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Netflix employee fired for sharing personal details in retreat trust exercise

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

#311

Post by kakacik »

energy123 wrote: post #215
reactordev wrote: post #43

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".

The workplace is one of the best places to find your spouse. It's where you spend most of your time and where you're most likely to meet someone with similar interests to you in the same location. It's anti-human to treat the workplace as this clinical saferoom with no relationships.

While totally logical (there are many matching counterparts for most people, its just about being close enough for long enough regardless of place), its not always ideal.

I wouldn't want my wife to work on same team for example. Heck, even same company may be less than ideal, time off each other is usually for the better. Also, if breakup/divorce happens, workplace can easily become a place out of worst nightmare.

I prefer looking at hobbies/passions groups, people there match me way more than people at work, it that doesn't work out its easier to cut off only that group if needed. In my case it was climbing events I was organizing, and I ended up with wife that matches me on basically all important levels

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

#312

Post by gadders »

dmos62 wrote: post #289
gadders wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dropped off now. It was better in the 90s.

Coxnfused. Was it more unhinged in the 90s or less compared to now?

More unhinged and better, especially in banks. I had one senior stakeholder that would come back from the Pub on a Friday and complete change all his previous decisions.

I think my lunchtime record was 4 1/2 pints. Another IT guy on the same session had keys to the building's small data room so let himself in and had a kip.

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

#313

Post by solatic »

vel0city wrote: post #166
annzabelle wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's something people have increasingly forgotten. My grandparents were active in their church for decades. They didn't talk about my grandmother's serious mental health struggles with the other parishioners. People in the past had stronger community institutions, and I think a part of that was that nobody expected to bring their whole self to bowling club or the neighborhood potluck.

It's a balance though, isn't it? Like, sure, don't bring your whole self to every single bowling game, you're there to bowl so focus at the task at hand. Nobody is going to have a good time if every bowling game devolves into every little emotional issue anyone in the group is having. But that doesn't mean those relationships originally started at the bowling club need to stay purely about bowling, a big part of comm…

I don't think you're fundamentally disagreeing. Your work community can be a source of friendships (and sometimes but more rarely, more than friendship), but you shouldn't confuse the two. Finding out your colleague also plays chess can segue into an invitation to play chess outside of work, and launchpad that into building a friendship. But that's not the same as playing chess together at work (get back to work?), let alone being emotionally vulnerable as an intentional part of building relationships with people who you're trying to trust with that vulnerability.

The latter sounds good (if you could have that with your colleagues, then it can only help, right?), but then again, the linked article is literally about someone violating that and firing the subject of the article. It is simply not possible to build emotional intimacy with every coworker, let alone under forced circumstances, so attempts to do so are more or less predictably going to lead to pain.

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

#314

Post by gadders »

rwmj wrote: post #302
gadders wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's dropped off now. It was better in the 90s.

It was pretty mad in the 90s, but I don't recall anyone ever being forced into it at companies I worked for. A company mandated "alcohol bus" sounds ridiculous then and now.

Yes, fair. I think the default for a pub lunch would be to drink, but it was never mandatory.

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

#315

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

janderson215 wrote: post #118
thot_experiment wrote: post #52

It always surprises me when people don't understand that the employee-employer relationship is an adversarial one. Unless you're in a democratic co-op or similar your employer is the enemy and you should never forget that. The correct move is to try to screw them in every legal way at every turn because that is what they are doing to you. Never divulge any information that increases your attack surface, always try to…

This sounds like an exhausting perspective on the world. I’d rather be hurt by assholes than never allow myself to be vulnerable with anybody. You can mitigate the potential downside without thinking everybody is out to get you or thinking everything is a power game.

Not at all work cultures are toxic, but many have toxic elements.

It's very culture-dependent. You have to read the room, pick up clues from current behaviour and previous history, and try to calibrate accordingly.

There's a broad correlation between management stupidity and chaotic leadership and toxicity but sometimes you can still end up in pockets of sanity - or insanity if the surrounding culture is good but there are one or more Cluster B types on a team.

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

#316

Post by Archer6621 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #207
ksenzee wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Employers who expect to know things about employee's personal lives are despicable. I expect to accomplish my tasks. I can be friendly, polite and humorous but you don't need to know anything about how I live. The main factor is a boss or supervisor can act on their judgement of an employee and employees do not have the same leverage.

That is right. The hierarchical nature of this setting makes it impossible to be fully open, unless you truly are the most uninteresting person on the planet. If not, open and indiscriminate sharing is going to be a potential liability. Some things in life are very useful to know, and I believe being deliberate about what you share about yourself with whom is one of them.

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

#317

Post by Mountain_Skies »

rkangel wrote: post #265
icepush wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are there people that want this in the office? Don't want this.

I'm not saying that people should talk about this all the time, but are you saying you don't want people to feel able to mention key details of their personal life?

I want to be free from being burdened with your unmet social needs and I want to feel safe when rejecting that burden you wish to push onto me. Make some friends or pay for a therapist, your coworkers aren't there to be your social support.

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

#318

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

mvdtnz wrote: post #117
Cider9986 wrote: post #54

Kind of crazy Netflix spend so much on engineers while piracy sites give a better UX and more shows for free and with better privacy.

Sorry how is that relevant to the linked article?

Second order consequences. Piracy sites are more customer-focused, large corps skew more towards performing productivity for the internal hierarchy.

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

#319

Post by psd1 »

not-kinsale-joe wrote: post #279
ionwake wrote: post #271

I know some of the younger folk may not realise reality is stranger than fiction, but I too have been on a "work mandated drink alchohol bus" where I remember even though I was young, I was terrified the whole time wondering why we were being forced to drink infront of C suite; forced on a hell ride through the black country ( Thats a region in England). One might think it was naive and odd for me as a young autistic…

UK had the most unhinged work drinking culture I had ever seen.

Amen. I only got my first job in tech because i put away 6 pints in the pub after the interview.

We conducted interviews after lunch, for this exact purpose. I saw good candidates interview but decline the pub afterwards - they did not get offers.

That company had at least two pub sessions a week, typically running to six rounds or more. We hit our medically-recommended maximum weekly intake by Tuesday; Fridays were carnage.

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

#320

Post by andrewaylett »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #223
anderber wrote: post #84

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?

Even if the people working in HR genuinely want to do the right thing for the employees, and company policies support them doing that, interactions with HR are inherently adversarial.

The people within HR may be friendly, they've probably got friends :). It can be a very people-oriented role. But they are incapable of being your friend when you're interacting with them in their role as representative for the company.

I greatly appreciate my employer's HR folk, they're really lovely, very good at their jobs, and want to help. But if I have to have a formal meeting with them, I would definitely bring along my union rep.

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