A reader writes:
Do you assume it’s a crimson flag when a staff in a smaller firm instantly drops you into a bunch textual content in your private telephone upon hiring?
The context is that I’m very pleased in my mid-level place at my very not-toxic Fortune 100 firm. I just like the work and the individuals and whereas I wouldn’t hang around with a couple of of those of us for leisure espresso, we’re Work Associates. I’ve labored for smaller firms and have discovered them to at all times be cliquey and poisonous and in one another’s enterprise. Like high-stakes highschool, the place as an alternative of dropping head cheerleader, you lose your job.
For me the frequent denominator crimson flag was that my poisonous jobs had group chats. “All of us get alongside” and “lols” and morning affirmation texts and extra.
My mom got here from huge time company America and is now working for small time firms. The final one she was at was so poisonous and went up to now south I legally can’t say what occurred. She informed me that from day one at her present job, she’s been in group texts with the “staff.” Extra “morning guys!” and so forth. I’m not going to diss my mother’s new job as a result of she’s so pleased to be out of the opposite place, however I’m seeing indicators already and I’m curious in case you and/or the readers assume group chats/texts are a crimson flag!
I don’t assume groups with group chats are inherently a crimson flag.
I do assume that when a staff is dysfunctional, a bunch chat can usually be one thing that reinforces that — as a result of it’s utilized in ways in which trample individuals’s boundaries (like unwelcome work texts throughout your off hours, or an expectation that you just’ll take part in limitless socializing that doesn’t curiosity you or actively distracts you, or a staff that expects everybody to be “like household” in problematic methods). However that’s usually a mirrored image of different problematic norms on the staff, not one thing basic to the group texts themselves.
There are wholesome, useful groups which have group chats! In these circumstances, I’d theorize that they’re extra prone to pop up in particular use circumstances, like when the work is emotionally troublesome and the group chat is a spot to blow off steam, or if the entire staff is in a youthful (learn: going out) stage of life, or related. However that’s not solely the case both.