the day, I’m confident in my worth. I have the power, not them. I’m not stuck at this particular job - I chose it because of XYZ reasons. I’m paid very fairly for what I do. And I don’t think about work when I’m off the clock because I have my own life/hobbies that make life awesome. That all helps a lot.

If I am being paid to do a job all I really care about while I’m working is doing the job. I might judge people for their failings and look down on them for being shitty, but I really don’t care because I’m just there to do the job I’m being paid to do. I might feel bad if people are talking shit and spreading rumors about me or whatever, but I don’t give a shit because I’m at work to work. If people are slacking off and not working when they should be, that is an issue for management to deal with. If people are spreading rumors and creating disruptions with gossip and drama, that is an issue for management to deal with. I care about doing the job I am paid to do, anything else going on at work is not my problem. I don’t think I’m actually that thick skinned or anything really, I’m just maintaining basic professionalism in what is supposed to be a professional environment.

To me it sounds like you have shitty management and shitty coworkers. You can try to be a catalyst for change in a more positive direction if you want but it might be better for you to find a more professional workplace. Also, I do think if dumb drama and gossip at work bothers you this much finding a job with fewer coworkers or a more independent role would probably be a better fit for you.

As an almost 40 year old man who has worked a few years in different kinds of healthcare (including being the only man in a retirement home). I would get pissed when people being lazy caused suffering (because of lack of care) but that never gave me the go ahead to do the same. I’m better than that.

I also started my job journey working in factories, wielding shops and construction sites. In factories you learn to count every minute and be extremely punctual. You know how many seconds more you can chat before you get a backlog and shit from the boss.

In shops and construction sites people will chew you out and really ostracise you if you don’t carry your weight.

But mostly: Is my job to actually be working during my working time and I don’t give a fuck about what Karen thinks about stuff, she’s shit at everything anyway