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> Leaving while making it clear to your higher ups and coworkers that it's due to the dying work culture is not leaving without anything. The company does not

> Leaving while making it clear to your higher ups and coworkers that it's due to the dying work culture is not leaving without anything. The company does not care about you. Your boss does not care about you. Managers learn to stop being emotionally invested in their employees because everyone is replaceable and everyone leaves. The company is fine with the dying work culture as long as the money keeps rolling in. Things will not get better from the efforts of employees below the Senior Vice President level. And probably not even then without that person spending all their political capital. I struggled with this at a job where I was systematically marginalized but tried to "change things from within". After I realized that nobody was going to help me and it was what was burning me out, I lawyered up and negotiated an exit. The only way to change the culture is to make having a shitty work culture expensive.

dmix 7y ago
I wouldn't take it that far nor so cynically. This extreme view of business is popular in dystopian fiction and with the pure customer service level interaction with some of the worst mega corps like telecoms companies but I don't think it reflects reality of most people's office workplaces.
- montagg 7y ago
  This person is describing their own experience; what you're saying is that you haven't had that. Which is great for you, but it's not universal. Hopefully your experience is more common. But if this person's is, then the "dystopia" isn't that fictional.
  - dmix 7y ago
    You're also making a lot of assumptions about me but I'd rather not make this anecdotal. I would have probably agreed with OP when I was 18 after watching Fight Club a hundred times that was what modern business life was like. But I've had a large variety of jobs in my life from working outdoors, brutal factory floor jobs in an auto factory and a wood flooring plant, to office-space style boring corporate HQ jobs for a big brand, to tech companies for the last decade and it's hardly the standard. Especially once you get past lower level drudgery work. I already mentioned it'd be stupid to put that level of sacrifice into a company unless you were adequately compensated or given enough power/time to accomplish actual culture change. And of course there are modern bigcos who are borderline dystopian where it's impossible or SMBs with sociopath leadership who doesn't want change. Which is when you leave if you can't tolerate the environment, assuming you can, but attempting to change it is a whole different beast.
    - wayoutthere 7y ago
      I've also been a manager at a company with a shitty culture, and you simply can't stop your good employees from leaving for greener pastures. You're kind of happy for them when they do. I care about my employees and value them as human beings, but I also couldn't address their grievances or promise them any resolution to larger cultural issues. I knew they would leave, so I stopped being upset when they did and started taking the turnover as part of the job. It's not that managers don't care about their employees, they just don't care if or why you left because those circumstances are outside their control. HR collects that info in exit interviews, and a line manager has no influence with HR. If turnover starts hurting the company's bottom line, they'll do something about it. Otherwise it's not going to be a priority at the levels it needs to (how effective is your "Diversity Officer" in creating real diversity?)
- wayoutthere 7y ago
  I would also say it's not a good idea to burn bridges; which is what inevitably happens when you run around telling people the reason you're leaving is because the company sucks. They can't do anything about it anyway (see my original comment), and you risk coming off as toxic to people you might want to give you a recommendation later in your career.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    I think giving honest feedback at exit is a good thing and I view it as showing respect. I would probably avoid the word “sucks” though.
    - wayoutthere 7y ago
      Right, but the place for the honest feedback is the exit interview. Spare your co-workers your grievances; they probably already know why anyway.
      - dmix 7y ago
        This just boils down to social skills really. Some people are just killjoy grievance machines though so it's worth noting.
  - pc86 7y ago
    Very few people think their company is perfect, and being able to be honest about a company's shortcomings without resorting to "it sucks here" and similarly unhelpful non-constructive criticism is a sign of emotional maturity. People leave all the time, for various reasons, and most places I've worked that actually conduct exit interviews are genuinely curious as to why high performing employees leave. I hesitate to say they "care" because I think that gives the wrong impression. Everybody wants to make a little more money, get a little more freedom in deciding their priorities, get a little more flexibility in their hours, etc. So if you say your only reason you're leaving is that you want more money, they're probably not going to give everyone a 10% raise next quarter. But if you have well thought out grievances that can be addressed without spending millions of dollars or completely changing the structure of the company, I think you'd be surprised how willing executives would be to try and make things better.

dmix 7y ago

I wouldn't take it that far nor so cynically. This extreme view of business is popular in dystopian fiction and with the pure customer service level interaction with some of the worst mega corps like telecoms companies but I don't think it reflects reality of most people's office workplaces.

montagg 7y ago
This person is describing their own experience; what you're saying is that you haven't had that. Which is great for you, but it's not universal. Hopefully your experience is more common. But if this person's is, then the "dystopia" isn't that fictional.
- dmix 7y ago
  You're also making a lot of assumptions about me but I'd rather not make this anecdotal. I would have probably agreed with OP when I was 18 after watching Fight Club a hundred times that was what modern business life was like. But I've had a large variety of jobs in my life from working outdoors, brutal factory floor jobs in an auto factory and a wood flooring plant, to office-space style boring corporate HQ jobs for a big brand, to tech companies for the last decade and it's hardly the standard. Especially once you get past lower level drudgery work. I already mentioned it'd be stupid to put that level of sacrifice into a company unless you were adequately compensated or given enough power/time to accomplish actual culture change. And of course there are modern bigcos who are borderline dystopian where it's impossible or SMBs with sociopath leadership who doesn't want change. Which is when you leave if you can't tolerate the environment, assuming you can, but attempting to change it is a whole different beast.
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    I've also been a manager at a company with a shitty culture, and you simply can't stop your good employees from leaving for greener pastures. You're kind of happy for them when they do. I care about my employees and value them as human beings, but I also couldn't address their grievances or promise them any resolution to larger cultural issues. I knew they would leave, so I stopped being upset when they did and started taking the turnover as part of the job. It's not that managers don't care about their employees, they just don't care if or why you left because those circumstances are outside their control. HR collects that info in exit interviews, and a line manager has no influence with HR. If turnover starts hurting the company's bottom line, they'll do something about it. Otherwise it's not going to be a priority at the levels it needs to (how effective is your "Diversity Officer" in creating real diversity?)
wayoutthere 7y ago
I would also say it's not a good idea to burn bridges; which is what inevitably happens when you run around telling people the reason you're leaving is because the company sucks. They can't do anything about it anyway (see my original comment), and you risk coming off as toxic to people you might want to give you a recommendation later in your career.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  I think giving honest feedback at exit is a good thing and I view it as showing respect. I would probably avoid the word “sucks” though.
  - wayoutthere 7y ago
    Right, but the place for the honest feedback is the exit interview. Spare your co-workers your grievances; they probably already know why anyway.
    - dmix 7y ago
      This just boils down to social skills really. Some people are just killjoy grievance machines though so it's worth noting.
- pc86 7y ago
  Very few people think their company is perfect, and being able to be honest about a company's shortcomings without resorting to "it sucks here" and similarly unhelpful non-constructive criticism is a sign of emotional maturity. People leave all the time, for various reasons, and most places I've worked that actually conduct exit interviews are genuinely curious as to why high performing employees leave. I hesitate to say they "care" because I think that gives the wrong impression. Everybody wants to make a little more money, get a little more freedom in deciding their priorities, get a little more flexibility in their hours, etc. So if you say your only reason you're leaving is that you want more money, they're probably not going to give everyone a 10% raise next quarter. But if you have well thought out grievances that can be addressed without spending millions of dollars or completely changing the structure of the company, I think you'd be surprised how willing executives would be to try and make things better.