Keeping my head down in a toxic office

[Practicaltipsplease]

Thanks in advance if you get through this, and any stories or tips you're happy to share.

I've been in my current role for two years. It's customer facing and I love dealing with customers. The wider work culture has become increasingly toxic. There's lots of gossip, poor communication, poor boundaries and what I would class as unprofessional behaviour but nothing illegal/HR worthy. Every other member of my team, including my line manager, is frequently late and passes their work on to me.

I need to find a way to survive in an open plan office for the next few months while I focus on moving jobs. It is fairly standard/ low pay (27k) so not worth me staying.

The tricky thing is that I like my colleagues. They are lovely people, but inexperienced and we have different styles of working, so I need to find a way to 'contain' myself as I am becoming increasingly depressed and unhappy there.

Really I need to find a way to get in to work, avoid all the team chat/gossip, do my job well and head home.

I know it sounds really basic but grateful for any practical tips.

Can you not say "Sorry I've got enough on my plate, cant help with your work?"
Or raise it higher up?
I don't understand how you say the office culture is awful - unprofessional, gossipy etc, but then you say your colleagues are lovely people?

They are lovely people individually, but as colleagues we have different ideas about workplace culture/professionalism

Lots of them have been there for years a X years and are just set in their ways

I went through a similar situation a few years ago. It was one of the most depressing experiences of my life. Reporting it to HR didn’t help. The toxic culture and behaviour was deep routed including some of the management.

My advice,
Focus on you are doing your job.
Keep up relationships with positive individuals in your workplace
Avoid and don’t comment on the toxic dynamics in the office
Do your job, but also don’t do more than is expected of you. If other colleagues leave things for you, explain you can’t pick up the slack as have a lot on yourself. That I would report to upline if it keeps happening.

Headfown, get a new job, fresh start and leave the negativity behind you.

Best of luck