Like a family, eh? So let us see who from my office turns up and does my daily groceries, takes care of my kids and cleans my house if/when I am suffering from a sickness - doesn't even have to be a prolonged case, a few weeks would do. God forbid if it is prolonged - if the law of the land permits, the head of our "family" (a.k.a my boss) would, in varying levels of directness/corporate-speak, let me know what an "incredibly difficult decision" it has been to "part ways" before kicking me out of the firm. You know who are the people I can most expect to be actually there for me? My actual family.
I know that all the families are not same and there are instances where one finds colleagues who go to great lengths to support each other while the dysfunctional family actually weighs things down. But that is not the norm (atleast not in the culture I am from). So if people of a firm use terms like "family", they better back it up. Otherwise, just shut up and give each other the space that grown-ups deserve.
I'd do that for some of the people I've worked with. One of them offered to let me live with him for a couple of weeks, others I've helped move house, or offered to invest in their businesses.
The problem here is confusing the destination with the journey. I'm not loyal to them because top-down management told me they were family, I'm loyal to them because top-down management created an environment where I went to the pub with the same great people every couple of Fridays for years.
EDIT: They also know damn well what the difference is between things I want and things the company wants, and prioritise the former while ignoring the latter.
I’ve vacationed with coworkers, stood up in two coworker’s weddings, and I still keep in touch with a core group from a job I left almost a decade ago.
To your point, this was possible because work provided an environment to meet these people.
But for every person I’m friends with or still stay in touch with, there are 100 I do not. Ongoing friendship has nothing to do with work, and everything to do with the people I met there.
Same, but ironically the bonds I made with those people were sometimes due in part to our shared experience of working in a bad environment with horrible management.
Friendship seems very much a function of overall time shared together. School, work, sports, military, what else is there? ... even internet forums and email correspondence have netted me some long-term (IRL) friendships.
When people get busy with commuting, family, house upkeep, demanding jobs, and distance, new friendship is all but impossible. This is probably the #1 topic on r/AskMenOver30
> But for every person I’m friends with or still stay in touch with, there are 100 I do not
I hate my job which specifically exists because 2-5 people, founders, investors, eventually some manager, or some “owner” of socially valuable land or machinery, said this is the work they’ll pay for.
I’m not a family member or friend of people in a system like that. Since those people too kowtowed to doing a job for someone else, not finding work of value to their experience.
> Like a family, eh? So let us see who from my office turns up and does my daily groceries, takes care of my kids and cleans my house if/when I am suffering from a sickness - doesn't even have to be a prolonged case, a few weeks would do.
It's a simile/metaphor, not a literal statement.
When they say like a family they mean treating each other with kindness, friendship and compassion. They don't mean that everyone has to be around each others houses at Christmas.
Everyone should try to have a heart of gold to their other coworkers (To be clear, this is a metaphor and doesn't mean that you should replace your own heart with one manufactured from gold. It would be an unsuitable material to build an artificial heart from).
Yeah there is a word for treating eachother with friendship - "friends". Being friendly. This is already included in social skills.
The company saying they want to be family is super annoying to me. It's a JOB, not a personal relationship you choose yourself. Saying it's a family implies you should feel loyalty to the company, when in fact, it's a business relationship.
They are trying to blur the lines by saying family and its complete bullshit. I wouldn't even have a job if they didn't give me money for it, but I would have a family. See the crystal clear difference?
> They are trying to blur the lines by saying family and its complete bullshit.
Agreed. It's a psychological tactic to make their workers work harder. If your real family asked you to do a task that needed you to go out of your way to perform, you'd do it, because it's your family. Companies that try to push the 'we're like a family' angle are aiming to leverage you the same way.
No company does something for nothing. If your employer offers you something unexpected, always ask yourself, what's in it for them ?
Your last statement is a bit unfair, as it implies that their goals are necessarily non-altruistic. Often, what’s in it for them is increased employee happiness which leads to, yes, increased employee retention. That’s a win-win, and not evil.
> I wouldn't even have a job if they didn't give me money for it, but I would have a family. See the crystal clear difference?
Yes, crystal clear, but this is the difference between taking it literally and its intended use as a metaphor.
Just as "his words cut deep as a knife" doesn't mean that the words were literally as damaging as being stabbed, and "They are walking a real tightrope in that meeting" doesn't mean someone could literally fall and die, "we are like a family" doesn't mean you are making a life-long commitment to the organisation which would continue without pay.
And sure, you could say 'friends' instead, but then maybe someone else taking your statement too literally would say "well I don't want to be friends with everyone, I just work 9-5 and don't really like the lady in the accounts department because she is rude". "Well", you might say, "tough - get along with them and treat them with respect. You might not like them, but you have to learn to tolerate each other and still be kind as you can't pick who you work with" (almost like a family?).
You're leaning really, really hard into your claim that everyone is just overreacting to the simile/metaphor aspect of it. And going out of your way to provide example after belabored example of how metaphors shouldn't be taken literally.
None of what you described requires being in a family to accomplish. When I run into people at work that rub me the wrong way, I put on a professional face and treat them with respect as much as the situation warrants to get our job done. You could almost describe it as a ... relationship between co-workers.
OK, so what if you don't want to be friends with your boss / co-workers. But have excellent work performance. Should this hold you back from promotion?
I forget where, but there's an actual psychological research outcome which says - we're kinder to strangers.
As for family, we're sure kind but we're frank, open, honest and unafraid of a retaliation or revenge of too.
This usage of "family" metaphor is a BIG and dishonest abuse of the concept IMHO.
It's work, it might be boring, tiring, has to be done with utmost perfection, precision and professionalism with professional coordination of others possibly, in a group of people.
It is a thing in its own right and needs no metaphors.
> I’m polite and respectful to most strangers I meet. Just like I am to many of my colleagues, who are effectively strangers to me.
Well, I'm extremely happy to have a job where colleagues help each other out. Put less weight on a colleague who just went through something tough such as a long term break up or loss of a loved one by taking over tasks of her, letting someone who called ill take their time to get better instead of harassing them. Simple things which are common sense. Simple things you also do for your loved ones.
Not every employer is like this, heck not every team(manager) is like this (teams in same company differing).
There's a simple word for the opposite, a word I'm not a fan of, but it is there: toxic. Or: short-term benefits instead of long-term benefits. Or, my favorite: dumb egoism instead of smart egoism. Because, in the end, the family way is just that. A smart version of egoism, focused on long-term survival.
The title of OP, seems someone who's worn down by the short-term egoism they experienced. Except, when reading the article, its not like that (it could've been). I know from myself, with my autism, I don't like certain team activities. But that does not mean I e.g. don't like (the) people. Its just that sometimes I prefer to be (left) alone. I made that very clear when I joined, and I've been open about my autism. My family knows this, too. I had to be alone for a while yesterday during a wedding. No problem.
>When they say like a family they mean treating each other with kindness, friendship and compassion
Not everyone's experience and understanding of family follows that idea though. Some families treat each ruthlessly and expect all members to just deal with it and remain loyal.
> When they say like a family they mean treating each other with kindness, friendship and compassion. They don't mean that everyone has to be around each others houses at Christmas.
More like, 'You should be willing to put in more time at work, and put up with "our little quirks"'
> Everyone should try to have a heart of gold to their other coworkers
But the company as an entity cannot and will not. It exists in the harsh environment of capitalist competition, and must often jettison "kindness, friendship and compassion" in how its human resources are treated.
Individuals within a company can strive against its nature, but only up to a point before it either resists or perishes.
Counterpoint: companies such as Costco or In-N-Out pay well above their respective industry averages, with excellent relative benefits, and yet are thriving.
That's only a counterpoint if you're suggesting that they're paying higher wages than average out of compassion, rather than because they've found it more profitable than the alternatives.
The other big difference is in a family, with rare exceptions, no matter how poorly you do, you don’t get fired or sacked.
And, they also tolerate a lot more meanness and uncouthness than a company. You don’t get fired for not following an employee handbook or code of conduct. In a family you get away with a lot.
At work a minor transgression will get most non top managers fired due to lots of reasons but mostly liability and fragility from other “family” (colleagues).
Your analogy seems to be comparing the employee/employer relationship to a marriage rather than a family. If the employer is the parents of the family (more power/control/etc.) and the employees are children...
Anyways, using the "we're family" idea in a company is bad because everyone's familial history and experience is different. For some "we're family" means regardless of how abusive the parents are, the children are to always submit, stay, and support them. For some, "we're family" means we don't tolerate laziness and lack of getting chores done and there are consequences for such. In other families that laziness is just tolerated.
If a company wants to "be family" they better make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what that means or dig into the familial history and experience of all hires (I wouldn't recommend this).
The better analogy for a company is "we're a team". People typically have a better understanding of how teams work.
Yes, legal families can do that but most of the time it’s triggered by extreme cases. Blood families expel you much less often.
But this reminds me of the owner of Ritual coffee who had to “ban” and fire her husband from her shop because someone upset at where he parked (to do work for his wife) called him the “N-word”. And he enraged asked, did you just call me “n-word?”
So it wasn’t his doing, but a perp, but answering the perp in kind got him blacklisted by the “community[1] and professionally by his own wife.
[1]meaning busybodies who likely never patronized them store but felt they had to show their virtue. Never did they go after the instigator though. No, it was the guy defending himself.
I remember (can't find it anymore) a company whose CEO specifically hired people for life, considering them to be part of the family and as you wouldn't fire your sibling or child, they would not fire someone if they were to have prolonged issues. Rather, they'd try and help them for as long as it takes.
It created a completely different dynamic in the company where no one feared for their jobs if they had issues.
I would go so far as to say any place that says 'we are family here' is actively trying to screw you.
Every place I've heard this was a place with no wriggle room on anything- late 3x? Fired. Kid hurt and you need to duck out your shift? Fired. Need that weekend off for a funeral? Better have a death certificate or fired.
They claim they are a family when it suits them only. I've had places spew that rhetoric all through training and once you hit the floor its surprised pikachu.
I actually bought into it when I worked with HEB in South Texas as a night stocker. Until the lies started to show (no, your scheduled hours don't matter, you are off when the last pallet is stocked, no you are part-time now even though you were hired full-time since you're a hard worker and we need you to cover the shifts of the kids who call out every Friday/Saturday, no you can't change departments we need you, no you won't have to work frozen- except you will, without the pay bonus etc ad infinitum).
The only way in which these places are like families is in that they are destructive, lying, backstabbing, political cesspools. I assume there are some families like that. Not what I imagine a family to be like however.
>> the head of our "family" (a.k.a my boss) would, in varying levels of directness/corporate-speak, let me know what an "incredibly difficult decision" it has been to "part ways" before kicking me out of the firm
The head of my family kicked me out of the house when I was 19. I'm sure it was a mildly difficult decision, and of course the correct one. But at least no boss that I've worked for has ever sold my first edition Dungeons & Dragons manuals at a fucking garage sale.
> But at least no boss that I've worked for has ever sold my first edition Dungeons & Dragons manuals at a fucking garage sale.
I expect that’s due to lack of opportunity rather than any superiority. I think if I left or got fired from a job and left behind D&D manuals, the company would definitely sell or surplus them.
> You know who are the people I can most expect to be actually there for me? My actual family.
I always phrase this as "you don't fire your brother because he's an idiot." Yes, in a severely dysfunctional family, there are valid reasons to cut ties with people, but, for the most part, this is both a true statement, and gets the right sentiment across.
What you talking about is service working. Family is not about someone doing your chores for you. It is about trust and support.
I am not a big fan of calling a job "family", but I prefer having a good trustful and supporting relationship with my coworkers, including being mentored by my boss and mentoring my subordinates. But of course ones talking about family should put their effort and company's money where their mouths are.
Social networks and Facebook in particular are deteriorated term "friend". For me people I can get "don't worry, everything will be fine" type of support are pals, not friends. Gotta try to figure out the difference between real friends and family, but sounds like they are mostly the same, except we may loosen contact with friends, but remain in tight with family.
I'd absolutely make sacrifices for friends and vice versa. Much more so than any relative that is not my direct family with whom I don't have any relationship beyond happening to be somewhat close on a family tree.
It just seems, that the word friendship has been watered down a lot.
Support comes in many shapes. Sometimes it is about sitting together and sharing things. Sometimes, when you can't get up from the bed, someone helping with unavoidable chores speaks louder than words.
family is the wrong term. you only have one family, that is yours at home. the term “family” correlates with a lot of unconditional things you’ll have to do. for your family you’ll just do it but at work, you shouldn’t have a bad conscience just because you leave before work is done or your real family calls
Don't buy the corporate bs, it is all a scheme to increase productivity using tribal psychology: teams, cliques, bro culture, group identify, "us vs. them", etc.
In short, they are using your upbringing/human nature to their advantage. Remote woke some into this reality/facade.
Let’s be honest here. Would your third cousin do all of that for you? No, ok, so let’s not pretend all family equates to yourLoving SO, siblings or parents level of impact on your life. There are people with family who abused them in their childhood, with family members who are objectively terrible people. There are brothers and sisters who hate each other with a passion but still both show up to their cousins wedding and act nicely.
Family only means that there is a bond between you that cannot be ignored independent of what you think of the people. And that being the case these are people you try to make the best of the relationships with because you know they’ll show up in you life no matter if you like it or not.
The comparison with co-workers is quite on point.
If you want space from your co-workers quit. Because no matter how long and technically complex your education is, no matter if you are a wold leading expert in a narrow field, getting along with people is a core competence for anyone who doesn’t either run their own one-man gig, or work in dark basement of an organization where everyone has given up on communicating through any other means than email.
> Would your third cousin do all of that for you? No, ok, so let’s not pretend all family equates to yourLoving SO, siblings or parents level of impact on your life.
Interesting that you brought up third cousin. My second cousin actually has helped me a lot - we didn't grow-up together or something, connected quite late in life due to family being spread out but he has turned out to be a very reliable person. But he is not my third cousin so maybe your point stands.
So taking that further, what level should my co-workers be at? Should I treat them as I do my third cousins? I'm not in touch with most of them - should that be ok to do in office place too?
> There are people with family who abused them in their childhood, with family members who are objectively terrible people.
I already mentioned in my original comment that yes, there are dysfunctional families too that are a negative impact. I know its not all peachy out there.
> If you want space from your co-workers quit. Because no matter how long and technically complex your education is, no matter if you are a wold leading expert in a narrow field, getting along with people is a core competence for anyone who doesn’t either run their own one-man gig, or work in dark basement of an organization where everyone has given up on communicating through any other means than email.
I never said that getting along with people was not a core competence - that would be a dumb position to take. However, becoming bosom buddies shouldn't be a core competence either. My expectation, to borrow from your wedding metaphor, is simply that it should be sufficient for me to show up to our collective office, do our job, act nicely AND fuck-off at the end of the day without having to deal with demands that only a family (and I mean the ones that can be reasonably expected to make them) should make. Because, well, we work for a corporation - we are not family.
Or old stock rural Americans. There are plenty of towns in the USA that have extremely high social cohesion, because there are so many kinship networks going back centuries.
Keeping in contact with your extended family is normal human behavior. This hyper-focus on the "nuclear" family and the "individual" to the expense of broader ties is what's unnatural and ultimately, if fertility numbers in the societies that adopted that outlook hold steady, unsustainable.
I work at a big corporate and we use a national workplace survey that asks if you have a best friend at the office. It’s one of the measures or organization health.
I see the survey results across a pretty big portion of the organization so I understand my answer is one of the lonely few. I always answer ‘no’ because I really don’t have a best friend at work.
A best friend is someone you like, enjoy loads of spending time with and maybe most importantly can trust with just about anything. It happens that I don’t really have true friends at work but I have people I care for and would be there for if they needed. That doesn’t make us friends, it makes us decent people.
I try to keep a healthy level of separation between work life and home life. I don’t want to know office gossip because I want to be able to continue looking at my colleagues as professionals. I also want the diversification that should I ever leave the company my whole life won’t be blown up because it was attached to the company.
I used to think the same thing but then I joined a team where there were lots of like minded folks of the same age and it turns out it is possible. There are multiple folks on my team that I’d hang out with on my off time although some of the ones I actually hung out a lot with have moved on recently.
It’s worth noting that it took a few years to integrate into the team which is longer than most folks stay at any job
This certainly works if the workers are independent contractors and they are free to do different businesses together. When it comes to actual employment, that is a completely different dynamic. Many employees have to play being friends in fear of otherwise being perceived as difficult or unlikeable. You will never know if other employees hang out with you because they genuinely want to.
> I have people I care for and would be there for if they needed
That’s my personal definition of friend, as long as it’s mutual :) The level of intimacy may vary, but if the “being there when needed” component is there then I regard a person as a friend.
I went through a couple of really hard life events during the pandemic, which was already hard enough. It was bitter to find out that some friends weren’t really friends. On the other hand, some people I only regarded as acquaintances turned out to be friends.
>Your company wants the opposite of this. Leaving both your job and your family is a lot tougher than only leaving your job.
Boss here. Please have a life outside of work. Get some hobbies, side projects, and friends. It makes you more emotionally stable and secure when upper leadership makes decisions that you think are wack.
Also, making it difficult to leave actually decreases moral. Consider: your boss is abusive, but you can't quit because you can't afford a lower paying job - moral tanks.
The only way I can explain this is that by "best friend at the office" the survey means office buddy. I don't think a lot of people have actual, true friends at their workplace.
I also had a lot of friends in college who I haven't seen since we graduated and went our separate ways. Life intervenes to end friendships all the time but it doesn't mean that we weren't friends to begin with.
I don’t think that makes them not friends. A certain kind of friend perhaps, but still a friend. I have coworkers with whom I got along very well and then lost touch after one or the other of us moved along. But then we reconnect at conferences or new jobs and are glad to see each other and remember old war stories or to work together again.
This is very much my experience. I have a friend at the office, we had lunch together almost every day, but since WFH started in March 2020 I have barely spoken to him, just a very occasional email. I have physically seen him once. I have also never kept in touch with anyone I worked with at a former employer.
I spent 17 years at a 70k+ tech megacorp. As a product manager for global cross functional teams, I interacted closely with >1000 people across all spectrums. Not once did I encounter an employee who regularly interacted with another outside of work related functions.
I have worked cross-functionally a lot as well, and I'm baffled how you would make such a matter-of-fact statement. How would you even know? If I do hang out with colleagues outside of work, I will generally not be talking about it as there's lots of potential for weird perceptions of favoritism or cliqueyness.
You are right. I should have included the clause "that I was aware of." Considering that I spent a lot of time with many different groups of co-workers (including quasi-social activities), I would guess that I would have noticed a hint of non-work related friendship activities in some large % of those that I was interacting with.
I should also note that this was a buyer of startups rather than an actual startup (no matter how much they gave lip-service to the idea that we were supposed to act like "a startup within a megacorp.")
> Not once did I encounter an employee who regularly interacted with another outside of work related functions.
No offense to you but statistically 40% of people have dated a coworker at least once and people hold on average 12 jobs in their life so if you interacted with 1000 persons there is a good chance that at least 30 of them were definitely interacting with a coworker outside of work related function.
I've answered those sorts of surveys before and fwiw I always interpreted that question differently. It's not "is YOUR best friend a coworker" but instead "do you have A best friend at work" which should be true of anyone who has at least one friend at work (using friend in a fairly loose sense). I can't say I've ever had a long-lasting friendship with a co-worker but at every job I've ever had I had people I worked with that I considered friends. Even if you don't do stuff outside of work together you still spend more time with your coworkers than almost anyone else. And if you develop a relationship with your teammates where you can speak to each other frankly and trust one another's good intentions then that makes for an infinitely better work environment even if you don't generally discuss personal matters. Whether or not that counts as "friendship" is a matter of semantics but I think it is the sort of relationship that the question is asking about.
I actually do have a best friend at work! And to that very survey I answered yes! I regularly go out with some of my colleagues… go on trips during the weekends or even go on weeks long vacations!
The workplace described in the article absolutely sounds like a hostile environment. The asker’s bosses are using “family” as an excuse to justify working longer hours. Families don’t do that.
That said: Personally, I do want my coworkers and I to be something akin to a family. If I’m going to spend around a third of my life working, I want to do it with a group of people I like and care about.
Families absolutely do that, and this was and is normalised in various contexts e.g. farm families, or older (and now fundie) families where the oldest are tasked with caring for the youngest.
Lots of families are absolute shit, in a way which exactly matches the article:
> Recently, however, a friend in my department was told she would not receive a promotion because she is not a “team player.” When pressed, HR and her supervisor mentioned her absence from department-bonding activities.
Not being there for a family reunion / holiday / birthday leading to long-term grudges with emotional and financial consequences? Yep. It doesn't take much (or many) for family politics to be worse than office politics, with devastating consequences to some.
In hindsight, I wish I'd written "good families don't do that," but I meant it in the same sense as "families love each other" or "families look out for one another." Of course, there are many families that hate each other's guts, but when someone says their team is "like a family," they're not talking about those types of families.
I'm currently in a situation where I consider quitting after almost 8 years working with really good people. But the company itself has some structural problems that we, as a small team, cannot change (as in "upper management doesn't see the problem"). And I have enough of this. As I don't have many people around me outside work, I feel hesitant to "leave my family behind".
If you have strong connections with the people and you are leaving for reasons they can understand and respect, there's no reason to equate leaving the company with leaving the family. It's more like moving out of your parent's house - you won't see them as much, and it'll become more of an effort to maintain your relationships, but all that history is still there.
I have also worked a companies where this "reassembly" of former coworkers(more than 2) emerges at a new company. While I understand this might be seen as a good source of recruiting I think it can be potentially concerning that they're brining their old culture, allegiances and patterns into the new workplace. I would be curious to hear if people view this as a red flag.
However, I don't think anybody would even try to bring anything from the old job if it's not worth it (technically/professionally) Nd valid in general.
True in terms of salary. But that misses the huge time cost of recruitment (time writing job specs, screening, interviewing + 3 months or so of lower productivity) when often retention could be improved with zero / low cost culture changes.
As a mid-level manager I do wish people would inform my of any problems before they sign with some other workplace instead of after. I can't fix issues I don't hear about
Most of the time these things fall on deaf ears, are met with empty promises, or middle management isn’t in a position to change what needs to be changed.
I left both of my last jobs for these reasons. It became a waste of time to go voice these concerns when my time would be better spent looking for a new job.
Another manager here; you also can't fix most issues you do hear about. You can sometimes prevent the problem from forming in the first place, but it's not on "people to inform you" of them. Your entire job is trying to catch the few issues you can address early and doing your best to shield your team from the rest of them.
Personally, a lot of my experience is that my manager knows and understands the issue and is doing their best, but at some point there's only so much "managing up" they can do to prevent larger dysfunction in the org from effecting the team.
I had a discussion with my manager about this the other week and they asked me to let them know if I was considering other work so that they could try to fix it - my response was that I didn't think that would help. By the time I'm considering another job it's _because_ I no longer think my manager can or will do anything to fix the issues I have.
People generally don't leave companies when they feel like their manager would have been able to solve their issues with the company.
I can't read minds. I need people to tell me what works and what doesn't for them. An employment is a continuous transaction, if the situation changes it is absolutely open to re-negotiation. It's on both the employer, the direct manager and the employee to make sure everybody is happy with the arrangement.
And the two times I did hear about problem before the new contract was signed, I was able to find a solution. In the other case there is not much I can do.
My problem was the mid-level managers ha. As it has been in a previous employer as well actually.
One problem I've noticed is the sort of person who wants to apply for management roles is often the exact sort of person who should never be given that role.
Your situation is is very similar to how mine was. I recently changed jobs after being on the same team for almost a decade.
It's honestly a bit rough having to rebuild relationships. I'm working in completely new technologies, which is one of the reasons I decided to move, but it's kind of difficult to go from a place of 100% trust of your peers to uncertainty about how they perceive you.
I've still been seeing some of my old team on weekends.
> I've still been seeing some of my old team on weekends.
I think this is the key to it right here. The ones you chose not to leave behind were friends, not peers. After almost a decade, they probably are more family than friend. The rest of them though? Not even close.
> If I’m going to spend around a third of my life working, I want to do it with a group of people I like and care about.
I strongly agree with this sentiment. Above a certain wage-threshold, this is much more important to me than additional remuneration. I do some of my best work when I'm working with a good team with a high degree of trust, which is much easier to come by when I like the people on the team. The current state of semi-permanent WFH has had a negative impact on this.
Huh, it's been exactly the opposite for me. Whereas before I could glance around the office, see who didn't have headphones on, and initiate a quick discussion when appropriate, I now need to actually schedule a Zoom meeting on the calendar.
(This isn't a blanket argument against work from home—people have different prioritizes.)
Judging from other comments this will be an unpopular opinion, but the work environment doesn't seem hostile to me.
Their biggest issue seems to be that they, and their co-worker, didn't get promotions:
> I am currently far exceeding my “assistant” job description and am also seeking a title/compensation change to reflect the project manager role I’m now performing.
> a friend in my department was told she would not receive a promotion because she is not a “team player.” When pressed, HR and her supervisor mentioned her absence from department-bonding activities.
However i'm not sure that they are indicating the right behaviours for a promotion in their message.
1) They seem to think they should get a promotion without taking part in 'department-bonding activities', however taking part in these 'department-bonding activities' is ultimately part of being a manager in lots of companies (where your job becomes more about setting culture, building relationships and demonstrating the right behaviours).
2) They want a promotion, but are "resolutely firm on never working lunches or doing things outside of work hours". IMO Project Managers in lots of companies can't always have as firm boundaries about work and life as an assistant can, and there is an expectation that if things need to be done, they will stay late and work lunches to get stuff done when it needs to be done. That comes with the pay-packet unfortunately.
3) They think they should get a promotion, but describe the fact that they are seen frantically trying to get everything done in their current role, and tell people there is not enough time to join in on the company team-building activities which they appear to roll their eyes at - however the actual behaviour people should put on if they want to become promoted is to be like a 'swan' - i.e. rather than being seen to be busy and barely keeping up with your work, you are seen as gliding through your workload calmly while kicking vigorously under the water level, and still attending the social events despite having lots of work on because you are able to balance everything.
So it sounds like "I want to get a promotion, however I don't want to do the part of the role that involves taking part in relationship-building activities (other than sending a few instant messages), and won't accept being flexible with my hours or even having a working lunch if we are in the shit".
Depends on the job - I only have experience in the UK working as a Project Manager, but all Project Manager roles i've had don't have overtime and the expectation is that you work the hours you need to get the job done. You get paid a decent salary, which effectively prices-in this expectation.
Overtime doesn't really incentivise good behaviour for project managers anyway, because some people like overtime as you get more pay, but the more effectively you manage the projects you have the less opportunity there will be to get overtime pay (i.e. worse project managers get more hours and more pay).
> If she is doing good job at 9-5, she should get a promotion.
People don't usually get promotions for doing well in their current role - they usually get a promotion if they are ready & suitable for the next role, and are willing to take on the additional responsibility and accountability that comes with it.
> And it is kind of risky. Some colleague may feel harassed, or disagree with some personal views. Good way to get fired!
Being able to build relationships with team-members without them feeling harassed is a pretty key skill for managers, and part of this is understanding what personal views to share and which to leave at the door.
If you can't build an effective relationship without your team members feeling harassed, you aren't going to be a good manager.
This is a charity and they are notorious as bad employers / workplaces.
Its also not clear if the Job is a real professional salaried job or not - from some of the attitude I suspect its actually more of an admin blue collar role.
And from how the person "presents" I suspect they would not be a good manager
yeah i dont get this woman. she wanna move higher up the ladder, but refusing to do "extra work" and excercising her presence in the company. how does she think she would function with the extra responsibilities?
> That said: Personally, I do want my coworkers and I to be something akin to a family. If I’m going to spend around a third of my life working, I want to do it with a group of people I like and care about.
I find that admirable, but having gone through a number of different workplaces in the last 6 years, also very naive.
Out of the hundreds of colleagues I had, I would voluntarily choose to talk to maybe 3 of them.
I don't think I find 97% of people I encounter in general disagreeable, in my experience Software Engineering just has loads and loads of "that guy"s. You know, the ones you try to avoid at parties. Except that's most of them, so you don't show up to the parties in the first place.
If I had gone through a number of workplaces in six years, interacted with hundreds of people and potentially liked no more than three, I would probably sit down and do some introspection.
I didn't say I didn't like them. I could work together with a vast majority of them just fine. Only handful of them were actively people I would not look forward to being in a meeting with, for example.
But that doesn't mean I would invite most of them over for a beer, talk about politics, and still expect to have a good time.
>>that doesn't mean I would invite most of them over for a beer, talk about politics, and still expect to have a good time.
The question is why? Because they would disagree with you? They would challenge your beliefs?
I am finding that more and more. People want agreement and echo chambers, not debates and arguments.
I love arguing politics, hell sometimes I will take a contrarian position just to have the contrarian position not because I believe / support it.
Debate and augmentation is how with strength our principles, our worldview, and solidify our beliefs as we age. As a society (in the US at least) we seem to be losing the ability to sit down with people that have different politics, have a heated debate/conversation, but then still walk away as friends or colleagues. that is very bad for society over all
> The question is why? Because they would disagree with you? They would challenge your beliefs?
No and no.
Because I couldn't get a word in edgewise. And they can shout louder than me, and for longer. I have been in that meeting at work before, and I have left with a headache, and they with a sense that "they've won".
Imagine trying to have a beer with Piers Morgan, or a member of the Westboro Baptist Church.
Sure, it might be productive. But it wouldn't be fun, and I feel that was the premise - I don't think the idea of a "family-like atmosphere at work" was to imply "everybody hates each others guts, but still has to get along somehow".
>> would probably sit down and do some introspection.
What now? Not in the modern era. No one take personal responsibility for anything, everyone else must conform to their worldview, their opinions, their lifestyle... Period no discussion.
Nothing is wrong with them, everyone else is the problem
That's quite harsh. Empathy and social bonding is normal and healthy.
Yes, there are a lot of hypercompetitive working environments that train workers to see each other as contenders and encourage cynicism. It also depends on country you are it.
But please don't assume it's the norm across all organizations (companies, no-profits, academia...).
I also wasn't trying to hint at competitive workplaces at all. In my experience, the far more prevalent workspace atmosphere is "just let me do my job, I just need to show up for 40h a week to pay the rent and feed my wife and kids".
And that's fine! But that also doesn't lead to a familial work environment.
> I don't think I find 97% of people I encounter in general disagreeable, in my experience Software Engineering just has loads and loads of "that guy"’s. You know, the ones you try to avoid at parties. Except that's most of them, so you don't show up to the parties in the first place.
I should probably mention here that I'm not a professional software developer.
I could have become one. I've always liked coding and working with computers—it's why I'm hanging out on Hacker News—and a lot of people in my life encouraged me to pursue that as a career. But I resisted, and if I'm completely honest with myself, it's because I didn't see programmers as the type of people I wanted to work with.
Talking about this—even thinking about it—feels kind of ugly, because I know I'm stereotyping! And, there are plenty of programmers who I consider wonderful people, some of whom I'm even lucky enough to count as friends! But on average, across the broader population of people who pursue software engineering, I do think there's a lot of truth to the stereotype.
(I currently work at a small graphic design agency, as a sort of bridge between the design and development teams. I'm eventually planning to get a masters in elementary education.)
It’s not naive. I’ve found a place where I genuinely like and care for my coworkers. From personal experience, it is definitely worth the effort of looking for such a job.
It's probably related to the fact that parent "has gone through a number of different workplaces in the last 6 years". I have been working at the same place for the last 9 years, it's much easier to build a "family" that way. Also the company was tiny when I joined, which helped.
Of course it does come with some downsides, like the fact that it's tougher when someone leaves. That's life I guess :)
(Maybe I should have clarified that I was employed at a contractor for a while - so I jumped to a new "workplace" for every ~3-month project. I know that technically, that might not be considered a change of workplace, but for me, it meant a complete change in the colleagues I worked with on a daily basis.)
I agree with you, it definitely counts as a change for me too. I don't think contracting is ideal to find a "family" like atmosphere because such places are probably reluctant to use contractors (there are other benefits of contracting of course).
I too found such a company. They are a bit rarer. Lots of companies just don’t know how to manage people. You think with the thousands of management trainings that it would be so, but alas.
A good company makes you happy, isn’t a perpetual stress fest and makes good money as well.
I actually like the workplace for the 97% of people with who I won't naturally talk to.
They may not share all your hobbies and opinions but they are usually smart people. Like you, they landed the job and they are still there after all. They all have their own, rich world that you may not realize exist because they are not invited at your parties (and you aren't invited at theirs). If you keep an open mind 97% of people are interesting not 3%.
The good thing about workplace "families" is that there is still some distance. You can have a look into their world but you don't have to be part of it if you don't want to. And you don't sleep under the same roof, don't share the chores, etc...
I do try and keep an open mind :). And 3% was perhaps the low end of the scale I could have estimated.
On the other hand, I do think you overestimate the skill of employees in general. Just ask around how many of your colleagues think they could pass the job interview for their current position right now - that percentage is generally pretty low (especially at places like Google, where interview training is basically a full-time job).
Quite often, people that "are still there" are simply still there because they have made themselves indispensable, e.g. they write working software, but no other person can understand their code. Firing someone like that is a business risk - not firing someone like that isn't (immediately).
In the last 10 years i switched jobs 2 times and i still have contact to most of my ex-coworkers. I wouldn’t take a job if i dislike most of my coworkers.
And I totally agree. I have had to quit job interviews simply because both sides agreed that while we could work together, we probably would both just have a bad time.
But then I've also worked jobs where in 2020, employees still referred to things they thought were bad as "gay", so that's that.
I kinda want to congratulate you on never encountering the sort of person you immediate and strongly dislike within 10 minutes of meeting them for the first time.
I know everyone has an off day some time, but I literally had job interview video calls before where my prospective boss asked me questions, then interrupted my answers 10 words in, for 20 minutes straight.
There are definitely such people that I've disliked within 10 minutes of meeting them, but they were extremely rare and they were total strangers who were usually freaking out in public over something trivial (not necessarily related to me)
I've never encountered such people in my professional life (thankfully).
> video calls before where my prospective boss asked me questions, then interrupted my answers 10 words in, for 20 minutes straight.
Yes, that might do it. I wonder how others tolerate them.
Why should there be much of a difference? We do not choose our family (except, perhaps, one person), nor do we usually choose our coworkers. (Hell, we actually have more freedom there, if you take the choice of a workplace into account.)
Maybe you’re both right? They’ve found a team made entirely of people from that small population of potential co-workers with whom they’d form genuine friendships, and are reluctant to trade down to one composed of more so-called “that guy”s.
> Out of the hundreds of colleagues I had, I would voluntarily choose to talk to maybe 3 of them. [...] in my experience Software Engineering just has loads and loads of "that guy"s. You know, the ones you try to avoid at parties.
I absolutely understand what you mean! And I certainly think 'family' is an absurd way of thinking of work relationships.
But if you were applying for a promotion, to become the leader of a small team of programmers, can you see how your reluctance to talk to your direct reports would make you unsuitable for the role?
I personally find that there is a huge difference between talking to a coworker about their hobbies, or their last pull request.
Talking about the job at hand is never an issue. But it's also best to leave it at that to keep the work environment constructive, and not e.g. split a team among party lines.
(In my experience, we are now also talking about a purely hypothetical scenario. At the workplace I spent most of my career, team leads were generally hired externally, or promoted based on nepotism and "company loyalty" [read: years spent working at the company] rather than skill)
This touches on something very difficult when it comes to families: if you are lucky you end up with one that gives you a happy childhood. If you're super lucky that same family turn out to be the most supportive and fun people in you adult life. Most people simply aren't that super lucky, mostly because it actually requires lots and lots of conscience work across generations.
Your comment made me think how alike a 'normal' family and a 'normal' workplace really are.
Siblings (departments) compete for love (attention) from the parents (senior management). Hold a grude that they were not the favourite child (employee) and they had to make it all on their own unlike their little sister (new employee / product / competing department) who had it easy and had all the support (resources / marketplace) and help from their parents (management).
One christmas (bonus round) my brother (colleague) got the toy (a big bonus) he really wanted, and I just got a skateboard (a bonus that is the same size but I am certain is less than the other guy got). My parents (boss) obvioulsy doesnt love me (value my contribution) as much as them.
Maybe "like friends" is a better goal? People who will go out of their way for you and want you to succeed, but where there's still shared expectations of how you behave and interact.
I worked for several companies like this early in my career. Every seemingly healthy job eventually became awkward and toxic.
Nowadays I work for a consulting firm. There are several cons to being a consultant, but one of my favourite things about this scheme is that employees only care about my work.
To these people I'm the "X technology guy" who's there to take care of some projects. To my actual employer I'm the "X technology guy" they meet once in a while to discuss project progress.
I find that I'm respected as a professional now, people value my work and seek me out for professional reasons instead of going for a beer after work. I clock in, get things done, and clock out. That's it.
Team building exercises and helping others with their projects is hardly what makes co-workers "family". I've worked full time for my company for 38 years. I've helped people with their homework to get through school, celebrated marriages, babysat, visited them in the hospital, celebrated holidays, supported them through cancer, looked after their house while they were away, hired their kids, threw retirement parties, and unfortunately attended seven funerals. That's when co-workers become family. I don't think it's very common in companies any longer.
Of the problems the advice-seeker’s company has, odds are that simply being a non-profit is the root cause. My wife has worked for several (large and small), and it is distressing how many of them are run as almost anti-profits, resistant to common good business practices out of some weird misunderstanding of what “non-profit” means. It’s been depressing watching so much money and good intentions wasted at these places on boondoggles; I’m not saying that all for-profit businesses are perfect by any means but they at least understand that obviously losing money is generally bad, whereas she’s seen even some quite well-known non-profits be actively resistant to things like trying analyze and optimize the impact of the money they spend. This atmosphere has then given rise to all kinds of weird second-order effects. Unfortunately, that may be the only place they feel they can work on their passion issue, but if not, getting out entirely is their best bet.
People would love to do that much more in for-profits too, it's just that reality kicks in faster. As a director or VP or [insert role] your influence is primarily counted in the number of people that report to you, and only then in the actual output that they deliver. It has always been the case and probably always will be.
Reed Hastings (CEO) has the view I like. Companies should be like professional sports team. If you don’t perform, you get cut.
The problem with the “family” analogy is that it implies unconditional love even when someone repeatedly fails. Or having that family member who’s a free loader and it’s ok.
Work should be about performing your best to achieve a collective goal and the sports analogy provides just that.
Sports team always sounds brutal and unforgiving to me.
Having worked in a all-love-and-kindness-and-forgiveness German corporation and now in a young company with a lot of ambition, but definitely a sports team vibe I’d admit the latter yields more results, but they definitely come with a lot more stress in your life.
> Sports team always sounds brutal and unforgiving to me.
Good. Life is brutal and unforgiving. This modern cushy plush lifestyle that many of us enjoy is unnatural. A little toughening up and suffering is long overdue. A lot of it, for many people in the world.
This is the big difference. People pick up on this nonsense quite fast. I don’t mind companies being cold in their layoffs, but don’t pretend you are a warm/friendly company when you aren’t. If you what you are as a company is different from what you say, you create a big rift. Companies can go down just by that attitude (seen it happen a couple of times)
Ironically the one person that leant the most on the 'family' is the last person standing, having personally seen off the entire group one by one over a 12 month period of time. It turns out the old timer who 'doesnt need the money anymore' will chuck plenty of young peoples careers under the bus to keep on getting paid.
That said I dont regret jumping on a plane with them at 10 minutes notice and flying across the country to help get them home when their kid died suddenly.
I always considered the team I was in, in Singapore a 'family'. By family we would always help each other out, and work together to ensure the team's projects finished and there was never bad blood between any of the co-workers, /try/ to go to lunch together (due to religion / diet restrictions we would often change lunch up to cater for everyone)
But it was never about working late (which i actively discouraged, to the point i yelled at the guy who sat across from me one evening because he kept staying late, and he had a family with 2 kids at home). We worked together, succeeded together, failed together. Never threw anyone under the bus, took responsibility together.
Our team was super productive, delivered a lot of good work, rarely ever caused production issues as the features were well tested... compared to the other teams. Knew the domain and the code really well. Then covid hit and management decimated the team overnight. I was absolutely gutted, made me so sick to my stomach I couldn't work for a week.
Co-workers being a 'family' in a business will never work with upper management being included.
We have a company wide meeting every other week literally called the "family meeting". My team members are so different from each that there is generally zero chit chat on slack, all day, every day - required questions/answers only. Family? This is just HR trying to show their worth with their latest simpleton ideas, just as the tech side has silly ideas like scrum, etc. We've recently started getting company wide emails with a big "Kudos" banner when somebody you don't know has done something that means nothing to you. Because we're a tight-knit family. Is this combo cargo culting meets gaslighting? You will be family - look into my eyes - you will be family. It's somewhat patronising, and I'm not sure it even makes sense with recent HR diversity pushes - we put in oil, then water, now mix like they're the same sort of things; a simplistic metaphor, but it sums up my team. We're there to do the work - maybe HR should give the Fantastic Four movies a rest.
Maybe I didn’t read it close enough, but workplaces that want their employees to be “family” are destructive to the actual families they have at home.
I actually attribute my divorce in part to my ex wife’s workplace making her truly believe that they were her “family”.
Everything there became more important than us. She called them her family and it was hurtful to our’s. I could write an article myself on this, but wanted to put it out there.
When work crosses the “family” boundary, it’s going a step too far.
We are coworkers. We get the job done 40 hours a week (should be 30). We go home to our families.
As one who doesn't natively have a lot of EQ, my experience has been that people have been able to explain it to me.
It's not an easy or pleasant process, though.
I strongly recommend Marshall Rosenberg's book Nonviolent Communication.
It teaches a method communicating which, when followed, pushes you into introspection, understanding why your emotions are what they are, understanding what it is you want, and communicating those things clearly to other people.
I love Nonviolent Communication, although I'm not good at implementing it and might never be. Research seems to know that so many of our traits are innate and are extremely difficult to change.
Stalin would be killing it with Nonviolent Communication.
Comrade Molotov! When I heard that your wife Polina Zhemchuzhina meets with Golda Meir, I felt scared because I have a need for security of my life and political position. Would you consider keeping working for me after I've arrested her using my secret police, charging her with treason, and sending her into internal exile?
There's no way around the fact that having established power over someone makes it optimal to not care or otherwise push yourself to be virtuous towards that someone.
True, although FWIW NVC tends to come off as inauthentically appealing to emotion from the perspective of those who are aware of, but do not subscribe to it. That communication can then be perceived as manipulative and work against the communicator's original intent, even if the listener shares their underlying goals of wanting to be kinder and more empathetic.
And since NVC has little impact on those who are malicious or acting in bad faith, it ends up doing more harm than good imo.
Interesting. So far I've not encountered that effect.
I wonder if it's a result of applying the formula mechanically rather than actually listening to and empathizing with the person the NVCer is talking to.
Regardless, thanks for sharing your experience. It's something that hadn't occurred to me and I'm grateful that you shared it, as I now know to be aware of that as something that can happen and to watch for it.
One, "like a family" is a process, not an atomic label. It's not something you can just stick anywhere. Families are dynamic and a lot of work, frankly. Humans are messy.
Two, even if the label meant something, it doesn't mean the same thing to each person that uses it. Sounds like some of these folks are jerks. This might be because of an idea of what family means that's much darker than other people's. Also there are a lot of jerks in the world. The writer doesn't seem to like a lot of people they work with either. That's all fine and well. Families choose many times to disengage and only be together during certain special events. The question is whether or not these kinds of families are what the slogan means. Who knows? Sounds more like a crutch used by management than a real concept that everybody can grok.
Three, the author is playing right along. It looks to me like they're doing this passive-aggressive thing where the actively don't want to be like whatever this "family" label means to others at work and they also don't want to spend time with those folks. That's what they should say, to others. You just don't flip around a vague slogan and get something more useful. By translating it into the already vague "family" moniker, they're cheating themselves out of the opportunity to grow. "I don't like you people. You make me work too much, you're a bunch of assholes and I'm leaving." is a painful thing to say, and I'd wait until I have another job to say it, but rephrasing it as "I don't want to be like a family..." is just couching it in the same bullshit everybody is using. If you want to be that way, fine, just realize that you're doing the same thing as you feel is being done to you, i.e. using vague language to dodge difficult conversations.
Perhaps it should just be rephrased in "I don't want to PRETEND to be like family...". The essence is the same. She does understand what is going on - that the "family" thing is utter BS and eats up uber valuable free and work time.
It's a similar thing with work-life balance. It amazes me how many devs are unwilling to set boundaries and work ridiculous hours.
Also, people dealing with shitty compensation for years or staying at the same job, because they are afraid that no one else will want them or that they aren't worth 3x the compensation they have today.
Also, people asking for meager raises instead of big ones.
Recognizing your worth as a developer/individual is Step 1 to a better career and life.
I had an employer that was saying things like, "This is how it works everywhere" when I complained about things. I ended up finding a website that compared abusive workplace behavior to abusive relationships, and I agreed with it... And still I stayed there until they screwed me on a raise, asking me if I could "wait until next year?"
I started looking after that and got a 40% pay raise starting out at the new job.
I knew what I was worth, and I still stayed. It's not just about not knowing what you're worth or thinking nobody else would want you. Sometimes it's about not wanting to deal with the unknown.
I absolutely encourage people who haven't gotten significant raises each year to look at other jobs. You're almost certainly underpaid, unless you're a senior dev. In which case you're merely probably underpaid.
That said, I've been here for 10 years and I'm happy. I'm a big fish in a small pond, and I have incredible job security, and I work the 40 hours that I want to. I know I could earn more, but now I value the rest of that more.
> It's a similar thing with work-life balance. It amazes me how many devs are unwilling to set boundaries and work ridiculous hours.
I have a simple rule, if I didn't set the deadline/estimate and it will require me to work over my hours then I simply don't.
I'm not going to be beholden to someone elses guess on how long something should take if it requires more hours than my contract says.
Which isn't to say I don't go over my hours occasionally (usually because I get lost in what I'm doing or it would be more efficient to finish it in one long day) but I generally take the time back later as well.
Burnout is the end result of doing it differently (for me) and a) I refuse to put myself through that again b) it is at the end of the day a just a job
> Also, people dealing with shitty compensation for years or staying at the same job, because they are afraid that no one else will want them or that they aren't worth 3x the compensation they have today.
Well, perhaps it’s just that tech interviews are really elitist these days.
Tech interviews at the highest paying companies are very difficult to be sure. It’s not clear to me that they’re elitist in a negative sense of that phrase.
Because many truly talented people suffer from Imposter syndrome, or they do actually know how good they are, and are afraid of alienating people by demonstrating superior ability.
There do seem to be a lot of companies that didn't recognize the other side of the coin. When you take away pensions and replace them with a 401k, make layoffs a normal thing, and so on, you're saying "we are taking a risk-averse approach to our relationship with employees".
Why then, are they surprised at the reaction of employees and still expect things like loyalty, "family", etc?
And of course the mysterious "fit" decision in the hiring process shows this. Chances are more independent thinkers that don't want to beer bash with the crowd or that has actual social boundaries won't want to participate in the reindeer games the author describes.
Clearly I carry a burning torch for the issue of age discrimination in tech as a 50-something - but seriously what 35 year old veep wants a 50 year old with more tenure than them working for them in their group? Family? We care about work-life balance? yeah sure bubba.
It's a well known fact that it's a red flag and you should move on to different direction if they mention they're like a family. Employment is a business relation based on a contract agreement of both parties. That's it.
I was interviewing with a company and was genuinely interested in the position until they mentioned they were like a family. Sent them a not interested email after the meeting.
And neither do I, at least with all of them. I have had some work friends who were close. Have I stayed in touch with any of them? Out of five jobs in ten years, there are two I still consider true friends, the kind you call when you are in a jam.
While I'm griping about such things, let's talk about bosses day and company outings and gifts for fellow employees for $reasons. If I work for you, I do it because you offered me a paycheck. I feel no responsibility to buy you a gift. I don't want gifts from you. We have a contract or similar agreement - I work, you pay. Gifts either direction, company trips, whatever feel like a sham and muddy that agreement of I work, you pay. To other employees when I was one - do your work, avoid drama, and I'll like you. Keep the gifts out of it and don't try getting into my wallet because Sally has worked here for ten years. If I work closely enough with Sally to know she is good at her job, I'll let her know. If I don't work that closely with her, what more do I need than politeness? /soapbox
Some people are like you and simply view a job as an economic transaction, and some people think that since they are spending a large portion of their day with a particular group of people there is little downside to making friends and socializing. I will tell you a little secret though, when push comes to shove I will cut 'economic transaction' employees in a heartbeat without a second thought but I have sometimes gone out of my way to give a 'work friend' a break or spend a portion of my week finding them an internal transfer. I feel no enmity towards those who are a bit more mercenary than I, but I also do not have even the slightest bit of loyalty to people who make their attitudes in this regard clear (i.e. learn to fake it now and then and you might do better...)
I have faked it and do when needed. It insults my inner economist, but he puts up with it. As far as work friends, I have had them, and some I really enjoyed. I think we would have given breaks or spent part of our week for each other. That said, I have a very hard time separating value from productivity. The socializing crowd, on the other hand, seems to see value as coming from being a member of the organization.
I have asked my HR and team not to use the family analogy. We are team and support each other as team mates. We do help people when they are sick etc. Ultimately we are trying to achieve a shared goal and I want to company to help people to achieve their personal goals at the same time.
I manage using the book first break all the rules and 5 dysfunctions of a team.
First break all the rules uses these 12 employee sat questions
I know what is expected of me at work.
I have the materials and equipment to do my work right.
At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
There is someone at work who encourages my development.
At work, my opinions seem to count.
The mission/purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.
My associates (fellow employees) are committed to doing quality work.
I have a best friend at work.
In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
In the last year, I have had opportunities to learn and grow.
I don’t refer to companies or other organizations as families, or even “like a family.” There are better metaphors when you aren’t trying to manipulate people, and not describing your workplace as a family also avoids provoking the trauma for those employees who have issues with their family of origin.
If you describe a company as being like a family, are you giving managers permission to cast themselves as authority figures over employees they will treat like children?
It’s safest to steer clear of describing companies as families, with employees as members. Pitfalls abound.
> If you describe a company as being like a family, are you giving managers permission to cast themselves as authority figures over employees they will treat like children?
Many of the companies I’ve worked for (both as manager and individual contributor) function in this way. None of them called themselves a family though. Where I am (Sweden) this social structure is just the norm.
Our former GM came from IBM. Work is work; a transaction. Under our then VP of eng, he internalized that humans are social animals and work gives us an opportunity to connect with people.
For the article, I agree the term "family" is inappropriate. I also think that outside of normal hours get togethers should never be required. Schedule team building during work hours.
As for the author, I think they may be at the wrong job for them. The teams prioritize helping over their own deadlines. He can get on board and be a team player or, if that is orthogonal to their work style, they should find a better match for work.
Well, if you have nothing else to offer, one way or another you have to find loyal fools with a helper syndrome.
After all, you're are not a patriarch, as was common for thousands of years, who could just tell his family what to do or not to do, and they obeyed without question.
Or even sell your own children into slavery.
This manipulative stuff is a bit disgusting and annoying, but it pays.
At least it is a sneaky method to filter your prefered type of underling, but still look like a grand soul.
So, a double win.
Of course if you're into family fetish with a bit of sadistic gaslighting, it is even a triple win.
>When pressed, HR and her supervisor mentioned her absence from department-bonding activities.
At an old job HR said that employees who unfriended a co-worker were guilty of harassment. I never heard that officially but I do believe it having worked there so long and how management acted.
I had my status cut from full-time to part-time and posted it on my secured, friends only, locked-down as much as possible Facebook account. The next morning my manager called me 5 minutes after my work day began asking me to remove that comment ("or else" I assumed). He read to me verbatim what I had written, the time, even some of the comments to it so he obviously had a print-out or screen shot (doubtful HR could figure that out). I suspended my Facebook account until I was abruptly laid off four years later by the aggressive abusive manager I had complained about 8 years earlier.
This is the same organization that cut the janitorial staff from three shifts to two day shifts and cut staff from a dozen to one person per shift. the same place that complained when you didn't submit your anonymous employee survey.
Keep work and friends separate. HR works for the company not you. You trade your time for their money there is no culture.
I am currently in the same situation. I joined a reputed service based company after graduating last year. This is what I am doing in the projet.
1. Deliver the work on time.
2. Helping my team members. I wasnt saying NO initially.
3. Understanding requirements.
4. Production deployment.
Things I dont want to do.
1. Delivering other team members work.
2. Connect on call with team members more than 5 times for the same issue.
3. Explaining the requirements to team members who intentionaly did not listen carefully during the call and later messaging Hey what was the new requirement?.
4. Picking up gossip calls from team leader. I did not wanted to do this, but team leader keeps pushing.
Yesterday I asked my team lead that how all this is affecting me both mentally and physically.
Guess what. He sent an email involving upper management and ordered me to carry on.
F*k them and the project. I resigned. And I am happy that after 2 months I will be parting ways with the company and will have some peace of mind.
I’ve noticed that it’s a strong signal whether a company does team building stuff during work hours outside of them. If they want you to show up Saturday or after hours, it’s a red flag. Holiday parties seem to be the only exception to it being a red flag. But even then you’d better not be expected to show up.
I started working for a civil engineering firm in high school. Best job I ever had. Sent around the country to set up and train CAD systems. The adults had adopted me. Then I started college (working part time), got sick, somehow lapsed my paperwork. This company backdated my insurance premiums (fraud), paid my bills, to make sure I got a life saving bone marrow transplant. No strings.
OC references Zoom scavenger hunt and being a team player. Heh. Worked at a startup. Really intense. Coworkers that you both love and hate at the same time. We had a big shot boss that would punish us for a job well done with group events. Box seats at football games, open bar at jazz concerns. I demurred from a Las Vegas excursion. Oh boy. You'd've thought I killed the boss' prize puppy. Didn't repeat that mistake.
I had a hearty laugh at that one. "Hey all, I know you've all been working like crazy to get this project over the line so I'm going to "reward" you with more time at work, only now you'll be forced to make awkward small talk with people you may or may not have ANYTHING in common with."
Most of that is simulating what maybe was initially at the base of success at the start of company of tight-knit friends who also were entertaining together. I think, that the problem here is very simple - getting rid of people who feel restless and do not appreciate the effort that is done for them and do not feel belonging to the team(!) and do not have their own suggestions, but have their own enjoyment by being disgruntled, because that is how they feel in general.
The problem here has nothing to do with participating in these awkward events, that probably does some job of bonding, but it has a problem with incompatible people that are brought together and have to withstand each other.
I have experience of working on both sides - where there were group events and where there were none. And the hell that I remember is about where there were none, because at those jobs nobody also cared for improvements for people, who were there "just to do their job". In fact that thinking lead to some of the people in criminal situations with knive fights(at work!!!) and did other crayzeee stuff to just deal with boredom of "just doing a job that they are paid for". You simply have no experience and appreciation of not getting that wish to come true. I had learned that in a hard way and just - no... I'd rather have a work event(and it doesn't matter what I think about them), than "work incident".
In our case, we were a team of frenemies, who bonded over our shared hatred of the execs. "Manny" was my officemate for 4 years. To this day, I won't hang out with Manny, because he drives me crazy, but if he ever needs anything, my immediate reply would be "on my way".
The official (expense account) team activities were the bosses trying to bond with the grunts. Show "appreciation". Vicariously be part of the team.
I stuck with the work (electronic medical record interchange) because I was passionate about the problem, we were first to market with the best product, and I invented some cool new tech that I wouldn't be able to take with me.
I’ve known some coworkers for 15+ years. I’d say I’m friends/friendly with all of them, but I never have and never would want to do anything with any of them outside of work. I choose the friends I want to hang out with outside of work. I don’t choose my coworkers.
A "like a family" feeling isn't going to happen while one or more members of that family have total power over wages and employment of the rest. My relationship with my boss and my fellow workers isn't like that of a family, unless my Dad was paying me to work 40hrs a week and could kick me out of the house any time
The only way you'll get anything close to a family feel is something like worker democracy / worker co-ops. Bosses need to stop trying to force a culture onto a workplace and actually treat their employees like people.
The biggest red flag at a work place is being welcomed "to the family".
The second biggest red flag at a work place is being told at induction that "we work as a team over here".
It's patronizing and implying that you have no idea what you're on about and they're here to set the record straight. And "we're family" and "we work as a team" usually means you're the one upholding all the obligations and responsibilities that come with that whilst having none of the benefits nor any authority.
Companies look at all sort of ways to manipulate workers into giving up value without adequate remuneration. Preying on family values is particularly disgusting. It's an immediate red flag for me.
I love my job and my coworkers are nice, smart people who are good colleagues and whose company I enjoy. But I've already got my family, and they're not it. That corpo-speak is complete BS - it's both incredibly insincere and incredibly condescending. Like I don't know how to be nice to people unless they're my family, and I'm so stupid that there's no other way of telling me "be nice" or "let's work together towards a commonly beneficial goal".
I worked on a team that felt 'like a family' once, and it was by far the best period of time in my career. I really don't think you can intentionally create that environment, though. It just happened due to the personalities involved. I couldn't have hired for it, either, since my first impressions of two of those personalities were negative.
Of course, I immediately lost almost all contact with all of them as soon as I left. It may have been illusory, but it was definitely nice.
To be in a well gelled team with people you really care about is the best kind of working experience, in my view. That's the "family" dynamic.
Still, people need to hold each other accountable up and down the chain at all times. Ideally that's done in a non-judgemental way.
Nothing lasts forever, but perhaps a sign of a positive family-like dynamic is that an ex colleague still wants to come visit the old office for lunch once in a while, and people enjoy seeing them.
Some level of workplace socialization is enjoyable and I’ve made friends that way who I’ve stayed friends with. But nobody ever tells you a workplace is like family unless they’re picking your pocket.
That said, the letter writer is probably not benefiting from being so openly hostile to all social events.
I spent a bit of time working as an executive delivery boy for a professor that used to say "This is not a business. I always thought of it more as a cheap source of labour, like a family"
Best bet is to find rather boring lifestyle businesses with dependable b2b revenue streams. Nobody gets too worked up about anything, and there's no kool-aid to be drunk.
If a girl is beautiful and has already boyfriend/relationship then she doesn't want to hang out with other people and wait till clock hits 5 PM. Same can be said about married people but at least they will hang out sometimes. Single people especially guys want to hangout but as soon as all girls are gone, it becomes useless to stay. Personally I prefer we just stay stickily professional. But people do otherwise more often than not
But just based on the headline: yes your co-workers are like family in a strict sociological sense. Family therapy techniques are quite useful in business consulting.
My mom took a job at In Defence for Animals years ago. She went through the interview, and settled a measly wage.
A couple of weeks in she asked about her check. All she got back was, "Oh we are all family here, and you are a volunteer."
She being a lover of animals worked another week and left.
The founder of the 501c3 passed a few months ago, but he was always paid well, and owned a lot of assets that look like funds were comingled?
The only jobs where I heard we are all family here, were terrible jobs, and most employees hated when the few well paid employees would pull out the Family card.
Under my breath, I always went to, "Yes we are family here, but the Manson Family?"
Heh. It seems that all the jobs that explicitly say they are a family are the dysfunctional kind, but the jobs that do have the best qualities of a family don't need to say so. Maybe I'm overgeneralizing a bit, but "we're a family" has always been a giant red flag for me.
I’m exactly the same as the person in the article. I’m introverted and don’t enjoy participating in activities with more than a couple of people. I have no problem doing it - I just don’t like to. It seems gender or race can’t be questioned in the work place but the way I like to socially interact with others can be and used against me (like in the article).
I think managers etc get a bit carried away with the whole family idea thing. It can be used like a weapon to convince people to work longer to help their ‘family members’ with their work. But who gave them too much work in the first place?
Like I mentioned before, I am an introvert(for most of the time) and have been in similar situations... it sucks, but the truth in all of this is being paid worker should not be something to crave for someone who is more individual than others.
You can argue with someone, but that won't change things. You can fight the system or learn how to get to the top and interestingly most of business owners are not extroverts - quite the opposite - they are introverts. Dude/dudette, you are simply in wrong place and should pursue getting your own business - workers(extended family) is for extroverts. You are better than they and that's why you do not like rules imposed on you. Get out!
Well, think about it from that perspective where you are an business owner. Your business is part of your extended family and if someone does not feel great about being part of your extended family, they rightfully will be booted out and the sooner that happens the better for company.
As an introverted person I can only suggest for you to make your own business or go freelance, because you are not going to change rules for other people how they should behave only because your comfortable family scale is much smaller.
Any business is a family - the problem here is that it is not yours(or you don't perceive it as yours).
From the perspective of a business owner, an employee is someone paid to do an actual job. They either do the job they are being paid to do, or they're fired. They're not part of the business owners perceived extended family unless the business owner is mentally ill. Employing someone to be a pseudo-family member is psychotic and probably illegal.
It all depends on what you think as an actual job. An actual job of any worker is NOT RUINING BUSINESS - it is not only illegal but also criminal. So, your actual job is following rules of a company and if they make you wear uniform, because that would make you not stand out, you will have to oblige - according to the rules of a company where you are member of that extended family. Your teenage angst is not only wrong, but will mean booting you out of a company.
Like I mentioned before, if you have problems with business that is employing you and THEIR set of rules, that YOU have to follow and that is part of YOUR ACTUAL JOB, then you better SEEK OTHER JOB or CREATE YOUR OWN. No one is forcing you to follow rules - any rules, even CONSTITUTION(where whole NATION is regarded as an EXTENDED FAMILY), but you have to be ready to face consequences of alternative and that is INSANITY - not illegal, because you have not agreed on those rules, but good luck on imposing YOUR RULES or lack of rules on others... and have probably a very short journey in this fight YOU vs WORLD.
The world sucks if you have to adapt, but it is not right to enforce something onto others for your own comfort unless you pay others compensation. That is the base of any business.
Even as a business owner I feel what the author of this article is saying. I once has an affiliate of my company play the "we're all family" card. And like the author, they used that as a tool to cross the line often and also required (mandatory!) attendance at social events. As you can imagine, it was only time before we were under the bus.
A good response when the company starts with the "we're a family" BS, is to reply (with a smile on your face, to be safe) "good, then nobody can ever be fired!". It can be a lighthearted way to point out the absurdity of the concept.
I know that all the families are not same and there are instances where one finds colleagues who go to great lengths to support each other while the dysfunctional family actually weighs things down. But that is not the norm (atleast not in the culture I am from). So if people of a firm use terms like "family", they better back it up. Otherwise, just shut up and give each other the space that grown-ups deserve.