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Comment by noisy_boy | Hacker News Reader

Like a family, eh? So let us see who from my office turns up and does my daily groceries, takes care of my kids and cleans my house if/when I am suffering from a sickness - doesn't even have to be a prolonged case, a few weeks would do. God forbid if it is prolonged - if the law of the land permits, the head of our "family" (a.k.a my boss) would, in varying levels of directness/corporate-speak, let me know what an "incredibly difficult decision" it has been to "part ways" before kicking me out of the firm. You know who are the people I can most expect to be actually there for me? My actual family.

I know that all the families are not same and there are instances where one finds colleagues who go to great lengths to support each other while the dysfunctional family actually weighs things down. But that is not the norm (atleast not in the culture I am from). So if people of a firm use terms like "family", they better back it up. Otherwise, just shut up and give each other the space that grown-ups deserve.

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I'd do that for some of the people I've worked with. One of them offered to let me live with him for a couple of weeks, others I've helped move house, or offered to invest in their businesses.

The problem here is confusing the destination with the journey. I'm not loyal to them because top-down management told me they were family, I'm loyal to them because top-down management created an environment where I went to the pub with the same great people every couple of Fridays for years.

EDIT: They also know damn well what the difference is between things I want and things the company wants, and prioritise the former while ignoring the latter.

I’ve vacationed with coworkers, stood up in two coworker’s weddings, and I still keep in touch with a core group from a job I left almost a decade ago.

To your point, this was possible because work provided an environment to meet these people.

But for every person I’m friends with or still stay in touch with, there are 100 I do not. Ongoing friendship has nothing to do with work, and everything to do with the people I met there.

Same, but ironically the bonds I made with those people were sometimes due in part to our shared experience of working in a bad environment with horrible management.

Friendship seems very much a function of overall time shared together. School, work, sports, military, what else is there? ... even internet forums and email correspondence have netted me some long-term (IRL) friendships.

When people get busy with commuting, family, house upkeep, demanding jobs, and distance, new friendship is all but impossible. This is probably the #1 topic on r/AskMenOver30

> But for every person I’m friends with or still stay in touch with, there are 100 I do not

probably 1000x the base rate for life generally.

Work and jobs are different things

Work is generic

A job is specific

I like to work and work with people

I hate my job which specifically exists because 2-5 people, founders, investors, eventually some manager, or some “owner” of socially valuable land or machinery, said this is the work they’ll pay for.

I’m not a family member or friend of people in a system like that. Since those people too kowtowed to doing a job for someone else, not finding work of value to their experience.

> Like a family, eh? So let us see who from my office turns up and does my daily groceries, takes care of my kids and cleans my house if/when I am suffering from a sickness - doesn't even have to be a prolonged case, a few weeks would do.

It's a simile/metaphor, not a literal statement.

When they say like a family they mean treating each other with kindness, friendship and compassion. They don't mean that everyone has to be around each others houses at Christmas.

Everyone should try to have a heart of gold to their other coworkers (To be clear, this is a metaphor and doesn't mean that you should replace your own heart with one manufactured from gold. It would be an unsuitable material to build an artificial heart from).

Yeah there is a word for treating eachother with friendship - "friends". Being friendly. This is already included in social skills.

The company saying they want to be family is super annoying to me. It's a JOB, not a personal relationship you choose yourself. Saying it's a family implies you should feel loyalty to the company, when in fact, it's a business relationship.

They are trying to blur the lines by saying family and its complete bullshit. I wouldn't even have a job if they didn't give me money for it, but I would have a family. See the crystal clear difference?

> They are trying to blur the lines by saying family and its complete bullshit.

Agreed. It's a psychological tactic to make their workers work harder. If your real family asked you to do a task that needed you to go out of your way to perform, you'd do it, because it's your family. Companies that try to push the 'we're like a family' angle are aiming to leverage you the same way.

No company does something for nothing. If your employer offers you something unexpected, always ask yourself, what's in it for them ?

Your last statement is a bit unfair, as it implies that their goals are necessarily non-altruistic. Often, what’s in it for them is increased employee happiness which leads to, yes, increased employee retention. That’s a win-win, and not evil.

You're the one bringing up "evil." The people you're replying to are simply saying that the company is selfish and does not love you.

Perhaps evil was a bad term, but the implication was there.

> I wouldn't even have a job if they didn't give me money for it, but I would have a family. See the crystal clear difference?

Yes, crystal clear, but this is the difference between taking it literally and its intended use as a metaphor.

Just as "his words cut deep as a knife" doesn't mean that the words were literally as damaging as being stabbed, and "They are walking a real tightrope in that meeting" doesn't mean someone could literally fall and die, "we are like a family" doesn't mean you are making a life-long commitment to the organisation which would continue without pay.

And sure, you could say 'friends' instead, but then maybe someone else taking your statement too literally would say "well I don't want to be friends with everyone, I just work 9-5 and don't really like the lady in the accounts department because she is rude". "Well", you might say, "tough - get along with them and treat them with respect. You might not like them, but you have to learn to tolerate each other and still be kind as you can't pick who you work with" (almost like a family?).

You're leaning really, really hard into your claim that everyone is just overreacting to the simile/metaphor aspect of it. And going out of your way to provide example after belabored example of how metaphors shouldn't be taken literally.

None of what you described requires being in a family to accomplish. When I run into people at work that rub me the wrong way, I put on a professional face and treat them with respect as much as the situation warrants to get our job done. You could almost describe it as a ... relationship between co-workers.

OK, so what if you don't want to be friends with your boss / co-workers. But have excellent work performance. Should this hold you back from promotion?

If you are not friendly in the office and troublesome to work with / collaborate with, yes.

If you simply aren’t friends outside the office, no.

You just described being polite and respectful to colleagues. Being polite does not family make.

It’s an empty and hollow metaphor when your colleagues are nothing actually like family.

I’m polite and respectful to most strangers I meet. Just like I am to many of my colleagues, who are effectively strangers to me.

I forget where, but there's an actual psychological research outcome which says - we're kinder to strangers.

As for family, we're sure kind but we're frank, open, honest and unafraid of a retaliation or revenge of too.

This usage of "family" metaphor is a BIG and dishonest abuse of the concept IMHO.

It's work, it might be boring, tiring, has to be done with utmost perfection, precision and professionalism with professional coordination of others possibly, in a group of people.

It is a thing in its own right and needs no metaphors.

> I’m polite and respectful to most strangers I meet. Just like I am to many of my colleagues, who are effectively strangers to me.

Well, I'm extremely happy to have a job where colleagues help each other out. Put less weight on a colleague who just went through something tough such as a long term break up or loss of a loved one by taking over tasks of her, letting someone who called ill take their time to get better instead of harassing them. Simple things which are common sense. Simple things you also do for your loved ones.

Not every employer is like this, heck not every team(manager) is like this (teams in same company differing).

There's a simple word for the opposite, a word I'm not a fan of, but it is there: toxic. Or: short-term benefits instead of long-term benefits. Or, my favorite: dumb egoism instead of smart egoism. Because, in the end, the family way is just that. A smart version of egoism, focused on long-term survival.

The title of OP, seems someone who's worn down by the short-term egoism they experienced. Except, when reading the article, its not like that (it could've been). I know from myself, with my autism, I don't like certain team activities. But that does not mean I e.g. don't like (the) people. Its just that sometimes I prefer to be (left) alone. I made that very clear when I joined, and I've been open about my autism. My family knows this, too. I had to be alone for a while yesterday during a wedding. No problem.

> When they say like a family they mean treating each other with kindness, friendship and compassion.

I think my family missed that memo

> When they say like a family they mean treating each other with kindness, friendship and compassion

We have a word for that: politeness.

That's called being a professional. There's no need to dress it up in language about family or friends unless you're trying to manipulate someone.

>When they say like a family they mean treating each other with kindness, friendship and compassion

Not everyone's experience and understanding of family follows that idea though. Some families treat each ruthlessly and expect all members to just deal with it and remain loyal.

> When they say like a family they mean treating each other with kindness, friendship and compassion. They don't mean that everyone has to be around each others houses at Christmas.

More like, 'You should be willing to put in more time at work, and put up with "our little quirks"'

> Everyone should try to have a heart of gold to their other coworkers

But the company as an entity cannot and will not. It exists in the harsh environment of capitalist competition, and must often jettison "kindness, friendship and compassion" in how its human resources are treated.

Individuals within a company can strive against its nature, but only up to a point before it either resists or perishes.

Counterpoint: companies such as Costco or In-N-Out pay well above their respective industry averages, with excellent relative benefits, and yet are thriving.

That's only a counterpoint if you're suggesting that they're paying higher wages than average out of compassion, rather than because they've found it more profitable than the alternatives.

The other big difference is in a family, with rare exceptions, no matter how poorly you do, you don’t get fired or sacked.

And, they also tolerate a lot more meanness and uncouthness than a company. You don’t get fired for not following an employee handbook or code of conduct. In a family you get away with a lot.

At work a minor transgression will get most non top managers fired due to lots of reasons but mostly liability and fragility from other “family” (colleagues).

> The other big difference is in a family, with rare exceptions, no matter how poorly you do, you don’t get fired or sacked.

Your spouse can always initiate a divorce if your performance is lacking and fails to improve. Divorce on such grounds is quite common, I would guess.

Your analogy seems to be comparing the employee/employer relationship to a marriage rather than a family. If the employer is the parents of the family (more power/control/etc.) and the employees are children...

Anyways, using the "we're family" idea in a company is bad because everyone's familial history and experience is different. For some "we're family" means regardless of how abusive the parents are, the children are to always submit, stay, and support them. For some, "we're family" means we don't tolerate laziness and lack of getting chores done and there are consequences for such. In other families that laziness is just tolerated.

If a company wants to "be family" they better make sure everyone has a clear understanding of what that means or dig into the familial history and experience of all hires (I wouldn't recommend this).

The better analogy for a company is "we're a team". People typically have a better understanding of how teams work.

Yes, legal families can do that but most of the time it’s triggered by extreme cases. Blood families expel you much less often.

But this reminds me of the owner of Ritual coffee who had to “ban” and fire her husband from her shop because someone upset at where he parked (to do work for his wife) called him the “N-word”. And he enraged asked, did you just call me “n-word?”

So it wasn’t his doing, but a perp, but answering the perp in kind got him blacklisted by the “community[1] and professionally by his own wife.

[1]meaning busybodies who likely never patronized them store but felt they had to show their virtue. Never did they go after the instigator though. No, it was the guy defending himself.

Do you have a source for this? Not that I don’t believe you, I just have never heard of this and would love to read more about it.

It was in the local papers: https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article252033033.html

I remember (can't find it anymore) a company whose CEO specifically hired people for life, considering them to be part of the family and as you wouldn't fire your sibling or child, they would not fire someone if they were to have prolonged issues. Rather, they'd try and help them for as long as it takes.

It created a completely different dynamic in the company where no one feared for their jobs if they had issues.

I would go so far as to say any place that says 'we are family here' is actively trying to screw you.

Every place I've heard this was a place with no wriggle room on anything- late 3x? Fired. Kid hurt and you need to duck out your shift? Fired. Need that weekend off for a funeral? Better have a death certificate or fired.

They claim they are a family when it suits them only. I've had places spew that rhetoric all through training and once you hit the floor its surprised pikachu.

I actually bought into it when I worked with HEB in South Texas as a night stocker. Until the lies started to show (no, your scheduled hours don't matter, you are off when the last pallet is stocked, no you are part-time now even though you were hired full-time since you're a hard worker and we need you to cover the shifts of the kids who call out every Friday/Saturday, no you can't change departments we need you, no you won't have to work frozen- except you will, without the pay bonus etc ad infinitum).

The only way in which these places are like families is in that they are destructive, lying, backstabbing, political cesspools. I assume there are some families like that. Not what I imagine a family to be like however.

>> the head of our "family" (a.k.a my boss) would, in varying levels of directness/corporate-speak, let me know what an "incredibly difficult decision" it has been to "part ways" before kicking me out of the firm

The head of my family kicked me out of the house when I was 19. I'm sure it was a mildly difficult decision, and of course the correct one. But at least no boss that I've worked for has ever sold my first edition Dungeons & Dragons manuals at a fucking garage sale.

> But at least no boss that I've worked for has ever sold my first edition Dungeons & Dragons manuals at a fucking garage sale.

I expect that’s due to lack of opportunity rather than any superiority. I think if I left or got fired from a job and left behind D&D manuals, the company would definitely sell or surplus them.

> in varying levels of directness/corporate-speak, let me know what an "incredibly difficult decision" it has been

It's not just corporate-speak, it's every politician and public figure speak. Modern virtue culture forces it.

Whenever I hear someone say they are "deeply troubled" by someone else they don't know making an offensive remark, I have to laugh.

> You know who are the people I can most expect to be actually there for me? My actual family.

I always phrase this as "you don't fire your brother because he's an idiot." Yes, in a severely dysfunctional family, there are valid reasons to cut ties with people, but, for the most part, this is both a true statement, and gets the right sentiment across.

They are family as long as you serve their purpose.

What you talking about is service working. Family is not about someone doing your chores for you. It is about trust and support.

I am not a big fan of calling a job "family", but I prefer having a good trustful and supporting relationship with my coworkers, including being mentored by my boss and mentoring my subordinates. But of course ones talking about family should put their effort and company's money where their mouths are.

> Family is not about someone doing your chores for you. It is about trust and support.

Where I'm from we call those people friends. Family is reserved to those who are willing to actively make a sacrifice for you when you are in need.

Social networks and Facebook in particular are deteriorated term "friend". For me people I can get "don't worry, everything will be fine" type of support are pals, not friends. Gotta try to figure out the difference between real friends and family, but sounds like they are mostly the same, except we may loosen contact with friends, but remain in tight with family.

I'd absolutely make sacrifices for friends and vice versa. Much more so than any relative that is not my direct family with whom I don't have any relationship beyond happening to be somewhat close on a family tree.

It just seems, that the word friendship has been watered down a lot.

> I'd absolutely make sacrifices for friends and vice versa.

Don't hope too much for the "vice-versa", though.

I don't need to hope, I know from experience.

Support comes in many shapes. Sometimes it is about sitting together and sharing things. Sometimes, when you can't get up from the bed, someone helping with unavoidable chores speaks louder than words.

I've read quite a few stories where American parents kicked their grown-up child out of the house, so I don't know what to make out of it.

family is the wrong term. you only have one family, that is yours at home. the term “family” correlates with a lot of unconditional things you’ll have to do. for your family you’ll just do it but at work, you shouldn’t have a bad conscience just because you leave before work is done or your real family calls

Don't buy the corporate bs, it is all a scheme to increase productivity using tribal psychology: teams, cliques, bro culture, group identify, "us vs. them", etc.

In short, they are using your upbringing/human nature to their advantage. Remote woke some into this reality/facade.

https://m-g-h.medium.com/why-we-are-dispensable-7a577eba4f3e

Let’s be honest here. Would your third cousin do all of that for you? No, ok, so let’s not pretend all family equates to yourLoving SO, siblings or parents level of impact on your life. There are people with family who abused them in their childhood, with family members who are objectively terrible people. There are brothers and sisters who hate each other with a passion but still both show up to their cousins wedding and act nicely.

Family only means that there is a bond between you that cannot be ignored independent of what you think of the people. And that being the case these are people you try to make the best of the relationships with because you know they’ll show up in you life no matter if you like it or not.

The comparison with co-workers is quite on point.

If you want space from your co-workers quit. Because no matter how long and technically complex your education is, no matter if you are a wold leading expert in a narrow field, getting along with people is a core competence for anyone who doesn’t either run their own one-man gig, or work in dark basement of an organization where everyone has given up on communicating through any other means than email.

> Would your third cousin do all of that for you? No, ok, so let’s not pretend all family equates to yourLoving SO, siblings or parents level of impact on your life.

Interesting that you brought up third cousin. My second cousin actually has helped me a lot - we didn't grow-up together or something, connected quite late in life due to family being spread out but he has turned out to be a very reliable person. But he is not my third cousin so maybe your point stands.

So taking that further, what level should my co-workers be at? Should I treat them as I do my third cousins? I'm not in touch with most of them - should that be ok to do in office place too?

> There are people with family who abused them in their childhood, with family members who are objectively terrible people.

I already mentioned in my original comment that yes, there are dysfunctional families too that are a negative impact. I know its not all peachy out there.

> If you want space from your co-workers quit. Because no matter how long and technically complex your education is, no matter if you are a wold leading expert in a narrow field, getting along with people is a core competence for anyone who doesn’t either run their own one-man gig, or work in dark basement of an organization where everyone has given up on communicating through any other means than email.

I never said that getting along with people was not a core competence - that would be a dumb position to take. However, becoming bosom buddies shouldn't be a core competence either. My expectation, to borrow from your wedding metaphor, is simply that it should be sufficient for me to show up to our collective office, do our job, act nicely AND fuck-off at the end of the day without having to deal with demands that only a family (and I mean the ones that can be reasonably expected to make them) should make. Because, well, we work for a corporation - we are not family.

You can do pretty fine with very little non business personal chatting. Getting along with people has a huge range bro.

So your coworkers are either family or you suck at communication and work alone in a dungeon, there is zero middleground. Got it.

You should meet some Indo-Pak families sometime.

Or old stock rural Americans. There are plenty of towns in the USA that have extremely high social cohesion, because there are so many kinship networks going back centuries.

Keeping in contact with your extended family is normal human behavior. This hyper-focus on the "nuclear" family and the "individual" to the expense of broader ties is what's unnatural and ultimately, if fertility numbers in the societies that adopted that outlook hold steady, unsustainable.

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