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Comment by me_jumper | Hacker News Reader

Gosh, I hate “we are a family” companies so much.

As someone who's autistic, these kinds of companies are very difficult for me. Usually the "we're family" companies are also the "let's have a social event constantly", or return to the office days are also just filled with socializing.

I get it.. some people really enjoy that, but that's not everyone. It feels like it's by design to exclude other kinds of people who don't enjoy a hyper social environment.

No, it's a way to distract them so they won't notice they're being screwed over financially and opportunity cost-wise. You are immune to this exploit, which makes you a black sheep in their eyes, but not that you should care. Look for places that don't do the bullshit and you'll end up better off than the sheep.

As someone who is also on the spectrum, the following common behavior in a company baffles me.

The company will exhibit the following behaviors at the same time:

- they will organize a bunch of social events, full of drinking and games, fly colleagues from all over the world to some exotic location

- will refuse to increase your salary to match inflation citing lack of funds (which were somehow available when flying 200 people to AUSTRALIA)

- will work on deadend projects to further the career of X-middle manager/whim of CEO due to something they read. Will overhire people for said projects. At same time, main parts of business can often be underfunded and understaffed

- will cut off full departments when said deadend projects reach their inevitable dead end

- will, at random holidays, give away branded bags, pens, socks, usbs and chocolates, but still have no budget for a salary increase

- will be having a great financial year with 15% growth and send emails of the type: "Good job Team!" but salary increases will not happen or be confined to the 1-2% range.

After some time the cognitive dissonance becomes too much and you simply stop caring.

There's no dissonance. You just need to completely ignore what people say, and make your own high-quality model of what they do. Here's a hint: study different personality types, model how they set their personal goals and what makes them happy.

You'll end up with a very cynical model, where most people can't plan one and a half step ahead, and can be easily convinced to do very dumb things. But, like it or not, that's how society works. And every successful person has figured out, and is ruthlessly abusing this model.

In your experience, "family office" means "hyper social," and autists struggle with "family office."

This seems too vague and broad for meaningful discussion.

I'm not picking a side, but for the sake of comparison, I've seen office environments with "we are family" messaging treat individuals with autism or disabilities more inclusively and with more grace than otherwise.

I don't think company-sponsored social events are designed to exclude non-social types, they're just for the benefit of social employees.

Of course, this is coming from someone who really enjoys drinking on the company dime

Typically not, but they absolutely feed into the higher-ups perception of you. I worked at a company an hour away from my home. So anytime we had our monthly post-work happy hour, I'd politely decline and go home. Especially as I know they'll be out until 10pm.

During one of my reviews it was mentioned that it's disappointing I don't attend the happy hours as that's when the team is able to connect and strengthen our bonds with each other.

Wasn't surprised I was let go just a few weeks later after I declined the next happy hour.

Look I'm not saying you need to stay out drinking until 10pm but team-building is important to any job, especially if you're a leader, and much of that team cohesiveness happens outside of work hours.

It's not too surprising if skipping all team-building events results in... not being a part of the team

> much of that team cohesiveness happens outside of work hours

whaaaa?

is this a common view? doing team building on personal time seems... off. To me.

remember taking my small IT team out for lunches on the company dime, and even to the movies... we even went to an escape room once... but this was all during the work day...

I think there's a large cultural component here. I've never worked at a place where any significant "team building" took place outside of work hours, but I know many devs (mostly outside the US) who told me that it does.

I've always had these events outside work hours. We get paid to work. After work, the company is buying us drinks but not paying us to drink them. Where's the problem?

Well I mean earlier in the thread they're describing issues on performance reviews due to not attending these, so I'd say that's a big problem.

I mean, I have a feeling there may have been other things at work there, but I guess I feel like you can team build without having to do it outside of work hours. If you are not being paid, I don't really see how that's legal to be required to do anything. It seems to me that if one could prove that, it could warrant some legal action as well.

The problem is socializing, costs some of us a lot of energy, and anxiety.

Alcohol only increases that anxiety, and what makes it worse, is knowing that I HAVE to go to a couple to seem like a "team player".

I'll let you know what it's like, for at least 2 days leading up to the event, I'm constantly practicing things to say, then trying to figure out all dialogue trees, and what my replies should be. I will practice and practice, and the amount of stress that causes, the lack of sleep, staying up late constantly trying to figure out what to say, worrying about what someone might say back.

Running past things they have said to me, trying to categorize and itemize all the things in their lives that they have so that I can seem like I am a normal person.. just to fit into their world.

Now, you're also saying that there's going to be alcohol, which means that I will most definitely say something dumb, or slip up.. people will look at me differently, and I will get the distinct feeling that people are talking about me behind my back, and I'm being excluded from things.

Then the event happens, and I try my best to say absolutely nothing, and stick to my script... someone says something totally random to me, and I have not prepared for this, I say something back... this one interaction, one of many, will be the thing that I am now constantly beating myself up about for days if not years later. I have no idea if people hated me because I didn't reply with the correct words in the right order, with the right facial expressions... all things that I do not understand.

And on top of this... I'm expected to do this every now and then because without doing it, I'm going to be silently punished by a group of managers who cannot fathom what this is like. Or colleagues like you who think "hey, it's cool, we're getting beers!"

Sorry, but no.

I NEED my downtime, I need my time to not have to deal with all of that. YOU don't need me there.

Where's the problem?

The issue is if the company is requiring me to spend time doing company things, then I'm working and should be paid for it. If it's actually optional, then there is no problem.

Buying drinks or not doesn't really enter into it, particularly for people who don't drink.

1: I attended every department team building meeting we hosted every weekday morning.

2: I hosted every company-wide team building meeting every Tuesday morning.

3: I attended every quarterly week-long retreat for department team building.

I have no reason, desire, or requirement to explain to management why a recovering alcoholic might not be the best person to attend what boils down to a 5-hour-long bar crawl.

I'm just making a general point, I obviously know nothing about your specific situation

I know, no worries. Just pointing out how absurd their statement of "not meshing with the team" was their excuse for letting me go, lol. Just another tick in the box of why I steer away from any business that says "we're a family".

> much of that team cohesiveness happens outside of work hours.

How is that not unpaid labor?

Because it's voluntary and they're buying your food/drinks?

If it's voluntary then there is no problem.

"Voluntary" means that there will be no adverse effect on your employment if you decline to participate. Your characterization of the activity strongly implies that not participating will come with consequences to your job.

The opposite. Participating benefits your career.

Curious what you think about this: Say there's no company sponsorship or involvement. You get invited to happy hour or a round of golf with the higher-ups completely on your own dime. Its obviously beneficial to pal around with your superiors. Is that a problem?

> Participating benefits your career.

That means NOT participating hurts your career, or at least doesn't further it, which is the same thing. Career outlook should be dependent only on your performance at work, and requiring to do extra unpaid stuff after work is simply a form of silent exploitation, favoring young people (mostly men, as women getting wasted with their superiors might be considered unprofessional) with no dependents (e.g children).

Push that to the extreme, and you have an extremely bro-hierarchical culture like Japan, where guys are expected to spend their (unpaid) time with their superiors at karaoke bars at late parts of the night, while not doing so puts their career prospects at risk.

All kinds of these silent expectations (but not demands) achieve is form a power imbalance where the ones not wanting to participate (in senseless drinking, or idiotic child games of team building) are pushed to the fringe and not considered "team players". This, naturally, creates a culture of fear that you might miss some of those unspoken rules of the workplace, and also a form of competition of who will simp more to their boss by letting them win at laser tag. Grown up people have families to be with, old parents to take care of, hobbies to do, errands to run, so in a culture of drinking/hanging out after office hours, they often have to choose between possible career prospects or family, and that's always a hard choice.

I couldn't disagree with you more. That employees must work (yes, this is work by your own admission) outside working hours is at the very least ironic. It's an insidious form of exploitation.

Team building happens by relying on each other while doing your actual jobs. That is the extent of a relationship needed among colleagues in a professional context.

>I don't think company-sponsored social events are designed to exclude non-social types

They are particularly designed without a single thought given to "non-social" types.

I consider company-sponsored social events to be work. If I'm not being paid to attend them, I won't. If they're both mandatory (either officially or unofficially) and I'm not being paid to attend them, I'm looking for another job.

Maybe not by design, but they must be worse for non-social types (or parents or people with other after work responsibilities.)

This is why the interview process should include 'culture fit' so that it can weed out people who would be good at getting the work done but not fun for the bros to hang out and drink beer with.

They usually do. Even if you don't realize it, you're being sized up in an interview and common feedback is "I can't see myself wanting to grab a beer with him". I actually had a conversation yesterday about it with someone I interviewed and the hiring manager that reports to me. I like the person, he said the comment about not sure about getting beers with the candidate. I told him to focus on the other 90 days a quarter when there are no beers.

> common feedback is "I can't see myself wanting to grab a beer with him".

Wow. I've been part of interviewing teams for tons of people, at a number of companies, over decades. I have never once heard anyone express anything like this about an applicant.

The discussions are more about whether or not they can do the job and whether or not they'd be a good fit on the team, not whether or not anyone wants to socialize with them.

I’ve experienced both. I’ve entered cultures that were pretty toxic about it. It’s usually the “we do 10 day team offsites in $PARTY_CITY” every couple months kind of places that are the worst. But also the benevolent mission type companies can be pretty weird about culture as well.

Many interviews do. I have missed out on jobs because of it, bur have also landed some great opportunities thanks to it.

Best to always ask which family?

Supportive, abusive, dysfunctional, a mafia with constant internal power struggles…

Manson?

Family, until an economic downturn. Then it turns into "who??".

I certainly understand the companies that say that and want to use it as a method to manipulate employees and so on. I want to set that aside, and say that even if it was a positive thing ... I DON'T WANT to join another family, certainly not one I don't know. Family is not an entirely positive experience.

To me family is a lot of responsibility, it's an emotional investment, it's a time investment. There are rewards, but also limits and boundaries even in families. At a company, that's an endless amount of just relationships to manage in the form of a family. I have that with my family, that's enough for me.

I worked at a place where after several moves and re-orgs we ended up sitting next to a very strange HR group. They all seemed like good friends in HR, friends outside of work, and yet at the same time they fought like children... a great deal. A lot like a family might.

It was HORRIBLE. I don't know the phrase but they had these constant "emotional impositions" (not sure if that's the right phrase) on each other and everyone around them.

I'd constantly run into one of them in the conference room I reserved ... crying. Now a few times, whatever, I'll happily shepherd everyone to another room. It happens, no big deal. But it wasn't once in a while. It was constant, and if it wasn't someone crying it was them arguing unprofessionally and so on.

They even went so far as to complain the people sitting next to them (overworked, ultra busy tech support team) "are not social" / was "always at their desks working" and complained that tech support didn't attend their events that always had the food and events they wanted (weird pizza, etc). They complained to management about it constantly, I don't know what they expected those people to do, force them to socialize?

As a family goes, I kinda expect all that, but I don't want that at work. It's unprofessional, unproductive, and IMO emotionally manipulative.

I've formed close relationships at work, I care about he people I work with, that's great, but it's a choice and I don't just embrace any given stranger as "family", nor is it appropriate to expect anyone to.

I disagree, my father ran a small business (physical goods) and the people in his company were almost like a family. They felt as such, we treated them as such, it was amazing...brings a tear. I cannot emphasize this enough: It was far better relationship than resentful people on HN who are constantly complaining about work. They were happier as a whole.

Your father's business is an exception, not the norm. Also, complaining about work is as human of an experience as death itself. That's why it's called work...

That's not what I'm talking about. I mean companies that brand themselves as “was are a family” not where it comes from a genuine connection between the employees.

Yes, sadly HN does seem to have a high proportion of folks who don't seem to understand the value of human connection. Everything is about technology.

But not all mission statements are meaningless, and not all attempts by executives to create a family-like culture come from a bad place.

Much of it comes from a good place, and it often works. But people who experience this I think are less likely to write on HN.

> But not all mission statements are meaningless, and not all attempts by executives to create a family-like culture come from a bad place.

Executives that make promises to their employees they can't deliver on should know better. You can't create a "family" out of your company because the realities of running a business make that impossible. It's fine to encourage mutual respect, etc as cultural values but it's important to make clear where the boundaries are or people will be hurt (either financially or emotionally) when you can't deliver. Saying the company is "like a family" is blurring these lines, not making them clear.

Edit: That's not even mentioning how "we're like a family" usually means "we're like a TV family". Many real families sometimes fight, swear at each other, say fucked up, sometimes racist/sexist/etc, things, talk about politics and religion, etc. Most larger companies would not tolerate any of this.

The reason I consider an employer saying "we are a family here" problematic is because it's obviously untrue.

My family will support me no matter what. My family will never fire me. My family actually loves me.

None of those things are true with an employer.

Well sure if you approach the situation with a dictionary definition of family you will be disappointed. And to be honest your definition of family is from a hallmark card. That isn’t most people’s experience.

> That isn’t most people’s experience.

I don't think that either of us know what "most people's" experience actually is. With the people I've gotten to know over the years, that is the most common experience. Apparently, it's not with the ones you have gotten to know.

Both of us have a selection bias going on.

In my experience the focus is on human connection and that why this criticism is here - this is a business which necessarily can't prioritize human connection over profit trying to motivate people to work more. I think it's all about the outcomes - if you say "we're a family - we give plenty of second chances and then help people find a new job" is very different from "we're a family, so you need to work late tonight to get this project done"

HN is also violently against social events at a company and the idea of social interaction.

Hate to break it to HN, but the most successful engineers I've met in the biz are also very empathetic and enjoyable to be around. This HN stereotype that you have to be an low-EQ, frustrated incel to work on software is incorrect in my reality. Just look at the top coders who are living (Linus, Guido, Hashimoto) and you will notice that they are very teamwork oriented people.

Actions, not words.

From my experience, the more a company TALKS about being a family, the less it acts like one.

Benevolent ownership works well, till the owner passes on. Then all of the unwritten promises no longer exist.

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