You have an outsized sense of responsibility to your employer. Trust me - they give no fucks about you. That the environment has turned toxic is evidence that they give no fucks about anyone else, either. You have a big heart. If you feel uncomfortable saying mean stuff about coworkers, try to come up with something nice to say about coworkers. I had a supervisor who was somewhere on the autism spectrum. During times of stress he would verbally berate me; send me long emails about how much I suck, and make me do menial crap for no good reason. But I knew he was going to be my supervisor for the foreseeable future and I knew he was good at other parts of his job. Most importantly, he was the target of incessant griping by about five other people. They kept thinking they could gang up on him and get him fired. I knew (knew) that what they'd do is blow up the department, get a bunch of people fired, and cause everyone to lose their jobs. So I started sharing my perspective. I started pointing out that he was an "outdoor dog" - he was really good at some stuff, but he'd make the couch cushions muddy. I pointed out that he was doing stuff none of us wanted to do and that if we were gonna blow shit up, someone else would have to be that guy. Everyone you're griping about? They do something right and they have reasons for doing other things wrong. Find the humanity. Find the excuses. And make them. You're still gossiping, yeah, but you're no longer doing it solely to cut someone down.
Yeah. I'm gonna try real hard to be more positive, about everything, because I think if I'm being honest (and this doesn't excuse my behavior) my participating in gossip is due to feeling and trying to release myself from stress. I think it's pretty easy to say that the more frustrated I'm feeling at any particular moment, the easier it is to let my guard down.
I excuse your behavior. Somebody should. Look - you grunts are a team. You can either fractionate or coagulate. Either way it's a "team building exercise" it's just a matter of who's on the team. I'm willing to bet that you find saying positive stuff about coworkers when others are being negative gives you the energy you need to get through your day.