From Toxic to Thriving: My Sugar Partner's Impact on My Career

Looking back on it a few years later, I can’t believe how long I allowed myself to suffer through that toxic job. But, I don’t blame myself, either. It was my first real job after college, so I didn't have anything to compare it to. And to be quite honest, I had lied a little bit in the job interview about my previous experience, so even if there were things that I felt off about, I was worried that it would show that I was in over my head. There was also a part of me that felt like maybe they knew I was underqualified and might retaliate if I ever complained.

I guess that gives you a glimpse into where I was mentally while working there. I was both unconfident and in a vulnerable place. This is the perfect recipe for being exploited.

The work itself was with a high-end luxury travel company. My job was to sell travel packages as well as be the point person while the client was on vacation. If their flight got delayed, or their luggage was lost, or their latte delivered to their table less than perfect, I was the person they called. Then it was my job to call the airline or the miserable barista and explain how they were going to make it right for my client.

And I was on-call the entire time that the client was on the trip. It didn’t matter if it was a holiday or if there was a seven-hour time difference; I was glued to my phone day and night. I couldn’t go into a yoga class or doctor appointment, or movie theater without having my phone on vibrate, just in case.

Now, you could be saying, this is just the reality of the job, and I knew what I was signing up for. But I think, actually, the toxic part had more to do with my supervisor. He had already “paid his dues” and had earned a promotion that allowed him to oversee those of us in charge of travel management. And he was the most micromanaging, blunt, arrogant man I had ever met in my life. If we used a comma instead of a period in an email, we were reprimanded. If we wrote out dates in a different format than his preferred format, we were reprimanded. You see what I mean.

Anyway, I hated my job. But looking back, I can’t say that I regret having it, because it introduced me to Daniel.

Daniel was planning a luxury boys' trip for his brother’s bachelor party. Obviously, I can’t tell you the details of the trip, but you can trust me that it sounded fun as heck. I’m talking private tours of vineyards, horseback riding, private chefs, hiking excursions, all in a gorgeous location in South America.

Daniel was always really pleasant to talk to on the phone, but I was always kind of wary of clients until the trip was over. I mean, these people were spending tens of thousands of dollars, and they could go from nice over the phone to “I’m going to get you fired if it’s the last thing I do” over any little mistake. So, I knew to always keep it professional.

Anyway, Daniel’s trip turned out to be one of the worst cases of bad luck in all the time I had spent at the company. It was a string of bad weather delays, wifi connection failures, and hotel double bookings. One of the guys at the party ended up rolling his ankle dismounting a horse and had to be driven to the hospital. Another one had lost his prescription medication during an airport layover, which was a whole nightmare of a situation for me.

Every time my phone rang that week, I could feel myself breaking out in sweat before even seeing who was calling me. I knew it would be Daniel.

And to his credit, every single time that he called me, he would start out with, “Stephanie, hi. I’m so sorry to bother you again, but we’ve got a new situation.”

But you probably already saw this coming when I said that the real problem was my supervisor. It was like he held me personally responsible for the historic traffic jam that caused Daniel’s party to miss their flight, or expected me to anticipate that one of the guys would forget that he had sleep apnea and would need a CPAP machine provided in his hotel room. These issues were somehow all my fault.

When there were three days left in the trip, things finally reached a boiling point. Apparently, Daniel had arranged for a special surprise dinner for his brother that was supposed to take place at a private vineyard. But, because this was the trip from hell, the vineyard pulled out at the last minute. And instead of calling us, they called the first person on the guest sheet, none other than, you guessed it: Daniel’s brother. So, the surprise was ruined before we could even arrange for them to go to another vineyard.

Again, there was no way that I could have anticipated this, but it was enough for my supervisor to pull me off the trip entirely. I was mortified but also kind of relieved that it wouldn’t be my problem anymore.

The rest of the trip went off without a hitch, from what I heard. The travel company compensated for the mistake by treating Daniel’s party to some alternative luxury experience, but I’m not exactly sure what.

The next week, I was sitting at my office when my supervisor came over to my desk. It was the first time that he had been in since the whole Daniel party fiasco, and I knew what was coming. He would always lean in really close and pretend to lower his voice. But he knew that everyone in the shared workplace could hear him. It was a public shaming, his favorite form of punishment.

He was on such a roll, actually (“It’s just not fair that your peers end up having to fix your messes when they also have their own”), that he didn’t realize that Daniel had come into the office and was sitting on the other side of the dividing wall.

When my supervisor was done berating me, I excused myself to go to the bathroom, a.k.a., cry and fix my makeup. And that’s when I saw Daniel sitting there with a gift bag in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. I somehow kept it together long enough to introduce myself and offer to walk Daniel back to my supervisor’s office, but instead, he made the “shh” signal with a finger over his mouth and pointed to the door.

Once we were out in the hallway, he asked, “Is this the way that he talks to everyone? Or does he have some kind of personal vendetta against you?”

I just shrugged and gave him kind of a half smile. Again, this toxic workplace has made me feel like I couldn’t trust the clients, either.

“Listen,” he said. “I came here to give you guys flowers and a wine from the trip because I felt bad that we put you all through the ringer. I mean, talk about a string of bad luck, and you all did such a great job of getting things back on track. But, now, well, I don’t think that I can pretend like I didn’t hear that. That guy should not be in charge of other people.”

I felt validated, but still didn’t want to say anything that might come back to bite me. I tried excusing myself to go to the bathroom.

“Wait, before you go, can you please do something for me? Will you please just let me take you out to dinner? I know it’s probably against the rules, but I feel terrible and I want to make it up to you.”

And, of course, it was against company policy, but I gave that man my personal phone number. I had already decided that I would be handing in my work phone and quitting that day.

Two months later, I was Daniel’s plus one to his brother’s wedding, although I made him promise not to tell people how we met. I also made him promise not to tell anyone at the wedding that he had inspired me to leave that toxic job and start working as an independent travel agent (and that he was supporting me financially until I could start building my portfolio).

I would love to be able to tell you whether that supervisor got fired, but I honestly don’t know, or care to know. As soon as I had that short conversation with Daniel, I just knew that I deserved better, and part of that meant leaving without wanting revenge or retribution. That being said, as my business has grown, I’ve hired a couple of people from the company, so who knows, maybe my story is something of a legend in that office.

Anyway, I think the legend in this story is actually Daniel. He taught me that you can be rich and kind. And that you can be up-and-coming and still demand to be treated fairly. And I guess most importantly, he taught me that you don’t have to stay in a toxic workplace just because you’re afraid that you won’t find something better. Trust me, you will!