6 ms·

> - Posting once a week about what I did for fun over the weekend, usually with photos. Honestly, if I heard about this during the hiring process I'd see it as

by apohn 5y ago

> - Posting once a week about what I did for fun over the weekend, usually with photos. Honestly, if I heard about this during the hiring process I'd see it as a red flag. Especially the photos. I once had this terrible VP who was a horrible micromanager and an all around a-hole. For every weekly meeting he'd go around the room forcing people to share what they did on the weekend. It was under the guise of "team building" but it was really him just being the type of person who'd later use your personal stuff against you. It was very possible that you'd say something and he'd immediately see that as a red flag and your career progression is over in that org. I share my personal life with people at work that I trust. I don't trust everybody on my team and I've never trusted everyone on my team at any of my jobs. I can trust somebody to do a good job with their deliverables while not trusting their motives outside of that.

axg11 5y ago
Sharing aspects of your personal life should come naturally and never be forced. I think the role that leadership/management has to play here is to lead by example. A healthy work environment acknowledges that everyone has lives outside of work and encourages people to keep work and life in balance. As a manager, if I share details about my personal life it encourages others on the team to do the same. The opposite extreme is where leadership never shares anything and creates a dehumanizing environment where work and delivering results takes precedence.
- apohn 5y ago
  >As a manager, if I share details about my personal life it encourages others on the team to do the same. It works if you are a good manager and the sharing happens naturally. The manager I referred to would always share details of his personal life that were really bragging, which of course created a horrible environment for sharing. A good manager would share and then see which employees want to share back and which did not. They would shape future discussions accordingly. As an employee, I've had some managers who like to talk about their personal life and others who do not. As an employee I've never started my 1:1s by sharing my personal life every single time and expecting my manager to do the same when it's clear they don't want to talk about it. But due to power dynamics, bad managers can do that sort of thing and be oblivious to how uncomfortable their employees feel about it.
AlwaysRock 5y ago
I suspect a lot of folks have some trauma from past bosses that inform how they view relatively tame things. When I start a new job I set myself as away on slack and never change it to active because I had a boss who would message me if I was away for more than 5 minutes during COVID. The green/gray circle is pretty big brothery and feels crazy to me but everyone accepts it. I think I'm hyper sensitive to this because of my old boss, like you are more sensitive to sharing what you did over the weekend. Bad managers suck and can cause issues that impact you for years.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- innocentoldguy 5y ago
  This sounds exactly like a manager I had before. We called him "Fart" behind his back. He was definitely one of the top-three worst managers of my 30+ year career. I think anyone who aspires to me a manager should ask themselves, "Where does my leadership 'power' come from?" The answer is NOT: 1. Title/position. 2. Company org chart. 3. Experience. 4. Education. The "power" of leadership comes from the people you manage. If you treat them right, you will have their loyalty, respect, and good work. If not, you can be King of the World, and nobody will follow you willingly, because you're a dick. Yes, you can wield your company-power to fire people, similar to the way dictators keep people in line via the threat of physical violence or imprisonment, but that isn't leadership. It's weak and cowardly despotism.
  - AlwaysRock 5y ago
    Yup. This guy used to fly off the handle and lose his temper all the time. Probably had to apologize 1 a week to an employee for saying something nasty just because he couldnt control his emotions.
madeofpalk 5y ago
You're talking about something very different. I agree - forced socialising like this is terrible!
- apohn 5y ago
  I think the word "ritual" indicates it's forced. Maybe not forced by management, but if 80% of the team is doing it, there's a lot of pressure on people to do the same. I share details of my personal life with my team, but it definitely isn't a ritual in any sense of the word. People share when they feel like they want to.
ALittleLight 5y ago
I always find "What did you do over the weekend?" type stuff insanely boring. I imagine a website that generates random plausible answers to this question - how much time would I spend generating and reading random responses? Answer: Enough to see whether and how well it worked, and then never again. Why would I care about what my coworkers did over the weekend? It's like using that website for fun. When people ask me this question I always say "I didn't do anything at all" and then fall silent. My hope is that the awkwardness of this response will encourage them to stop talking to me. In my view this over-familiarity with coworkers is partially a consequence of individual atomization in society. People who have moved across the country to a new city where they have no friends or family try to find surrogates in their company and companies, trying to encourage worker loyalty and sacrifice, promote the idea of being friend or family like. I don't think of my coworkers as friends and certainly not family. My coworkers are strangers who happen to work at the same company. I have to interact with them to do my job but that requires only polite communication about work. I don't need to know anything about their personal lives and prefer not to know.
- emaginniss 5y ago
  Yikes. Some of us are just friendly.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    Small talk enjoyers have the advantage that they can nonconsensually initiate small talk and it's rude for small talk dislikers to even express their dislike. I don't see how unilaterally engaging people in an activity that only you like is "friendly".
    - skeeter2020 5y ago
      How about because an individual puts themself out there to try and build a relationship around shared values, activities, joys? If it's not reciprocated they try something else, or eventually move on. I think you're using "small talk" pejoratively, but all big and deep things start off small. Example: I met my wife of 20+ years eating lunch at a picnic table over casual conversation, so I'm all-in on small talk.

by apohn 5y ago

axg11 5y ago

Sharing aspects of your personal life should come naturally and never be forced. I think the role that leadership/management has to play here is to lead by example. A healthy work environment acknowledges that everyone has lives outside of work and encourages people to keep work and life in balance. As a manager, if I share details about my personal life it encourages others on the team to do the same. The opposite extreme is where leadership never shares anything and creates a dehumanizing environment where work and delivering results takes precedence.

apohn 5y ago
>As a manager, if I share details about my personal life it encourages others on the team to do the same. It works if you are a good manager and the sharing happens naturally. The manager I referred to would always share details of his personal life that were really bragging, which of course created a horrible environment for sharing. A good manager would share and then see which employees want to share back and which did not. They would shape future discussions accordingly. As an employee, I've had some managers who like to talk about their personal life and others who do not. As an employee I've never started my 1:1s by sharing my personal life every single time and expecting my manager to do the same when it's clear they don't want to talk about it. But due to power dynamics, bad managers can do that sort of thing and be oblivious to how uncomfortable their employees feel about it.

AlwaysRock 5y ago

I suspect a lot of folks have some trauma from past bosses that inform how they view relatively tame things. When I start a new job I set myself as away on slack and never change it to active because I had a boss who would message me if I was away for more than 5 minutes during COVID. The green/gray circle is pretty big brothery and feels crazy to me but everyone accepts it. I think I'm hyper sensitive to this because of my old boss, like you are more sensitive to sharing what you did over the weekend. Bad managers suck and can cause issues that impact you for years.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
innocentoldguy 5y ago
This sounds exactly like a manager I had before. We called him "Fart" behind his back. He was definitely one of the top-three worst managers of my 30+ year career. I think anyone who aspires to me a manager should ask themselves, "Where does my leadership 'power' come from?" The answer is NOT: 1. Title/position. 2. Company org chart. 3. Experience. 4. Education. The "power" of leadership comes from the people you manage. If you treat them right, you will have their loyalty, respect, and good work. If not, you can be King of the World, and nobody will follow you willingly, because you're a dick. Yes, you can wield your company-power to fire people, similar to the way dictators keep people in line via the threat of physical violence or imprisonment, but that isn't leadership. It's weak and cowardly despotism.
- AlwaysRock 5y ago
  Yup. This guy used to fly off the handle and lose his temper all the time. Probably had to apologize 1 a week to an employee for saying something nasty just because he couldnt control his emotions.

madeofpalk 5y ago

You're talking about something very different. I agree - forced socialising like this is terrible!

apohn 5y ago
I think the word "ritual" indicates it's forced. Maybe not forced by management, but if 80% of the team is doing it, there's a lot of pressure on people to do the same. I share details of my personal life with my team, but it definitely isn't a ritual in any sense of the word. People share when they feel like they want to.

ALittleLight 5y ago

I always find "What did you do over the weekend?" type stuff insanely boring. I imagine a website that generates random plausible answers to this question - how much time would I spend generating and reading random responses? Answer: Enough to see whether and how well it worked, and then never again. Why would I care about what my coworkers did over the weekend? It's like using that website for fun. When people ask me this question I always say "I didn't do anything at all" and then fall silent. My hope is that the awkwardness of this response will encourage them to stop talking to me. In my view this over-familiarity with coworkers is partially a consequence of individual atomization in society. People who have moved across the country to a new city where they have no friends or family try to find surrogates in their company and companies, trying to encourage worker loyalty and sacrifice, promote the idea of being friend or family like. I don't think of my coworkers as friends and certainly not family. My coworkers are strangers who happen to work at the same company. I have to interact with them to do my job but that requires only polite communication about work. I don't need to know anything about their personal lives and prefer not to know.

emaginniss 5y ago
Yikes. Some of us are just friendly.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  Small talk enjoyers have the advantage that they can nonconsensually initiate small talk and it's rude for small talk dislikers to even express their dislike. I don't see how unilaterally engaging people in an activity that only you like is "friendly".
  - skeeter2020 5y ago
    How about because an individual puts themself out there to try and build a relationship around shared values, activities, joys? If it's not reciprocated they try something else, or eventually move on. I think you're using "small talk" pejoratively, but all big and deep things start off small. Example: I met my wife of 20+ years eating lunch at a picnic table over casual conversation, so I'm all-in on small talk.