To not buy into 'work family' bollocks

My colleagues are incredible, and we all keep each other going through the shitty times (hell, it's the NHS, things get shitty on a regular basis), but any exposing of vulnerabilities needs to be voluntary from the individual doing the exposing.

I trust my immediate colleagues to the point I will let them use me to practice diagnostic assessments for a condition I have on - which really does open up all the holes in cognitive functioning that I mask on a daily basis, but I would not do that to anyone outside my immediate team whom I trust massively. I volunteered to let them do the assessment (it's one that we need to be videoed doing on someone already diagnosed with the condition in order to be signed off and allowed to use the assessment clinically - which is a huge ask, and why I chipped in to help)

i have worked in places with "work families" and people whose entire lives revolve around work - their happiness, all their friendships and social activities is entwined with people at work. It’s part of the reason I left, I found it sad and unbearable.

The only way my current work resembles a family is that half of them piss me off but I’m kind of forced to be around them so there nothing I can do 😆

I think this is just a whole deeper level of exploitation by employers.

Ew no. I've actually made some really good friends through work over the years, as well as come across some total arseholes, but in no way would I engage with this.

I like that site, and (because it's US-based) it always makes me feel incredibly lucky about the increased work benefits and protections we get in this country!

Last year they had us all open our hearts and make ourselves vulnerable in the name of team bonding and work family at an away day
tbh OP this alone is unreasonable. I hate that kind of stuff.

Unlike lots of posters on MN I have no issue with people being close friends with their co-workers, but it should be an organic relationship developed by individuals, not something mandated by management.

I once had a questionnaire type thing that was headed Five things we don't know about you !

I wrote rubbish no way am I telling them anything that could be used against me or exploited .

Always remember no matter how nice they are your colleagues are just that . Half of them snub or avoid you when you leave a workplace anyway because that's all you had in common.

Never tell them anything personal as it will get gossiped about and every time the gossip is repeated a bit is added on and a bit is left on . Just do what you are paid for , keep to yourself and try and fly under the radar .

My dad gave me great advice when I started work , see all , hear all, say nothing unless it affects you badly .

Once you've been bullied to the point of suicide at work you will never reveal personal things again. Don't assume about closed off people.

We have. Very close knit team. So I would say we do feel like a family. We all get in well. And the atmosphere is good.

IME of those possessed of this silliness the outlier will usually be faced with some corporate speak and faux regret about "not being a team player" - which can be insidious

What happens if you refuse to bare your soul in these meetings?

Very well put

Thanks all the same but I'll be the one to decide what personal info I share in the workplace, and flannel about "bonding opportunities" won't come into it

I've always found that workplaces that talk about being a "family" pretty much expect you to live on the premises. I'm similarly suspicious of employers who offer kitchens fully stocked with loads of food and drinks. They expect you to work such long hours that you will be eating every meal there.

This. I doubt the people that do this have even the basic training needed for what could basically turn into a group therapy session. It has the potential to be so damaging.

I actually think it's incredibly manipulative for workplaces to try and weasel such personal information out of their employees. You shouldn't be expected to show your personal vulnerabilities and difficulties in this way as it will only ever be used against you.

I want my colleagues and management to think and talk about my skills, not my struggles.

Manipulative bullshit. I'd walk out of any meeting that demanded I bare my soul. Fuck that. Business first is fine, the rest of the day is mine. And God help anyone who tries to tell me different.

I've worked in plenty of places that are naturally work families and so lovely. None of them phrased it like that though. It was your job. You did your job. The fact that it was in a lovely team / company where you made friends for life was a happy coincidence. No away days or pressured over sharing either. Plenty of lunches, brunches and the like though.

The phrase is Workships. Not friendships.
When you leave, usually that’s it.

I work in a school and a lot of staff do see it as a work family (we are a start up school so only opened last year). No cringey activities like you describe though! Although lots of staff do out together out of work hours.

I'll be honest, I don't and I don't buy into it. I don't go on the work outings either.

I get on fine with most people at work but they are colleagues. I don't over share about my personal life etc.

I worked somewhere where they literally were family, everyone was someone’s cousin or had been to school together and I was very much the outsider, I think I started job searching on my second day 😬

YANBU. Healthy boundaries and all that. Rhetoric compensates for reality...and people end up feeling over-exposed.

Also gang tactics alongside "initiation" bonding activities.

In both cases it gives the group information and power over you, which is the objective.

There are two different sub-threads here: one being the very dangerous mutual vulnerability workshop craze and the other being the companies that peddle the true or untrue culture of being like a family. These are very different things.

The mutual vulnerability workshop craze is a gross invasion of privacy and is dangerous. Of course the lead says that you should only share what you feel able to share but that’s a cop out because once you share and hear the reaction, you can’t take it back. You have no ongoing support to process that either. I’ve been through it twice and have heard harrowing things more suited to therapy and banal things I knew anyhow in the same session. Did it lead to a stronger team? Only if that team was already strong and there were no power struggles or agendas. Yeah exactly - that’s rare in most teams.

I’m never doing one again and will just opt out or be sick!

I’m very fond of some of my work colleagues.

Are they a sort of family, nope.

It's just a management tool. A cheap way to angle for engagement and loyalty without giving you a pay rise or fresh benefits.

No one gives two hoots about you at work. That's true up and down the ladder. Whether you are a CEO or on bottom rung. The corporate machine shuts you out once it's done with you. And everyone forgets you within two weeks of leaving.

No one lays flowers at your desk in remembrance do they? But neither do you do you?

You might meet enduring friends at work that survive into the real world, but that's it.

I always feel sad for the high achieving childless singletons in their late 40s and 50s (men and women). Big fish at work, nice bank balance, but very little going in their real lives. If you spend long enough with them, you can see the loneliness as they recognise that the corporate family they bought into was a lie.