To not buy into 'work family' bollocks

[Gweither]

Does your workplace describe itself as a 'work family'? Do you subscribe to this kind of thing?

I ask because my work does and up until recently I was all for it and felt it was a bit of a family of sorts.

But I've had my eyes opened to various things in the work environment in past couple of months that I won't give loads of detail on in case outing (politics, people being sidelined, a few people being managed out of the business)

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. Heard some really difficult personal stories from colleagues. Part of me wishes we'd not all had to go to that vulnerable place knowing what I know now.

Maybe IABU and this is a standard part of work culture these days?

I work in an industry that was notorious for this - making work as 'home-like' as possible: free food and drink, free laundry service, free massages, gym, even 'sleep pods' - basically taking away any excuse to ever leave the workplace. A very large number of employees in relationships with each other - there were onsite speed-dating events. No creche obviously, the last thing they wanted was employees having children, and that was embraced to a huge extent by the young staff - children were only something you would have once you made very senior leadership, in the same way that among some pack mammals only the alpha female breeds. It was almost cult-like.

Interestingly, since COVID, it has almost gone completely the other way with offices being shut down and everyone being told to embrace WFH forever. Some employers in the sector are urging a return to the office, but the majority have basically got rid of their offices - we have over 400 employees in the UK and our one remaining UK office only seats 30.

Previously, I got caught up in that shite, put my all into it, but was ultimately shit on from height! Never again!

Latest job..Ours goes on about being a family business. Everyone is part of that. blah, blah.. Thankfully, there is no corporate 'team building' shite but ultimately pay shite wages while expanding the company and talking of longer opening hours. Umm...so our families can go to hell then?
I go in, do my job, and go home.
I have a good relationship with colleagues, but under no illusion, if I left, I'd be forgotten by the end of the week.

I worked somewhere that introduced this shit, just as it was all going down the toilet. As the saying goes you can't polish a turd. However authentically you try.

Good teams and good workplaces don't fake it.

I think it can work if you adapt it to a workplace environment and actually mean it.

Being a work family to me means:

• Being kind to each other
• Being supportive of each other
• Not leaving each other in the shit
• Communicating with each other
• Being up for a challenge
• Sharing a little bit more of yourself than you may have done previously

It does not mean:

• Making people feel that they have to share uncomfortable or traumatic experiences with each other
• Dancing or singing in interviews (personal experience on that one 🙄)
• Socialising outside of work, unless you want to
• Working over your contractual hoirs

People exchange time for money, I try to make it as painless and enjoyable as possible.

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.

How on earth did they gaslight you all into that?!

There’s a SNL skit about bringing the ‘real you’ to work.

I agree 100%.

I worked somewhere where they went one step further - each colleague had a title "mum", "naughty child", "mad auntie" etc... It was an extremely bizarre and toxic environment and when I refused to partake, was bullied out. My replacement went the same way. Seems so infantile looking back but it also had sinister undertones. It was local government so I've avoided it since.

The worst place I ever worked was one of these "work family" places. We are all one big family and we care and we love each other.
It was truly awful. Worked there a year and was bullied constantly by two members of staff.

There's no need for these big declarations of "work family". It's normally made up bollocks trying to cover up a toxic environment.

The second worst place I worked was a Catholic school where the head constantly said in staff meetings "Jesus is watching you, so behave accordingly", rather than actually dealing with the people who were bullying others.

It's absolutely bullshit unless you get to be the teenage daughter who screams at her manager "You can't tell me what to do, you're not my real mum!" And then slam the office door to go sulk?

Yes it is a bit cult like to sit in a circle and pour out our traumas in the name of team bonding

We had the 21yr old throw a tantrum, kicking boxes and saying 'it's not fair!' He had been asked to do his job! 🤣

OP the ONLY time you are a "family" is when it benefits them.
Unpaid overtime ✓
Lower than market wage ✓
Not taking leave entitlements ✓
Working your backside off day in, day out to make them profits✓
Working on your days off✓
Cancelling leave as they can't possibly be short-staffed, and, you know, we're family✓
Covering for their holidays when you can't take your own✓

All I can say is never arrive late, you'll see how much you're a family then. There's no tolerance if it's not for their benefit.

For me "family business" is the biggest red flag out there.

It's the latest way to guilt you into working long hours and accepting terrible working conditions - because the rest of your "family" does and you have to carry on to help them. Utter bollocks. I am not bringing my whole self to work, thank you very much.

100% this. I recently left a job in education where I totally dedicated myself and given so much extra time. However when I was off work with an injury that caused a lot of pain, no one in SLT asked about me and when I returned they put me in a role that could have caused the injury to flare up again. They were shocked when I handed in my notice. I will never fall for that nonsense again.

It pisses me off as it's actually an abuse of the word 'family', which really means something and is much much more important than work.

I have the attitude that the people I would immediately call after a car crash are the ones that matter (I have recently had a very bad crash where I got injured, had to be cut out of the car and went to hospital in an ambulance). I didn't give a second thought to work or my colleagues - I rang my husband, my parents, my brother, my two best mates and firstly and foremost messaged my DC who were at school/uni. People lose perspective about what family really is until the shit hits the fan and the workplace is really not important or meaningful enough to earn the title 'family'.

@HarrietofFire my thoughts exactly!

If I had to attend such a ridiculous event, I would simply refuse to speak.

I've fallen for it twice and had my heart absolutely broken by it twice. For me, from now on, work is just for work and if people are nice that's great, but I won't be making good friends there any more.

It's really sad I think; I never used to feel like this about work, and my friends were very important to me, but realistically those friendships are situational.

Last year they had us all open our hearts and make ourselves vulnerable in the name of team bonding

That's absolutely appalling and I'm amazed that it's allowed. I'm also amazed that anyone cooperated in that.

I was lucky enough to work with some lovely colleagues who cared about each other, and who I still see several years after I retired. But I still compartmentalised, and, for instance, had an embargo on colleagues being FB friends, even the ones I loved and had worked with for a long time. I only shared life stuff with those I totally trusted. Not in a million years would I have made myself vulnerable publically and in front of ALL my colleagues.

I think you can find your own "work family" and some colleagues can become good friends.

However, this should be a natural mutual thing, and should never enforced by the company or an individual.

Nope, you’re not alone. When I hear that, my first and only thought is - 🤢🤮

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.

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

Are they a sort of family, nope.

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!

Also gang tactics alongside "initiation" bonding activities.

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

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