Fun fact: Abusers are more likely to be family members than strangers.
Maybe that’s what they’re trying to say?
There are rare work environments where you gel so well with your little group a familial friendship forms that lasts beyond that job.
But it’s never invoked by management stating nonsense like this.
In 2016 I was hired onto a team at a national insurance company. We did Problem Management and Major Incident Management. When I was brought aboard there were five people on the team.
Problem Management, by its nature is not all that high stress. It can get sticky especially if you’re working a Problem that has the C-Suite’s attention, but most of the time you’re working with techs that just want to get things fixed.
Major Incident on the other hand is a baptism in fire. That brought that team together and we all got to the point that we watched each other’s backs and stepped in automatically when needed without having to be asked.
6 years after leaving that job, it was a contract position, I’m still in contact with almost all of the team.
But, they smile and try to make jokes. They put up signs, like, “Teamwork makes the dream work.” They seem friendly, and seem to care, and sometimes even buy pizza.
One mention of unionizing brings that illusion crashing down, though. They show their true face, then.
gives that teacher who says “okay, friends!” and “And the most important rule is: have fun!” vibes
It’s performance review season. Boy am I hearing this a lot
Yeah. Until it says in an email that you need to get let go. Fuck em.
Just leave it, you dont need to work in toxic space
I was asked by my boss to interview this person who he thought would be perfect in the open position I had. He thought the world of her. The interview was really good, I saw what he saw. She had said more than once that her team was like a family, which was odd but I didn’t know better yet.
We walked back to her office and passed by her team. We stopped at her top performer and she highlighted how great they are and proud of treating everyone as family and the look on his face said it all. She’s so full of shit and the contempt he had for her was barely containable. And she didn’t even fucking notice!
As someone who’s been in management for 3+ decades I can firmly tell you if your leader tells you that, RUN!
Or get them fired. This job market is a bitch so quitting may not be the best option.
Edit: I didn’t hire her. Less than a year later HR fired her after an investigation. I don’t know any of the details and wouldn’t share if I did. Dodged that bullet.
I also told my boss what I saw and he commended me for my choice.
Unrelated this boss (who I will think very highly of) was on vacation in Greece a few years later and was murdered in his hotel room. Still haunts me today.
Some CS rep said to me the other day when I was asking about a bogus charge on my account, “thank you for being part of our family”
I said “family doesn’t usually charge money, but go on”
I got a partial refund.
There is a for-profit medical clinic near me where they told the workers that " we’re all just really cool and we love our jobs so we don’t take breaks" - they didn’t allow workers to take breaks as required by law so I created pamphlets about how to report and get compensation for wage theft and I passed them out on all the cars outside the clinic.
I once thought this was a good thing that meant I was safe and well taken care of while being treated as family. Then I realized this also applied to all of the people who were genuinely terrible at their jobs, making horrible decisions for the company, affecting not just my ability to do good work, but the company’s ability to provide. Nobody ever got fired and bad managers got promoted because nobody was ever critical of them. The rot spread and the company never reached the heights of their earliest success.
I would involuntarily laugh at this.
“Clearly you don’t know my family, we’re like wolves. Yes, we’ll back you up, but we’ll also pounce on the weak so they either toughen up or die. Is that really what you want?”
RED FLAG! RUN!
Usually means we expect to grift you into doing things for free
