A reader writes:
Do you assume it’s a crimson flag when a crew 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 folks and whereas I wouldn’t hang around with a couple of of those people for leisure espresso, we’re Work Mates. I’ve labored for smaller corporations and have discovered them to all the time be cliquey and poisonous and in one another’s enterprise. Like high-stakes highschool, the place as a substitute of shedding 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 corporations. The final one she was at was so poisonous and went thus far 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 “crew.” 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 for those who 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 crew 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 folks’s boundaries (like unwelcome work texts throughout your off hours, or an expectation that you simply’ll take part in countless socializing that doesn’t curiosity you or actively distracts you, or a crew that expects everybody to be “like household” in problematic methods). However that’s typically a mirrored image of different problematic norms on the crew, not one thing basic to the group texts themselves.
There are wholesome, purposeful groups which have group chats! In these instances, I would theorize that they’re extra more likely to pop up in particular use instances, like when the work is emotionally troublesome and the group chat is a spot to blow off steam, or if the entire crew is in a youthful (learn: going out) stage of life, or related. However that’s not solely the case both.
