Ask HN: Do you feel you are able to be yourself in your job?
Many companies, particularly in the tech scene seem to have high expectations of their employees. These expectations go far beyond skills or shared ethics into fuzzier areas such as cultural values. In some cases a companies attempt to architect their own sub-culture and expect staff to follow.
There's been a few high profile cases of quite senior staff in companies standing down recently after they've expressed an opinion in the public forum that didn't align with that of the company (e.g. Google).
Diametrically opposed to this, there's been situations in which a large number of the staff have collectively challenged the company itself (e.g. the Netflix walkout).
I thought it might be interesting to ask, day-to-day, to what extent do you feel free to express yourself where you work, do you perfectly align with the companies chosen culture, and how important is this to you?
73 comments
[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 131 ms ] threadit's been fun. that's one of the reasons I don't support rapid growth, but investors expect that (ceo said that) and nearly every day there's a new face and to be honest it looks like they will accept anyone who's willing to work there because offices not in central location. sad. I'd much rather keep a tight culture of close friends who are always on top of what's going on.
What's that say about your own potential qualifications for the job?
What did you say exactly?
I consider it quite the luxury and I think it's especially rare outside tech. Also once you find it, enjoy it because it does tend to fade.
I remember one job in particular there was a focus on openness, transparency, and being yourself. I wasn't really sure if it was marketing or not, always hard to tell early on. I was even meditating with a group there which is not something I would normally talk about with coworkers.
But alas they eventually fired everyone involved with the transparency stuff and replaced the leadership.
I think smaller tends to be better. I don't really have any tips on searching. It's not like something you can ask about very directly.
Ok here is one thing that's maybe something. You want to try to work in places that engineers are delivering real tangible value and the buerocracy feels like this flimsy thing that just happens to be there to defer to all the value being created every day.
Both of the companies I felt the most comfortable at had that in common.
The inverse has also been true. If I think of the easiest jobs where it's mostly meetings and nonsense, buerocrats have had more power and have made up more imaginary culture you're supposed to repeat.
And when I'm at a customer, I'm always myself and never faking relationships or try to make friends with people higher up if I don't like them.
Because of this, I create genuine relationships that last a long time and where everyone is themselves.
Quite happy being here, and not having to worry that hr might try to police us.
It's common belief around me the best teams are mono cultures, for instance a philipino team in my prev company, who all moved together to HK when we restructured, was extremely satisfied, spent all their time together and some couples even sprung up. Meanwhile the mexicano-hindi-chinese team next to them was miserable and my franco-pakhistani bi-cultured team was alright (even if we vomitted the odd Chinese teammate management would attempt to add once in a while).
It's not that people are actively racist/xenophobic, it's that you're very lonely if you dont have someone to share language, inside jokes, or even beliefs and values with.
I work in an enormous company now having around 100k employees all over the world with no choice but to mix. Well, the indians will work best woth other indians, all my chain of management is french and the Chinese keep to themselves nonetheless. It's insane this is not more explained / studied / accepted, or I havent looked enough.
Our own monocultured european global management, all blonde and proper, still tell us about the wealth of diversity we must cultivate. They still send blonde managers from Europe to replace the asian people they cant work with at the top...
It can be difficult asking for time off to be with my husband when I know most of them don’t consider me to be married, and are eagerly looking forward to the overturn of Obergefell.
I would leave, but few people seem to want a rapidly-approaching forty mathematician-slash-software-dev.
A previous comment mentioned the "value" of homogeneous cultures. I'm sure, from the POV of your coworkers, they have a homogeneous culture - everyone is the same (except for that one person - you). From your POV, you are the odd person out. I'm sorry you don't feel welcome.
All the best!
Sincerely, A just-finished-being-forty electrical-engineer-turned-software-dev
PS I'm planning to write up a response to the OP next; check that out for a little more insight into what my employer is like
The last job I had where I could be myself was as a pizza delivery guy. Even as I moved through my career, wearing shorts was about as personalized as the workplace got.
But before that, no.
Unconventional lifestyle choices aren't directly frowned upon, but the less your superiors think you're one of them, the worse you're prospects of "getting ahead in the game" are.
5+ years ago, I'd have been more myself but with today's politics it's not worth it. I don't think I've ever said anything wrong, but I used to occasionally express opinions and make jokes with the teams I got chummy with. Nowadays I'm pretty sure everything I say has potential to be misinterpreted and potentially be used against me. I used to like being social on Slack but I make it a rule these days to use Slack minimally and to significantly reduce or eliminate unnecessary socializing. No, I will not be attending after-work socials and I won't be going on team lunch outings all the time. When asked about anything remotely controversial, either I'll not say anything or I'll be the greatest fence-sitter that ever lived.
In all honesty, maybe it's for the best. I'd rather work be a place where we show up, do work, get paid, and go home. As much as I miss some of the good times I had socializing and having others actually get to know me, there's really no reason for me to express myself in that setting or have others express themselves to me.
Agree 100%. It's just easier for everyone to have work / life balance. And with that comes boundaries.
Agreed. All it takes is one sensitive coworker to share one screenshot, and your career is over. It's baffling we, as society, have come to this.
That isn’t to say we’re blabbering out intense politics or strong stances on social issues, but we are reasonably free to brush lightly on stuff.
I think it's quite easy being yourself in the workplace by remembering that 1) you're working with other people who don't always share your viewpoint & 2) realising that there is a sense of professionalism that is implicitly required.
At the end of the day you're meant to enjoy what you do, but you're likely also meant to do it alongside other people.
I don't find it tiring. I do the same thing with my family and more so my spouse's family, who are very religious. I'm used to it.
I believe that people who are most successful in the corporate ladder are those that are able to be completely pathologically "fake".
If no one would ever hire "the real you," it seems pretty plausible to me that the real you is terrible. I get that that's something you can't control without faking it, but at least realize that this isn't true for everyone.
Some days I'm energetic, up for the challenge, other days I'm lazy and don't want to talk to anyone.
I don't think that makes me a "terrible" person as you suggest. But if I present the full range of my personality, no employer will take that risk.
If you believe so, then you're naive.
The secret is staying productive in the criticisms I've found.
This isn't particularly common; many places have tried to treat me like a child or sweep real problems under the rug. It wasn't a good fit so I moved on
Life is too short to masquerade. I'll try to be tolerable, but I'm not definitively changing who I am or my principles either
I don't say a peep about anything remotely 'Current Events'. If someone brings something up then I give non-committal answers like "Huh" and "Wow" and then excuse myself. I've lasted too long in the corporate world to get taken out by some pointless discussion.
Not that I am always right. Maybe they're not real problems? In that case being silent is still a clear win.
It turns out I'm just way too different form my manager, we have fundamental differences in our points of view and for a lot of stuff we just can't agree. I am trying to share a little as I can from my personal life and try to have the "drank the company's Coolaid" attitude with him, because that's how much different we are. I recently found out he's even an anti-vaxxer. I hope they replace him soon.
I am myself, my mannerisms, my mode of communication, the way I treat others, are all “me”.
But I rarely talk about anything I value, because my values are more traditional and classical, and tech companies values are what is popular.
It doesn’t bother me that my values are different, what bothers me is how you can loudly proclaim your opinions provided they’re in line with the status quo, but you will be cancelled if you hold a differing opinion, even if your differing opinion doesn’t cause you treat others badly.
At My current, more progressive, work place, I would be labeled as a conservative, yet at my previous more conservative work place, I was thought liberal. The difference was at my previous place it was ok to have and share differing opinions.
But you know, work is work, what I do is intrinsically shaped by what my employer wants me to do and their goals so it's hard to say I'm spending that time "being myself" when the truth is I'm "being the company". I'm expected to be interested and engaged even when I'd much rather crawl back into bed. Even from a technical point of view I'd much rather be putting together prototypes using some language I'm barely familiar with than maintaining working codebases because that's more fun, but is obviously not that commercially useful.
At least with WFH I don't have to act some way I'm not feeling for 8 hours straight every working day, there are usually breaks in-between calls and I can code with a scowl, so that helps with the sense that I have ownership over myself during work hours.
A little bit of false enthusiasm now and then? Sure, it makes it easier to get through the day. In both a professional and personal context.
This isn’t even about national politics or about being fake, but about keeping work and personal life separate; and treating your job for what it is and not confusing it for what it isn’t.
A workplace that doesn’t honor this is one that you should leave.
That also doesn’t mean bad actors or companies should be left off the hook or given a free pass, but never confuse your colleagues as friends.