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First, this is basic human behavior. It appears this SVP had a job to manage social interactions and the author was stepping out of their role. Typical company

First, this is basic human behavior. It appears this SVP had a job to manage social interactions and the author was stepping out of their role. Typical company policies are to manage social media via a point team, i.e. employees don't discuss work publicly. The author even mentioned this: > In fact, I was so prolific on social media that I got the attention of several industry analysts who asked how my company used social media for brand promotion and marketing. Of course, since I was in engineering, I sent these inquiries over to our PR department. The SVP was likely feeling the author was impacting company public relations, independent from the point team. It would be equivalent to someone in marketing force pushing code to production. Regarding the authors feelings -- again, he's stepping out of his role and not coordinating with the marketing team. Of course leadership would ask him to knock it off or be fired. > His stern look communicated that he was talking about my career and was clearly not messing around. I felt bullied, threatened, and scared. Because I feared being unfairly scrutinized and I'd just had my job threatened, it was tough for me to feel comfortable saying anything about my work life on Twitter after that. Shouldn't have been talking about work life on twitter anyway... The way the author discusses "bullying" is literally every interaction in a business. Organizations must be clear and consistent. Leaders need to be as well. Yes, they can fire you; yes, they can tell you what to do. That's life, that's the way human designed structures work. > There are a few reasons why I think this happened to me. Being a young Black man in the tech field put me in a vulnerable position where different equals disposable. Maybe being privy to Rick's inherent lack of knowledge of the very thing he professed to be an expert on gave me some perceived leverage over him; thus, I was a threat to be eliminated. My lack of seniority and title also put me at a disadvantage. Ultimately, I believe that in true bully fashion, he got his kicks by using his power to affect other people's lives for sport. Maybe that's true, but in all likelihood the author was stepping out of line. Discussing race in this context seems to detract from that actual events. The author even quit his "dream" job to to work in social media... > This eventually led me to quit and pursue my passion for social media marketing outside my "dream" company. Clearly, the author wasn't interested in their engineering job and decided to do something else -- fine, but not what the company hired them for.

geewee 4y ago
This take is wild to me. If we're assuming the authors side of the story is correct, some of those interactions are _extremely_ weird, rude, and definitely not just regular work interactions.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  Both can be true: that the SVP was pursuing a course they thought would protect the company, but that they did so in a cold, dismissive, bullying manner.
wesley83 4y ago
I want to address the point that I was "stepping out of line." In my role, I was in constant contact with marketing and PR. We worked very closely together and met every week. I'm still friends with many of them to this day. My manager was also fully supportive of my participation on social media and even wrote it into my goals with time carved out, especially for this task. There was no question about the quality of my work. I was even promoted during this time frame. I only spoke about information that was already public, and as I stated before, I was PR trained by the company as an encouragement to talk more openly. I was also in promotional material for the company because they felt I was such a good representative of their values. They not only loved what I was doing but repeatedly encouraged me to continue with their full endorsement. Also, as previously stated, I was a founding member of their social media council. We created policies that determined how and what employees could participate in social media and the associated training. This SVP was not initially in social media management because there was zero established formal presence, to begin with. Back then, companies were not widely on social media like they are today. I know we might have different ways of approaching work, and I've also changed my views over time, but your read that I was not engaged or passionate about my "main" job is a flawed take. It was actually the exact opposite. I was very good at my job and loved it. I was not neglecting my role but going above and beyond.
- xmonkee 4y ago
  I am sorry you went through all that. The SVP sounds like a dick, irrespective of what you tweeted/didn't tweet. I am curious, do you still do social media just as much on the side, or is it your main job now? And do you look back at your days then and think you were tweeting too hard?

geewee 4y ago

This take is wild to me. If we're assuming the authors side of the story is correct, some of those interactions are _extremely_ weird, rude, and definitely not just regular work interactions.

snowwrestler 4y ago
Both can be true: that the SVP was pursuing a course they thought would protect the company, but that they did so in a cold, dismissive, bullying manner.

wesley83 4y ago

I want to address the point that I was "stepping out of line." In my role, I was in constant contact with marketing and PR. We worked very closely together and met every week. I'm still friends with many of them to this day. My manager was also fully supportive of my participation on social media and even wrote it into my goals with time carved out, especially for this task. There was no question about the quality of my work. I was even promoted during this time frame. I only spoke about information that was already public, and as I stated before, I was PR trained by the company as an encouragement to talk more openly. I was also in promotional material for the company because they felt I was such a good representative of their values. They not only loved what I was doing but repeatedly encouraged me to continue with their full endorsement. Also, as previously stated, I was a founding member of their social media council. We created policies that determined how and what employees could participate in social media and the associated training. This SVP was not initially in social media management because there was zero established formal presence, to begin with. Back then, companies were not widely on social media like they are today. I know we might have different ways of approaching work, and I've also changed my views over time, but your read that I was not engaged or passionate about my "main" job is a flawed take. It was actually the exact opposite. I was very good at my job and loved it. I was not neglecting my role but going above and beyond.

xmonkee 4y ago
I am sorry you went through all that. The SVP sounds like a dick, irrespective of what you tweeted/didn't tweet. I am curious, do you still do social media just as much on the side, or is it your main job now? And do you look back at your days then and think you were tweeting too hard?