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>he asked the team, “for this meeting I’d like us to try and introduce ourselves a little differently. If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more

>he asked the team, “for this meeting I’d like us to try and introduce ourselves a little differently. If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable than we normally would in a work setting.” I remember feeling a mix of anxiety and excitement rise in my chest. I sat pondering what I would share. I decided to go for more than 10%. I shared about how my marriage had almost collapsed a couple years prior and a taste of how painful it was. Some of my coworkers shared deeper things I’d never heard in a work setting. It was awkward. It was beautiful. I'd rather not have my manager forcing me to do group therapy. I owe the company some work hours and they own me money. If I want to have personal relations with someone from my work, befriend somebody, share personal things, that is my choice. My personal life is not the company business. Of course I wouldn't say all that to the manager, but 'I'll put him on the list of people I should be careful about, and fake some confessions.

dabeeeenster 2y ago
If you did this in the UK you can be guaranteed a meeting with HR. Absolutely mind blowing.
- kyleee 2y ago
  A meeting with HR too, talk about adding insult to injury
  - cutemonster 2y ago
    I think they mean that the manager would get to talk to HR
aaronbrethorst 2y ago
10% more vulnerable? Ok, I’ll make up a story about how some weekends I keep working because I love this job and team so danged much! A team isn’t a family. A company isn’t a family.
soneca 2y ago
Well, the manager asked only for “10% more vulnerable”. That seems pretty far from “being forced into group therapy” in my perception. It was the author and colleagues that decided to overstate, and seemingly did not regret. Groups of humans sometimes have connections like these, whatever the environment they are in. I am sure other similar meeting with the same prompt only generated people saying they have two cats, they I am anxious about learning a new programming language or that they do not quite understand Stripe business model
- Tainnor 2y ago
  > Well, the manager asked only for “10% more vulnerable”. And they have absolutely no right to do that. "Being vulnerable" is not part of any job description.
  - wkjagt 2y ago
    That's why they said "if you're comfortable". It was totally optional. I don't understand your strong reaction to this.
    - DJHenk 2y ago
      Because you cannot freely say no to that. They have authority over you. Even if they promise it won't affect their opinion of you, you never know if that is actually true. So you are forced to play along.
    - Tainnor 2y ago
      "Are you planning to have children? You don't have to answer"
    - echoangle 2y ago
      Asking a question in front of a group, bur adding a "if you're comfortable", doesn't really make the problem go away. There's always a pressure to answer, even if you say that answering is optional. It's not a horrible violation but it's still kind of weird and unnecessary in a professional context.
Tainnor 2y ago
I agree and this wasn't the only red flag in the post for me. The reverence for a company that does, in the end, "just" process payments or the part about "a billionaire liked my project"... I feel like there's something rather unhealthy about that kind of mindset. All the best to the author of the post, hopefully they can find more meaningful work.
- whstl 2y ago
  > The reverence for a company that does, in the end, "just" process payments It is funny how the more unimportant the company is, the more this kind of reverence is expected. For me there was a stark contrast between two jobs I had: Consultancy where I worked on software for local government that millions literally depend on? Keep your work-life 100% separate. Marketing startup that spammed Google with crazy amounts of SEO-spam? Lots of instructions from HR to ask about personal matters in 1-on-1 meetings, weekly 2h mandatory confraternization followed by free beer, random CEO speech about his favorite topic for 1h every month.
  - tbrownaw 2y ago
    At least with those specific examples, it could just as easily be startups being inexperienced and more susceptible to silly fads.
- jondlm 2y ago
  Your red flags are absolutely merited. I won't deny that.
cpursley 2y ago
It’s pretty nuts, putting out your dirty laundry in public is a surefire way to self sabotage - especially in a work setting. In American culture, there’s a lot of “positive self help” talk about being open about these things. But the reality is - it actually just provides drama and ammunition to people who might not have your best interests at heart. Some things are best kept between your close trusted friends and family or therapist, no matter how trendy the culture is about being “open”.
- TrainedMonkey 2y ago
  > Some things are best kept between your close trusted friends and family or therapist, no matter how trendy the culture is about being “open”. This makes total sense if you have a therapist and / or have friends you can be vulnerable with (and know how to). But there are undoubtedly those who do not have that. For them the risk of career sabotage vs a change of improved quality of life might be worth considering. I don't know where the breakdown is, probably against mandatory sharing in the work setting on the account of an average workspace being pretty adversarial. However, if I could make a call for my younger self I would choose to share.
  - Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
    I also agree with this sentiment but at the same time I think it boils down to how you interpret these things , for op it was one of the greatest things but to somebody else , this makes boss not likeable. I think this shows that the boss was going out of his way which I "personally" appreciate. I don't know what people expect managers / boss to do. Somebody on team expects their boss to X and somebody else on that same team expects their boss to be anything but X. If I ever become a manager , I am probably taking this boss's approach , I think its good to have some talks like this. I am also much inspired by the likes of charles schwab and dale carnegie's how to win friends and influence people so probably there is a bias here
    - thunky 2y ago
      > I don't know what people expect managers / boss to do What they do should be related to the company work, otherwise they're overstepping. They're not social workers. They have to respect the privacy and independence of their coworkers. > If I ever become a manager , I am probably taking this boss's approach Please don't. Coworkers can obviously have social relationships but they should grow organically without being "managed". You know the best way for that to happen is? Let them work together. They'll build their own relationships. They don't need your help. If they don't work together enough for this to happen naturally then they're strangers to each other anyway and that's ok too.
varispeed 2y ago
> I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable than we normally would I would have reported manager to HR for this and if they didn't take action I would take company to tribunal. This is pure simple coercion into sharing personal data that then other workers could use against you. I can't see the world where sharing personal stuff at work is ever appropriate, let alone be subjected to peer pressure to share it.
- wtfparanoid 2y ago
  what kind of dystopian workplace do you go to where people are looking to use things against you? The jobs I stick with are the ones where colleagues have got each others back. All this zero-sum game playing toxicity is what ruins work for the collaborative pro-social people. Find a work place that doesn't reward that kind of behaviour.
  - runarberg 2y ago
    I don’t know whether you are American or not, but I find it ironic that on a forum who’s demographic skews American, this sentiment of anti-individualism at the workplace is so widely shared. America is supposed to be this super-freedom, super-individualistic place. Except when you are a worker at a workplace. Then you are supposed to spend at least 40 hours a week (except you are supposed to want to spend more time than that; and most do [except they don’t want to]), you are supposed to leave your politics behind, don’t talk about politics at work, you are supposed to do everything your boss tells you without question, and certainly don’t bring in your morals. Your workplace is a dictatorship (in a freedom loving country) and you are not supposed to complain about it. You are supposed to like your work, so you are not even entitled to your feelings. And suddenly your workplace is supposed to be this communist utopia, where every worker has a task, and the work is supposed to make them happy, and the whole workplace has a comradery of peers. Except you are all making money for your boss (or worse, your shareholders) and only keep a tiny portion of what you produce, but you are not supposed to complain and definitely not supposed to unite in bargaining for better, only unite in being exploited (except you aren’t supposed to see it that way). The American workplace is probably as far away from the American dream as it possibly could be.
serial_dev 2y ago
I wouldn’t necessarily be worried about them using it against me later, just the fact that they want to force me to open up and be pretend buddies is annoying. It’s a work relationship. It could be just me enjoying remote work, but I am not looking to be friends with them 4000 km away. I’m too old for this, I know all my work friendships faded away in a couple of years and even in those years we focused on work and chat about career. Don’t force me to share personal things with everyone. I’ll share it if I feel like it with the ones that I feel like it.
Aeolun 2y ago
To be fair, 10% more vulnerable than “I won’t talk about my private live at work,” is still “I won’t talk about my private life at work.” I find it strange that the same people that ask you “How are you doing?” Without expecting an answer, are so into this kinda fake buddy buddy thing.
wkjagt 2y ago
Post: "If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable" This comment: "I'd rather not have my manager forcing me to do group therapy." How did "if you’re comfortable" become "forcing me", and "try and be 10% more vulnerable" become "group therapy"?
- hosteur 2y ago
  Probably because of the power asymmetry.
  - molochai 2y ago
    Power asymmetry and also group pressure. There is still plenty of tacit pressure to share despite the "optional" caveat. Someone who says directly "I don't like this, no thank you" even in very deferential words will garner some degree of negativity, either from the manager or the group. Same for someone who shares too much and winds up sobbing, or someone who shares a vulnerability inconsequential in comparison to what others share.
    - twelve40 2y ago
      I don't even know how I would react if i was caught off-guard with a stupid question like that out of the blue with everyone watching. On a good day, I would probably laugh it off and say something obviously idiotic like "my vulnerability is that i work too hard" to indicate that I don't find this amusing. On a bad day, caught off-guard, I might actually take the bait, "become vulnerable" and blurt out something far more stupid in front of everybody.
- kroolik 2y ago
  Its not difficult to imagine a person saying 'i have nothing i want to share here' be stigmatised in future. As a person who doesnt want to work together and be part of the company culture.
  - dzikimarian 2y ago
mywacaday 2y ago
I work in manufacturing and we have a weekly safety slide that normally presents a safety based work scenario or learning, this week's one was based on how to be safe while out trick or treating and one of the guys said he didn't appreciate being told in how to behave outside of work hours. I have have to admit that his attitude caught me off guard but I understand where he is coming from even if the intention comes from a good place finding the line between work and home can be a grey area. Saying that I don't thinkmi would appreciate being ambushed with being asked to provide a personal anecdote
- elygre 2y ago
  [flagged]
tegling 2y ago
I'm thinking maybe this is rather to present an opportunity for the team to put forward their expectations, pain points and desires. Being 'vulnerable' for me in a workplace setting means perhaps admitting that I really don't appreciate people bikeshedding over items I'm submitting for review (rather than being actually constructive) or that I feel the git work flow don't attribute fairly (hiding my contributions). Maybe others feel the same and we could do something about it? And those were only on individualistic side. To evolve the team and team play I'd think this a good time to bring up that I'm actually hating responding to support inquiries and rather have Pete doing more of that. And that I think Sue is doing amazing work with Figma and I'd really like to learn from her. Wouldn't this type of 'vulnerable' make sense in a team?
nvarsj 2y ago
It sounds like something straight out of Silicon Valley. I get they are trying to create a sense of psychological safety for people, but this is a bit much.
porter 2y ago
Paraphrasing Seth Godin: do you want your heart surgeon greeting you before surgery by authentically telling you about the big fight he just had with his wife this morning?
- dzikimarian 2y ago
  How often do you meet your heart surgeon for let's say 2-3 years, a few times a week?
ruthmarx 2y ago
10% more vulnerable than normal is open to interpretation. You don't need to lie or put anyone on a list, it's just an attempt to foster persona relations between a team, the idea being with a little empathy and knowledge of each other people might be more likely to resolve future differences amicably.
- tharkun__ 2y ago
  So now you have a bunch of people that freely overshared and that would freely overshare anyhow, you have people that invented something like "my cat just died" and everyone is now doling out condolences and asking how they feel for weeks even though they never even had a cat and they secretly hate the boss and the one guy that openly said they don't do stuff like that at work and they're now shunned by everyone. Worked out great, didn't it? Now the above is probably a bit over top but it shows the typical American company culture effect. Going through this at work right now since we got bought by Americans and more and more fakeness is coming in.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    Imo you're being a bit dramatic. I find it nice to work with real people, I'm work from home right now and its odd to me just how little I know about the people I ostensibly share 8 hours a day with.
    - tharkun__ 2y ago
      See I think there is a huge difference between naturally getting to know your coworkers and this group pressure sharing exercise. It's completely fine to get to know your coworkers. But let the oversharing ones (the extroverts) congegrate together naturally. We had someone like that on the team. Was likeable enough but wouldn't stop talking about everything in their life. That was their choice tho and I am fine to listen but I'm not "sharing back". And then there were introverts. Some that spoke very very little and some that were in the middle. They randomly shared some things from time to time in quieter moments with less people around and when they felt comfortable. Very real people and it was nice to get to know the a bit more. I'm more on the introvert side there and if you group pressure me into this sort of thing I will remember that for a very very very long time. As in we are never gonna be friends. I'm still sour about what an extrovert HR person did 4 years ago and I don't speak to them any longer. They are also showing from time to time that they haven't changed and they'd be the type to use whatever came out in an oversharing session against you. Now tell me to "report them to HR".
pavel_lishin 2y ago
We had a team building exercise, that I wasn't able to attend. The person running it decided that a great ice-breaker would be for everyone to name their greatest fear. I'm a parent. You can probably pretty easily infer what my greatest fear is. Would I share that? Fuck no! Not only am I not particularly willing to get that intimate with a bunch of strangers, I also don't want to be a huge fucking downer. What I do want is to recognize that while you can speed-run friendship & bonding to some degree, it's fucking inappropriate to try to do so at work. It's work. I'll make friends if I make friends, but otherwise I'm out at 5, physically, mentally and emotionally.
- dnissley 2y ago
  Is it something bad happening to your kids? That seems perfectly appropriate to share
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    I don't fucking want to think about that during a fucking team building exercise. And I don't think anyone else wants to hear that, either.
    - chinathrow 2y ago
      Neither would I. I can only think of this question having any place in such a situation if you suffix it by "at work" and exclude the obvious things such as getting fired or the company going bust.
christophilus 2y ago
Not gonna lie. When these sorts of situations have arisen in the past, I find it really tempting to troll. These prompts are such BS that they just invite a BS response. “Whoo. OK. I’ve never talked about this, but here goes. When I was 12 I used a Hello Kitty doll to kill a man. Wow. Feels great to finally get that off my chest.”
- Tainnor 2y ago
  One time at a corporate retreat, we had to fill out each others' "friend books" (I'm not making this up). One question was about our personal motto. I wrote down "Hell is other people" - I think some people took the hint.
namaria 2y ago
Putting aside the trite "we're cool here" corporate routine, it sounds to me like a hack of a manager gave someone the opening to trauma dump on their co-workers and some by-standers got treated to some drive by group theory. Awful all around.
sbochins 2y ago
Yea, this was really disturbing. Your work and manager already have a lot of power over you. It seems really nefarious to ask employees to bring in vulnerabilities about themselves from outside of work. I don’t buy the team building nonsense, which will probably used as the “explanation” here.
rdtsc 2y ago
Absolutely. This has only downsides for employees and only upsides for employers. Don’t fall for this!
scruple 2y ago
Yeah, I would just instinctively make something up. Maybe everyone else does that, too, how would any of us know? I really don't like this trend of employers trying to act like we're all friends or one big happy family. It only serves to blur the very real boundaries of power in favor of the employer. Engaging with it in earnest feels like self-exploitation to me.
superultra 2y ago
I am the kind of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. I grew up in a familialy dishonest context so being open and transparent has been my default. That attitude is a liability at work and I’ve learned the hard way. We’ve all heard the phrase don’t shit where you eat. In modern workplace cadence that means don’t use your workplace as your source of therapy or friends or certainly family. The way we present yourselves at work has to intrinsically be a performance because that’s how money works. Find another place to express emotions and thoughts and find friends. That place should not be the workplace.
- jondlm 2y ago
  Sorry to hear you've been burned by sharing.
- swampdonkey64 2y ago
  ^ This. This x 100. You choose your friends because you have shared interests and you make each other feel good. You have family because they brought you into the world and you have shared qualities and bonds. You chose your job because it pays you. You do it for the ducats. Don't get it twisted.
946789987649 2y ago
I had a manager do something like this but in a slightly better way. Each week we took it in turns doing our "life story". Some did it funny, some did it really personal and serious, some more of a CV, and some a mix of them all. You could really decide how you wanted to do it, and people got to know you a bit better.
thdhhghgbhy 2y ago
I'd go further, the situation as described was gross. A kind of peer pressure invasion of privacy for all employees involved.
Aurornis 2y ago
In recent years I had a manager who read a lot of pop-psychology and self-help books. His 1:1s turned into pseudo therapy sessions where he tried to assume the role of therapist. He and I did not get along because I politely changed the subject back to work and the office every time he tried to get me to “open up” about my childhood, my home life, my fears and anxieties, and other topics. I thought he was a weird outlier, but I joined an invite-only Slack for management a while ago where I’d estimate 1/4 of the topics in the #1-on-1s channel are from managers trying to psychoanalyze their team or act as therapists. The good news is that the Slack is very good about correcting these people about their role and what is appropriate for work. The bad news is that these new managers are getting the idea from somewhere that they need to be some type of therapist and patriarch of the team. It feels like a weird iteration of new-age management philosophies that breed in B-list business books and social media like LinkedIn.
- jondlm 2y ago
  That's rough. Sorry to hear you were pushed.
- d0gsg0w00f 2y ago
  I'm a serious work focused person too and my manager is a little on the mushy side. Exasperating for me, but the younger talent on the team eats it up so it works for him in that respect. I'm still not sure what percentage of it is an act.
- Nav_Panel 2y ago
  This is wild to me. As someone who's done some eng management and has also read a lot of psychoanalytic theory, the only things I would actively ask my reports to "open up" about emotionally are what they like and dislike about tasks and processes, so I can better distribute work that satisfies them and remove frictions. That said if they want to tell me more, I'm happy to listen. Otoh when dealing with peers at director or C level, things tend to get significantly more psychological, likely because their facility of judgment, which is ultimately psychological and moral, is functioning with far higher leverage due to their organizational authority.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
I think the better approach would be for the manager to share something themselves, to demonstrate that a bit of vulnerability is okay, but not even ask if anyone else wants to say anything and certainly not make people feel they should. In other words lead by example so that if someone feels like they want to open up they can and their manager will be supportive.
neilv 2y ago
> Of course I wouldn't say all that to the manager, but 'I'll put him on the list of people I should be careful about, Both reasonable. > and fake some confessions. Could you find some other way to handle it, without lying?
d0gsg0w00f 2y ago
When these things come up I just share work vulnerabilities like, "Yeah, that project I pushed for was a terrible idea in hindsight." Or "I'm really struggling with this project because I don't know if anyone cares about it". That way I tick the participation box without making it therapy.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
SergeAx 2y ago
> If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable So it seems to me that it was voluntary, right? You could be okay sharing nothing, author felt better going proposed path.
NotAnOtter 2y ago
[flagged]

dabeeeenster 2y ago

If you did this in the UK you can be guaranteed a meeting with HR. Absolutely mind blowing.

kyleee 2y ago
A meeting with HR too, talk about adding insult to injury
- cutemonster 2y ago
  I think they mean that the manager would get to talk to HR

aaronbrethorst 2y ago

10% more vulnerable? Ok, I’ll make up a story about how some weekends I keep working because I love this job and team so danged much! A team isn’t a family. A company isn’t a family.

soneca 2y ago

Well, the manager asked only for “10% more vulnerable”. That seems pretty far from “being forced into group therapy” in my perception. It was the author and colleagues that decided to overstate, and seemingly did not regret. Groups of humans sometimes have connections like these, whatever the environment they are in. I am sure other similar meeting with the same prompt only generated people saying they have two cats, they I am anxious about learning a new programming language or that they do not quite understand Stripe business model

Tainnor 2y ago
> Well, the manager asked only for “10% more vulnerable”. And they have absolutely no right to do that. "Being vulnerable" is not part of any job description.
- wkjagt 2y ago
  That's why they said "if you're comfortable". It was totally optional. I don't understand your strong reaction to this.
  - DJHenk 2y ago
    Because you cannot freely say no to that. They have authority over you. Even if they promise it won't affect their opinion of you, you never know if that is actually true. So you are forced to play along.
  - Tainnor 2y ago
    "Are you planning to have children? You don't have to answer"
  - echoangle 2y ago
    Asking a question in front of a group, bur adding a "if you're comfortable", doesn't really make the problem go away. There's always a pressure to answer, even if you say that answering is optional. It's not a horrible violation but it's still kind of weird and unnecessary in a professional context.

Tainnor 2y ago

I agree and this wasn't the only red flag in the post for me. The reverence for a company that does, in the end, "just" process payments or the part about "a billionaire liked my project"... I feel like there's something rather unhealthy about that kind of mindset. All the best to the author of the post, hopefully they can find more meaningful work.

whstl 2y ago
> The reverence for a company that does, in the end, "just" process payments It is funny how the more unimportant the company is, the more this kind of reverence is expected. For me there was a stark contrast between two jobs I had: Consultancy where I worked on software for local government that millions literally depend on? Keep your work-life 100% separate. Marketing startup that spammed Google with crazy amounts of SEO-spam? Lots of instructions from HR to ask about personal matters in 1-on-1 meetings, weekly 2h mandatory confraternization followed by free beer, random CEO speech about his favorite topic for 1h every month.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  At least with those specific examples, it could just as easily be startups being inexperienced and more susceptible to silly fads.
jondlm 2y ago
Your red flags are absolutely merited. I won't deny that.

cpursley 2y ago

It’s pretty nuts, putting out your dirty laundry in public is a surefire way to self sabotage - especially in a work setting. In American culture, there’s a lot of “positive self help” talk about being open about these things. But the reality is - it actually just provides drama and ammunition to people who might not have your best interests at heart. Some things are best kept between your close trusted friends and family or therapist, no matter how trendy the culture is about being “open”.

TrainedMonkey 2y ago
> Some things are best kept between your close trusted friends and family or therapist, no matter how trendy the culture is about being “open”. This makes total sense if you have a therapist and / or have friends you can be vulnerable with (and know how to). But there are undoubtedly those who do not have that. For them the risk of career sabotage vs a change of improved quality of life might be worth considering. I don't know where the breakdown is, probably against mandatory sharing in the work setting on the account of an average workspace being pretty adversarial. However, if I could make a call for my younger self I would choose to share.
- Imustaskforhelp 2y ago
  I also agree with this sentiment but at the same time I think it boils down to how you interpret these things , for op it was one of the greatest things but to somebody else , this makes boss not likeable. I think this shows that the boss was going out of his way which I "personally" appreciate. I don't know what people expect managers / boss to do. Somebody on team expects their boss to X and somebody else on that same team expects their boss to be anything but X. If I ever become a manager , I am probably taking this boss's approach , I think its good to have some talks like this. I am also much inspired by the likes of charles schwab and dale carnegie's how to win friends and influence people so probably there is a bias here
  - thunky 2y ago
    > I don't know what people expect managers / boss to do What they do should be related to the company work, otherwise they're overstepping. They're not social workers. They have to respect the privacy and independence of their coworkers. > If I ever become a manager , I am probably taking this boss's approach Please don't. Coworkers can obviously have social relationships but they should grow organically without being "managed". You know the best way for that to happen is? Let them work together. They'll build their own relationships. They don't need your help. If they don't work together enough for this to happen naturally then they're strangers to each other anyway and that's ok too.

varispeed 2y ago

> I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable than we normally would I would have reported manager to HR for this and if they didn't take action I would take company to tribunal. This is pure simple coercion into sharing personal data that then other workers could use against you. I can't see the world where sharing personal stuff at work is ever appropriate, let alone be subjected to peer pressure to share it.

wtfparanoid 2y ago
what kind of dystopian workplace do you go to where people are looking to use things against you? The jobs I stick with are the ones where colleagues have got each others back. All this zero-sum game playing toxicity is what ruins work for the collaborative pro-social people. Find a work place that doesn't reward that kind of behaviour.
- runarberg 2y ago
  I don’t know whether you are American or not, but I find it ironic that on a forum who’s demographic skews American, this sentiment of anti-individualism at the workplace is so widely shared. America is supposed to be this super-freedom, super-individualistic place. Except when you are a worker at a workplace. Then you are supposed to spend at least 40 hours a week (except you are supposed to want to spend more time than that; and most do [except they don’t want to]), you are supposed to leave your politics behind, don’t talk about politics at work, you are supposed to do everything your boss tells you without question, and certainly don’t bring in your morals. Your workplace is a dictatorship (in a freedom loving country) and you are not supposed to complain about it. You are supposed to like your work, so you are not even entitled to your feelings. And suddenly your workplace is supposed to be this communist utopia, where every worker has a task, and the work is supposed to make them happy, and the whole workplace has a comradery of peers. Except you are all making money for your boss (or worse, your shareholders) and only keep a tiny portion of what you produce, but you are not supposed to complain and definitely not supposed to unite in bargaining for better, only unite in being exploited (except you aren’t supposed to see it that way). The American workplace is probably as far away from the American dream as it possibly could be.

serial_dev 2y ago

I wouldn’t necessarily be worried about them using it against me later, just the fact that they want to force me to open up and be pretend buddies is annoying. It’s a work relationship. It could be just me enjoying remote work, but I am not looking to be friends with them 4000 km away. I’m too old for this, I know all my work friendships faded away in a couple of years and even in those years we focused on work and chat about career. Don’t force me to share personal things with everyone. I’ll share it if I feel like it with the ones that I feel like it.

Aeolun 2y ago

To be fair, 10% more vulnerable than “I won’t talk about my private live at work,” is still “I won’t talk about my private life at work.” I find it strange that the same people that ask you “How are you doing?” Without expecting an answer, are so into this kinda fake buddy buddy thing.

wkjagt 2y ago

Post: "If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable" This comment: "I'd rather not have my manager forcing me to do group therapy." How did "if you’re comfortable" become "forcing me", and "try and be 10% more vulnerable" become "group therapy"?

hosteur 2y ago
Probably because of the power asymmetry.
- molochai 2y ago
  Power asymmetry and also group pressure. There is still plenty of tacit pressure to share despite the "optional" caveat. Someone who says directly "I don't like this, no thank you" even in very deferential words will garner some degree of negativity, either from the manager or the group. Same for someone who shares too much and winds up sobbing, or someone who shares a vulnerability inconsequential in comparison to what others share.
  - twelve40 2y ago
    I don't even know how I would react if i was caught off-guard with a stupid question like that out of the blue with everyone watching. On a good day, I would probably laugh it off and say something obviously idiotic like "my vulnerability is that i work too hard" to indicate that I don't find this amusing. On a bad day, caught off-guard, I might actually take the bait, "become vulnerable" and blurt out something far more stupid in front of everybody.
kroolik 2y ago
Its not difficult to imagine a person saying 'i have nothing i want to share here' be stigmatised in future. As a person who doesnt want to work together and be part of the company culture.
- dzikimarian 2y ago

mywacaday 2y ago

I work in manufacturing and we have a weekly safety slide that normally presents a safety based work scenario or learning, this week's one was based on how to be safe while out trick or treating and one of the guys said he didn't appreciate being told in how to behave outside of work hours. I have have to admit that his attitude caught me off guard but I understand where he is coming from even if the intention comes from a good place finding the line between work and home can be a grey area. Saying that I don't thinkmi would appreciate being ambushed with being asked to provide a personal anecdote

elygre 2y ago
[flagged]

tegling 2y ago

I'm thinking maybe this is rather to present an opportunity for the team to put forward their expectations, pain points and desires. Being 'vulnerable' for me in a workplace setting means perhaps admitting that I really don't appreciate people bikeshedding over items I'm submitting for review (rather than being actually constructive) or that I feel the git work flow don't attribute fairly (hiding my contributions). Maybe others feel the same and we could do something about it? And those were only on individualistic side. To evolve the team and team play I'd think this a good time to bring up that I'm actually hating responding to support inquiries and rather have Pete doing more of that. And that I think Sue is doing amazing work with Figma and I'd really like to learn from her. Wouldn't this type of 'vulnerable' make sense in a team?

nvarsj 2y ago

It sounds like something straight out of Silicon Valley. I get they are trying to create a sense of psychological safety for people, but this is a bit much.

porter 2y ago

Paraphrasing Seth Godin: do you want your heart surgeon greeting you before surgery by authentically telling you about the big fight he just had with his wife this morning?

dzikimarian 2y ago
How often do you meet your heart surgeon for let's say 2-3 years, a few times a week?

ruthmarx 2y ago

10% more vulnerable than normal is open to interpretation. You don't need to lie or put anyone on a list, it's just an attempt to foster persona relations between a team, the idea being with a little empathy and knowledge of each other people might be more likely to resolve future differences amicably.

tharkun__ 2y ago
So now you have a bunch of people that freely overshared and that would freely overshare anyhow, you have people that invented something like "my cat just died" and everyone is now doling out condolences and asking how they feel for weeks even though they never even had a cat and they secretly hate the boss and the one guy that openly said they don't do stuff like that at work and they're now shunned by everyone. Worked out great, didn't it? Now the above is probably a bit over top but it shows the typical American company culture effect. Going through this at work right now since we got bought by Americans and more and more fakeness is coming in.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  Imo you're being a bit dramatic. I find it nice to work with real people, I'm work from home right now and its odd to me just how little I know about the people I ostensibly share 8 hours a day with.
  - tharkun__ 2y ago
    See I think there is a huge difference between naturally getting to know your coworkers and this group pressure sharing exercise. It's completely fine to get to know your coworkers. But let the oversharing ones (the extroverts) congegrate together naturally. We had someone like that on the team. Was likeable enough but wouldn't stop talking about everything in their life. That was their choice tho and I am fine to listen but I'm not "sharing back". And then there were introverts. Some that spoke very very little and some that were in the middle. They randomly shared some things from time to time in quieter moments with less people around and when they felt comfortable. Very real people and it was nice to get to know the a bit more. I'm more on the introvert side there and if you group pressure me into this sort of thing I will remember that for a very very very long time. As in we are never gonna be friends. I'm still sour about what an extrovert HR person did 4 years ago and I don't speak to them any longer. They are also showing from time to time that they haven't changed and they'd be the type to use whatever came out in an oversharing session against you. Now tell me to "report them to HR".

pavel_lishin 2y ago

We had a team building exercise, that I wasn't able to attend. The person running it decided that a great ice-breaker would be for everyone to name their greatest fear. I'm a parent. You can probably pretty easily infer what my greatest fear is. Would I share that? Fuck no! Not only am I not particularly willing to get that intimate with a bunch of strangers, I also don't want to be a huge fucking downer. What I do want is to recognize that while you can speed-run friendship & bonding to some degree, it's fucking inappropriate to try to do so at work. It's work. I'll make friends if I make friends, but otherwise I'm out at 5, physically, mentally and emotionally.

dnissley 2y ago
Is it something bad happening to your kids? That seems perfectly appropriate to share
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  I don't fucking want to think about that during a fucking team building exercise. And I don't think anyone else wants to hear that, either.
  - chinathrow 2y ago
    Neither would I. I can only think of this question having any place in such a situation if you suffix it by "at work" and exclude the obvious things such as getting fired or the company going bust.

christophilus 2y ago

Not gonna lie. When these sorts of situations have arisen in the past, I find it really tempting to troll. These prompts are such BS that they just invite a BS response. “Whoo. OK. I’ve never talked about this, but here goes. When I was 12 I used a Hello Kitty doll to kill a man. Wow. Feels great to finally get that off my chest.”

Tainnor 2y ago
One time at a corporate retreat, we had to fill out each others' "friend books" (I'm not making this up). One question was about our personal motto. I wrote down "Hell is other people" - I think some people took the hint.

namaria 2y ago

Putting aside the trite "we're cool here" corporate routine, it sounds to me like a hack of a manager gave someone the opening to trauma dump on their co-workers and some by-standers got treated to some drive by group theory. Awful all around.

sbochins 2y ago

Yea, this was really disturbing. Your work and manager already have a lot of power over you. It seems really nefarious to ask employees to bring in vulnerabilities about themselves from outside of work. I don’t buy the team building nonsense, which will probably used as the “explanation” here.

rdtsc 2y ago

Absolutely. This has only downsides for employees and only upsides for employers. Don’t fall for this!

scruple 2y ago

Yeah, I would just instinctively make something up. Maybe everyone else does that, too, how would any of us know? I really don't like this trend of employers trying to act like we're all friends or one big happy family. It only serves to blur the very real boundaries of power in favor of the employer. Engaging with it in earnest feels like self-exploitation to me.

superultra 2y ago

I am the kind of guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. I grew up in a familialy dishonest context so being open and transparent has been my default. That attitude is a liability at work and I’ve learned the hard way. We’ve all heard the phrase don’t shit where you eat. In modern workplace cadence that means don’t use your workplace as your source of therapy or friends or certainly family. The way we present yourselves at work has to intrinsically be a performance because that’s how money works. Find another place to express emotions and thoughts and find friends. That place should not be the workplace.

jondlm 2y ago
Sorry to hear you've been burned by sharing.
swampdonkey64 2y ago
^ This. This x 100. You choose your friends because you have shared interests and you make each other feel good. You have family because they brought you into the world and you have shared qualities and bonds. You chose your job because it pays you. You do it for the ducats. Don't get it twisted.

946789987649 2y ago

I had a manager do something like this but in a slightly better way. Each week we took it in turns doing our "life story". Some did it funny, some did it really personal and serious, some more of a CV, and some a mix of them all. You could really decide how you wanted to do it, and people got to know you a bit better.

thdhhghgbhy 2y ago

I'd go further, the situation as described was gross. A kind of peer pressure invasion of privacy for all employees involved.

Aurornis 2y ago

In recent years I had a manager who read a lot of pop-psychology and self-help books. His 1:1s turned into pseudo therapy sessions where he tried to assume the role of therapist. He and I did not get along because I politely changed the subject back to work and the office every time he tried to get me to “open up” about my childhood, my home life, my fears and anxieties, and other topics. I thought he was a weird outlier, but I joined an invite-only Slack for management a while ago where I’d estimate 1/4 of the topics in the #1-on-1s channel are from managers trying to psychoanalyze their team or act as therapists. The good news is that the Slack is very good about correcting these people about their role and what is appropriate for work. The bad news is that these new managers are getting the idea from somewhere that they need to be some type of therapist and patriarch of the team. It feels like a weird iteration of new-age management philosophies that breed in B-list business books and social media like LinkedIn.

jondlm 2y ago
That's rough. Sorry to hear you were pushed.
d0gsg0w00f 2y ago
I'm a serious work focused person too and my manager is a little on the mushy side. Exasperating for me, but the younger talent on the team eats it up so it works for him in that respect. I'm still not sure what percentage of it is an act.
Nav_Panel 2y ago
This is wild to me. As someone who's done some eng management and has also read a lot of psychoanalytic theory, the only things I would actively ask my reports to "open up" about emotionally are what they like and dislike about tasks and processes, so I can better distribute work that satisfies them and remove frictions. That said if they want to tell me more, I'm happy to listen. Otoh when dealing with peers at director or C level, things tend to get significantly more psychological, likely because their facility of judgment, which is ultimately psychological and moral, is functioning with far higher leverage due to their organizational authority.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

I think the better approach would be for the manager to share something themselves, to demonstrate that a bit of vulnerability is okay, but not even ask if anyone else wants to say anything and certainly not make people feel they should. In other words lead by example so that if someone feels like they want to open up they can and their manager will be supportive.

neilv 2y ago

> Of course I wouldn't say all that to the manager, but 'I'll put him on the list of people I should be careful about, Both reasonable. > and fake some confessions. Could you find some other way to handle it, without lying?

d0gsg0w00f 2y ago

When these things come up I just share work vulnerabilities like, "Yeah, that project I pushed for was a terrible idea in hindsight." Or "I'm really struggling with this project because I don't know if anyone cares about it". That way I tick the participation box without making it therapy.

deleted 2y ago
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SergeAx 2y ago

> If you’re comfortable, I’d like us to try and be 10% more vulnerable So it seems to me that it was voluntary, right? You could be okay sharing nothing, author felt better going proposed path.

NotAnOtter 2y ago

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