> It’s perfectly okay to pretend to comply to buy time while you line up a new gig somewhere else.
The context of this was the writer receiving an ultimatum, and perhaps feeling that the employer was being abusive, so maybe it was OK then.
But I'd hope people don't take that assertion of "it's perfectly okay to pretend to comply" as blanket advice.
For example, imagine a team that, although some coked-up CEO did something obnoxious, the team believed the key teammate who said they were relocating. Then later the team learns the person was lying to them, which they relied upon, so they were left in a bad spot that could've been avoided.
> Many of them admitted that they were actively looking for new roles; some of them for the first time in over a decade. Many of them already have new gigs lined up, and were preparing to resign too. Some of those already have.
OPSEC. You can act in good faith with your employer and not loose-lips-sink-ships your colleagues on their own delicate situations.
Maybe better trust among colleagues on delicate things like this would've helped avoid the other problem: there would be less motivation to "pretend", if the person could trust their colleagues not to rat them out when they don't say anything rather than lie, or when they even hint at their plans.