I once worked at Channel 7. This was my experience.

Consideration. 

I often remind myself to consider certain decisions before I make them.

This was going to be a piece on how much I loved my time working at Channel Seven. How - more than a decade ago when I was there - leadership in the drama department fostered a culture that made me feel safe, valued, and respected. 

It was to be a piece that examined my later time working in communications, and the courtesy I was shown by the tens of Channel Seven journalists and producers in Sydney, Melbourne and in the Canberra press gallery that I professionally connected with. 

But thirty seconds consideration before putting pen to paper for this column changed all of that. 

Because the bigger issue isn’t how well I was treated within the four walls of Channel Seven's Eveleigh studios, or by anyone who had @seven.com.au at the end of their email, but that others who worked for the network were not treated well. 

Let me rephrase - that one person who worked for the network was not treated well. Because it should never have to be a group of people for there to be something wrong.

There is absolutely no question that a TV network is a high-pressure environment. I may have only worked in the Seven drama department and not the newsroom, but I have worked in a newsroom, in the city and in a country town, and seen it all close-up.  

High pressure creates stress and stress creates bad moments. I’m not exempt from that; across my professional journey there have been many times I haven’t been my best self; where I’ve spoken to someone or reacted to something in a way I shouldn’t have, reflected and recognised my poor behaviour, and apologised for it. 

I think if you were to say you haven’t had any bad moments in your workplace at some stage, then you’re lying. We’re human; cause and effect is a real thing, and our thoughts and emotions are hard to control sometimes. 

This helps us understand that those around us - be it at home, on the sports field or in the workplace, for example - experience bad moments too. And it helps us recognise how their unintended example of poor behaviour masks the goodness at their core. 

But a pattern of inappropriate behaviour is a long way different to one unintended occurrence, and going by several reports - including Monday’s episode of 4Corners - that’s what’s been occurring at Channel Seven. So much so the wider culture within the organisation has reportedly been harmful for some time.

I’m not on the inside and don’t have all of the facts, and, as I said, I’m no Mother Teresa, so I'm not going to take aim at individuals. But what I will say is that my support and empathy lies not with Channel Seven, but with those who have been mistreated.

Just as we have all had bad moments, I think it’s safe to say all of us have, at some point in our lives, been made to feel horrible because of someone else’s poor behaviour. Even on the lowest level - in the schoolyard as kids or in traffic as adults for example - we know how it feels, so it doesn’t take much to imagine how someone who has been discriminated against, disrespected, bullied, harassed, sexually harassed and/or victimised in the workplace must feel.

To hear on Monday night's report on the ABC that a number of current and former Seven employees were suicidal, and that one attempted taking her own life, was heartbreaking. I cried on the inside. I hope that every single one of them is able to find a place of peace and happiness, among an unlimited amount of love.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Australia has reached a pivotal point when it comes to unacceptable workplace behaviour.

Employees all over the country are being mistreated in the workplace, and it’s not just in corporate offices in the big smoke, it’s in retail, hospitality, hospitals, schools, farms and many more, in regional and rural Australia.

So how do we fix it? And where do we begin? One would normally start at the top, that is, if the top was setting the example. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would oversee a kinder Australia for all, including a parliament of greater integrity, but watch five minutes of Question Time tomorrow and you’ll see we're a long way from it.

If the behaviour of leaders at state level largely resembles that of their counterparts in Canberra, then where to next? How do we transition this nationwide company obsession of profit over people, where too many organisations value money and status metaphorically like they're the highest point of Everest, while valuing their employees - particularly female employees, or those at a lower or entry level - like they're at basecamp?

Education has long been an answer to many a problem, and it appears we are on the first steps of a new direction when it comes to educating young men in schools about what is and what isn't appropriate behaviour, particularly towards women.

Do we need to replicate this for older men as well? The countless media stories on this issue in the past twelve months alone would suggest so.

I don't pretend to have the answers. It's just something to consider.

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