Live data from Hacker News

Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

nypost.com

221–230 of 527 posts

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like our offsites, especially in a post-COVID remote world, tend to improve communication and productivity. People get to know their coworkers, and feel much more comfortable working cross-functionality. I've had some bad experiences, of course, but overall I've found it to be incredibly worth it.

I think there's a difference between getting employees who work remotely from each other into the same room for a week, and a "retreat" offsite where pseudo-theraputic approaches are used to try to get employees to open up or bond socially.

I've mostly seen "retreat" being used for cases where you go on a pseudo-vacation with collegues paid by your company, with or without pseudo-therapy bullshit.

I've been on a couple of them (without the bullshit) and people did indeed open up and bonded, but I should note that the conditions for this were positive in the first place (i.e. we weren't trying to invert some negative situation).

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#222

Offsite retreats seem like a bad idea in general, I've never been to one where I felt the team or company worked together better afterwards, and I've seen some spectacularly bad results... like the time the facilitator tried to get to the bottom of tensions between the CTO and head of sales (the classic problem of "Engineering isn't shipping features fast enough" and "Sales is selling features before even consulting…

Looks like a bad offsite handling, both in your case and linked article.

I feel that offsites work best when you let people interact on their own schedule, pace and topics. Trying to force hands via a lot of activities can kind of backfire.

Relationships happen. They are not programmatically built.

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#223

Your company, your coworkers, are not your friends. HR is not there for you, it's to protect the company from you. Do not disclose personal information to those who control your livelihood. Once you leave or if you build up a personal relationship with a coworker, outside of work, then maybe. Even still. I will never divulge what I have been through simply because corporate wants to be "inclusive".

Exactly this. No matter how they dress it up, HR is there to protect the company, not you.

Genuine question. Can you tell me why people love saying this so much?

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#224

The stereotype is real. A guy I work with is part of what they call the Divorced Dad Club. He’s 56 and gets together with a bunch of other divorced dads to do ketamine and play video games. They’re all in the mid 50s, white, and in tech. And keep getting played by puffy lipped 30 somethings.

Being infantry might’ve been a better calling than a divorced dad.

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#225
in the creative arts business, the work that sells tends to come from people carrying something. a difficult history, a chemical affiliation, some level of quirkiness/flaws, or all of the above.

perfect flawless plain-vanilla creatives tend go work for Hallmark channel and product absolute drab cr*p.

not sure why Netflix HR would want to sabotage their own internal culture that drives their content success strategy.

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#226
post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as it's a subculture that is tacitly approved by the group and by management.

For example? Because usually, people who say this have something in their mind about which they should rightfully be ashamed. Like people who want other people to have lesser rights.

Ethical non-monogamy is one example.

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't bring your whole self to work, the rest of us don't need that from you. Be polite, congenial and professional. You have the rest of your day to let it rip however you'd like.

Maybe not your whole self, but I'd like the people I work with to feel safe talking about their family, their disabilities, their religion, their culture or subculture, the things they love doing, whatever makes them human.

Then I hope you have an extremely flat company structure, not just formally but in practice.

Don't try to fast-talk people into opening up. They have a better idea than you what's safe to talk about, about their lives. If they think they can't open up, they're probably right.

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

isn't this highly illegal, since it is used for medical purpose (mental health) ? its like firing a person who was sedated by professional Anesthesiologist with Fentanyl during surgery (A friend of mine had a surgery and was administered fentanyl)

Yes, IANAL but it seems very much like grounds for an open-and-shut wrongful termination suit, given that they have admitted it up front. They could be taken to the cleaners for this.

It is a lot more complicated than that. The details matter. Were they doing it at work? Did their usage patern or disclosure show poor judgment?

It is very likely Netflix's argument would be more complex.

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Firing someone for taking a prescribed therapeutic medication for a medical condition? Yeah, that’s illegal.

So your heart surgeon can get high during surgery? Obviously the details matter.

Re: Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. No matter how they dress it up, HR is there to protect the company, not you.

Genuine question. Can you tell me why people love saying this so much?

Because HR lies and say the opposite in the majority of companies. "Come to us with any problems, it's safe and anonymous, we are here to help you".

From personal experience I have reported gross treats by senior leadership to an HR rep who was shocked about hearing their HR employee evals being suppressed by only allowing score between 8-10 in a 1-10 score. The HR rep confirmed it personally that it was happening and a few months later appeared on the other side of the desk with the leadership as they fired me for budget reasons.

Post reply on HN