Toxicity is everywhere and often are in the form of zombie bosses or colleagues. They hide in plain sight and smile at you, but behind the scenes they are working up a storm to bring you down. They may harass you, steal your work, malign your reputation, or worse. How do you escape, survive, and thrive? In this session, we will discuss the various scenarios in which a zombie boss or colleague reveals their true colors so you can be aware of the warning signs. We will then plot your escape – in a professional manner of course, that distances you from the perpetrator and toxic work environment while maintaining and even improving your own reputation. It’s not always easy to get away from a zombie or to disentangle from toxicity, but it is important to remember that it is doable and necessary, especially if you want to preserve your mental, physical, and emotional health and advance your own career.
Presenter:
Alaina G. Levine
Author, Networking for Nerds (Wiley, 2015)
Columnist, Your Unicorn Career, ScienceCareers/Science Magazine
President, Quantum Success Solutions, LLC
Alaina G. Levine is an award-winning entrepreneur, STEM career consultant, professional speaker, TEDx speaker, science journalist and corporate comedian. Her book, Networking for Nerds, (Wiley, 2015), beat out Einstein (really!) for the honor of being named one of the Top 5 Books of 2015 by Physics Today. As President of Quantum Success Solutions, LLC, she is a prolific speaker and writer on career development and professional advancement for engineers and scientists.
She has delivered over 850 webinars and speeches for clients in the US, EU, Mexico, Canada, Africa, Asia, and South America (including over 100 gigs in 2020), and has written over 450 articles in publications such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, National Geographic News Watch, World Economic Forum, and Smithsonian. She also writes "Your Unicorn Career", a careers column for ScienceCareers about finding your professional bliss. Levine authored two online courses for Oxford University Press on career development and entrepreneurship, is a consultant, speaker, and writer for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, and served as the event manager for an international conference on phononics. As a career coach and consultant, she has helped hundreds of clients in diverse fields, professions, industries, and regions create and land their own Unicorn Career. She holds bachelor's degrees in mathematics and anthropology with a certificate in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona, and studied at the American University in Cairo as a US Department of Defense Boren Fellow.