Is Your Job Toxic or Are You Playing the Game Wrong?
- Brainz Magazine
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Written by Joanna Briggs, Career Coach
Joanna Briggs is a career content creator, speaker & founder of What Matters CIC, helping young professionals build career confidence and progress at work. Known for her bold insights, she's worked with LinkedIn UK, been published in Cosmopolitan magazine & featured in Newsweek, helping 9-5ers thrive with strategy and insight.
A lot of people are convinced they’re trapped in a toxic job, when what they’re really trapped in is confusion. The workplace has rules, real ones, unspoken ones, and political ones, and no one hands you the manual on what they are at induction.
Consider this, some people are winning in the exact same environment you’re struggling in. Not because they’re better, luckier, or louder, but because they’ve learnt and understood the mechanics of the workplace.
High achievers aren’t operating with more talent, they’re operating with more insight. Here’s the real induction manual your career needs to help set you up for success.
Almost 50% of British workers say they have worked, or currently work, in a toxic workplace.
Most young professionals assume that if work feels hard, unfair, or overwhelming, the job must be toxic. Sometimes it is. Other times, the real issue is that no one ever taught you the rules of the workplace, the ones high achievers quietly learn early, and everyone else is left to figure out the hard way. School didn’t cover them. Your manager won’t explain them. HR can’t spell them out.
You’re left navigating a professional world that feels rigged, confusing, or personal, when in reality, you’re playing a game without knowing how it works. This article isn’t blaming you, it’s revealing the unwritten rules that successful people understand. The rules that can turn a frustrating job into a strategic advantage, and a stagnant career into a powerful one.
Here are the 5 rules you need to hold true if you want to experience a thriving career.
1. Likability trumps productivity
No matter how many targets you hit, great projects you produce, or how ‘good’ you are at your job, you will always be out-promoted by the person whom people like.
Being good at your job is helpful, but no one wants to work with someone who’s not enjoyable to be around, why? Because work is a social sport. We spend more time with our colleagues than the people we love, so who you choose to spend time with during your workday is important! If you hold the position of power to make that decision, someone you can envision yourself having a cheeky chat with on your hardest days will always secure the promotion over someone who, on paper, performs better but is known to be a pain to work with.
Performance serves the business, likability serves the people, and people make a company. Be good at your job, but bring your personality and fine graces to the office too.
2. Leave humility at home
Everyone thinks they are working hard and should be rewarded for it, so don’t expect to get extra praise when you don’t make it someone else's business to give you that credit!
Be loud about what you do when you do well and make sure your manager, your team, and anyone else of relevance know so that you don't become another colleague who’s ‘part of the furniture’.
Humility can be reserved for your personal life, but remember, as long as you have a job or are looking for one, you’re in the sales business. Selling yourself doesn't stop when you finish the job interview, get the job offer, or the contract, it continues for as long as you want to experience a thriving career.
3. Make yourself known
For the entire recruitment process, you were a candidate number. For the duration of your induction, you’re becoming a familiar face. For a long-standing career you can be proud of, you need to be known to grow credibility that will open doors that are reserved for the trusted few.
Go to the networking events, speak to those around you, and ask questions you want to know the answers to. If you want to experience the best a career can offer you, you have to push past that awkward feeling and start to speak up.
Share what you’re good at, even if it’s not part of your current job role! If no one knows, you’re leaving opportunities on the table.
Don’t go too hard too soon, but when the right opportunity presents itself, leave a crumb of yourself. Doing this repeatedly will build a better runway to a 9-5 you can be proud of.
4. Don’t follow the crowd
Your ambitions won’t be the same as some of those you work with. Everyone's risk appetite, ambitions, and goals are different. Every time you want to go to that event but turn it down because ‘no one you know is going’, you give up a learning opportunity to someone else who dared and tried anyway.
Not everything has to be a big showcase of bravery and courage, but you do have to know when to follow the crowd and when to leave them to rejoin later.
This isn’t school, it's your livelihood, and if you continue to complain about what you don’t enjoy without doing anything differently, you’ll forever sell yourself short in exchange for companies that don’t pay your bills.
If you see an opportunity that will help enhance your experience at work or elevate your career trajectory, and no one else in your circle sees it or even goes for it, you go anyway!
5. Put your hat in the ring
If you’ve ever asked yourself, ‘Can I ask for a pay rise?’ or ‘Do you think I can apply for that job?’, you’re already in the wrong mindset.
Failure is inevitable if you don’t try, but success becomes possible when you do.
Whether you believe you're qualified, you graduated with a 3rd class degree, or you have no contacts or experience, if you have an appetite for the opportunity and a willingness to learn, put your hat in the ring and substitute your shortcomings in ways that make you viable!
Don’t discount yourself and make it easy for your competition or the decision makers.
You’d be surprised how many people get through the door simply because the decision maker is impressed with their confidence.
Great news: You’re further than you think
The truth is, the workplace operates under the same rules you live by in your personal life.
The same rules you use when you're trying to butter up your parents to pick you up from a late night out. The same rules you use when you’re trying to secure a second date.The same rules you use when you’re trying to get good service at a restaurant.
You play the game all the time, but you do it in different arenas, which makes you less resistant.
Reaping the real benefits a thriving career can offer you relies on using these rules to succeed. No one will tell you because teaching social behaviours in a formal setting is uncomfortable.
Use the playground of life as your training ground and let your workspace be your test lab.
Start your job and career journey
As your career coach, I'm here to give you a peek behind the curtain to allow you to experience the life you want. You spend 8 hours a day at work, and most of those hours are invested in the wrong things, giving you little return on your investment.
Yes, your degree should be enough, the skills should be enough, but the system is flawed, so until it changes, you have to remain an active participant in your own career success, otherwise, you’ll become a prop in someone else’s.
If you want to take hold of your career, navigate your 9-5 with confidence, and have a personal support system to help you get there, book a 1-1 with me and let’s get to work.
Read more from Joanna Briggs
Joanna Briggs, Career Coach
Joanna Briggs is a leading voice in career progression, known for her practical, relatable advice that helps young professionals build confidence and navigate modern work with clarity. With a growing online community of over 100,000 people, she has become a trusted source for honest career insight and real-world strategy.
Joanna brings a fresh, accessible perspective. While she is the founder of What Matters CIC, her personal mission now drives her work to make career literacy accessible and empower 9–5ers to advocate for themselves, challenge limiting norms, and pursue careers they’re genuinely proud of. Joanna demystifies the unwritten rules of progression and inspires people to step into their potential with courage and intention.
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