Offsite retreats seem like a bad idea in general, I've never been to one where I felt the team or company worked together better afterwards, and I've seen some spectacularly bad results... like the time the facilitator tried to get to the bottom of tensions between the CTO and head of sales (the classic problem of "Engineering isn't shipping features fast enough" and "Sales is selling features before even consulting with engineering"). The discussion quickly turned shockingly personal and within a month after the retreat both the CTO and head of sales quit. At least they called an end to the retreat early.
I agree, unironically. Not all workplace tensions can be resolved amicably. Often the only solution is for one of the parties to go. The sooner it happens, the better.
I feel like our offsites, especially in a post-COVID remote world, tend to improve communication and productivity. People get to know their coworkers, and feel much more comfortable working cross-functionality.
I've had some bad experiences, of course, but overall I've found it to be incredibly worth it.
Retreats like this just concentrate the social dynamics of the people the organization has hired. I think people’s experience with them is directly correlated with the caliber of people you work with.
All of the stupid shit I’ve seen happen at these events have been done by people who I don’t miss working with
Maybe a retreat would be a good 3rd round interview.
i’ve been to a bunch and all resulted in a big increase in trust between teams especially between tech and sales. i mended a few poor relationships at the last notion one in maui, made some lifelong friends. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe for every shitty one there’s 2 that are great
> Adam Mendler, a workplace expert, told Inc. that this kind of exercise carries real risk when companies invite openness without ever clarifying how that vulnerability will be treated afterward.
I always felt that those trust exercises, "bring your whole self to work", "let us pay for a personality test so we can know each other better" are all ruses to find the most gullible people and then take advantage of them or get rid of them.
Probably so, but it was incredibly ill advised of Netflix to admit to this. That’s what I find the most shocking, far more than the firing itself. I cannot fathom how admitting “yeah we fired them for going to therapy” plays to their benefit.
Your company, your coworkers, are not your friends. HR is not there for you, it's to protect the company from you. Do not disclose personal information to those who control your livelihood. Once you leave or if you build up a personal relationship with a coworker, outside of work, then maybe. Even still. I will never divulge what I have been through simply because corporate wants to be "inclusive".
> It goes on to say that at the same retreat Baillie drank a Guinness standing on his head, after sharing that he had learned the trick from his former father in law during a conversation inspired by the trust session.
Honestly, the whole thing seems sort of innocuous. He had some particular medical treatment and then drank a Guinness upside down. Maybe there was something else to it but if you're a big corp then you probably should just give a safe answer.
According to ChatGPT it's the skill of taking exactly one sip such that when you put the Guiness glass down the new beer level ends up precisely through the horizontal middle of the "G".
According to LadBible the actual trick was drinking a pint of Guinness while standing on his head.
It seems to be a challenge where you drink a specific amount from a pint in one try such that the bottom of the foam splits the Guinness logo. It's not even a huge amount. It seems to less than 20% of the pint eyeballing it.
This is why you should refuse to participate in these "trust and honesty sessions". You don't owe your employer or colleagues any insight into your personal life and the HR people who often run these sessions are there for the company, not for you and generally should not be trusted with personal info.
We can only speculate, but it would not be surprising if someone was hunting for a reason to get rid of them and thought this was a good excuse. Personally, I don’t think this is a good excuse and while we don’t have all the facts, it sounds like Netflix conceding the therapy factored into the dismissal is probably something they will very much regret admitting to on the record.
isn't this highly illegal, since it is used for medical purpose (mental health) ?
its like firing a person who was sedated by professional Anesthesiologist with Fentanyl during surgery (A friend of mine had a surgery and was administered fentanyl)
Yes, IANAL but it seems very much like grounds for an open-and-shut wrongful termination suit, given that they have admitted it up front. They could be taken to the cleaners for this.
It's not, although rules vary by state. Medical professionals can prescribe it even though it's a Schedule III drug. I get ads for these presumably legitimate therapy services online all the time on major social networks.
Keep work life and personal life separate. No exceptions. If a company tries to encourage you to do otherwise I’d strongly suggest you find a new employer.
Most people prefer to work with humans, not robots. Common experiences and getting to know people are a huge part of that.
Sharing stories and getting to know people humanizes them. It's much easier to hate "that team in another country" you've never met than that person you've had a meal together with and learned about their hobbies.
It always surprises me when people don't understand that the employee-employer relationship is an adversarial one. Unless you're in a democratic co-op or similar your employer is the enemy and you should never forget that. The correct move is to try to screw them in every legal way at every turn because that is what they are doing to you. Never divulge any information that increases your attack surface, always try to extract the most money for the least effort. This is capitalism 101.
You must not allow them to fool you into thinking that these aren't the rules they're playing by. David Sirlin's "Playing to Win" is a good treatise on how to be good, and perhaps the most important lesson is to play the game by the rules as written, and not by some other set of rules that exists only in your head.
(Though in this case the victim was senior enough that I suspect he was playing the game to the best of his ability, trying to humanize himself to gain the upper hand in some other manipulation game and misplayed, kicking things into the legal arena, as one does)
I would say that the more-exhausting way to live would be to be unaware of this, to accept the “we’re a family here” lie at face value, and to be passed over and screwed over at frequent intervals without knowing or understanding why.
You don’t have to go full Patrick Bateman corp-bro, but keeping in mind the phrase “we don’t fire family” and adjusting your approach based on that counter-example can help you to keep things appropriately transactional and not be taken advantage of.
Until this present universe I didn’t really care about that because retaining the job wasn’t a top priority. If you got fired over something like this you took it as a good way to go do something somewhere else.
Now of course it’s hard to say if the original employment shape is still valid.
The article implies it was from sharing his experience using Ketamine therapy for depression, which likely would have been done with a doctor. Which makes this seem much weirder to my ears.
I don't even explain why I'm taking a day off or a half day or whatever.
It's no one else's business to decide if they agree the reason is valid. Don't volunteer stuff like that especially when it would be something they'd likely agree with. Don't validate their right to decide or even be aware of anything like that. Next time maybe your need might not be so convinvcing to anyone else, but you've already established they have a right to know and a right to veto, so then trying to be private stands out as different from other times.
It doesn't mean being inflexible or uncooperative either. If there is actually some problem, they can negotiate and try to make the case and convince you that they really need you just that much just that day, and you can voluntarily decide to change your plans, but without ever volunteering what those were. And make it cost. Keep score. Claim a return favor.
Your co-workers can be your friends. But we're not obligated to be. If you're my friend and colleague, sure, vent to me. If we're not, I don't give a flyig fuck about your views on geopolitics or gender or whatever, particulalry if you owe me a deliverable, doubly so if you've chosen a hot-button issue nobody actually has any new takes on other than blind agreement or condemnation. (And unless they’re voiced outside work in a way that affects me, I don’t have a right to care about it either.)
I'm torn here because it does seem like Netflix brought this on themselves. At the same time the litigious nature of American workplaces are part of the reason large corporate environments are so soul-crushing, with language meant to deliberately obfuscate what's actually happening.
"It's difficult for me to share this but I care about Netflix, some would say, too much. My mother died recently and rather than go to the funeral I worked through the last season of goop lab because I know the synergy of Netflix and Gwyneth Paltrow will enrich our subscribers lives like nothing before. Thank you for listening but I think I ate some bad fish at the retreat and need to go lie down in my room."
“A retreat may feel more relaxed than the office, but it is still a workplace, and the power dynamics don’t disappear,”
Ah, so sad :( Another story of a person who believed other people in the workplace too much.
These kinds of exercises are unfortunately a waste of time. If you’re honest, you’re walking into a minefield. But if you’re not being open, then no one is really getting to know anyone else in any meaningful way. In the end, a bunch of money and time is spent with zero value gained.
And given that this was about someone sharing their experience with a medical procedure to help them process the death of a parent, the company will probably lose the lawsuit, wasting even more money.
What a tragic waste of resources. Also, my heart goes out to this person. Loosing a parent is terrible.
So like that interview candidate being asked about the hardest day of their life and answering honestly about a miscarriage or did this guy do something inappropriate with some ping pong balls in a Guinness-record way?
I read that but assumed that wasn't why they fired him. I don't understand, why would you fire someone for receiving some kind of medical treatment?
Ignoring the obvious legal landmines, what does that have to do with the job?
I assumed there was some other reason for the firing. If that was the reason (or if that's what the victim is alleging) then I think the article needs to be more clear, it all reads like vague gossip to me and it wasn't at all clear to me that that was what this was about.
Google banned political conversations at work. Tech companies are learning from first principles why work/life separation, traditional office culture exist.
It seems the message of schizophrenic corporate America is, "don't bring your humanity to work". Because what is politics but an expression of how society should be. Even more ridiculous is this trust exercise, their idea is for employees to show their human side to improve employee-employee relationships for higher productivity, but wait, not too much of the human side!
No wonder all the CEOs are crazy about AI. All the intelligence, none of the human.
Meh, some people’s politics have very little to do with humanity and how society should be. In general, best approach is to avoid GRAPE topics in general.
I would strongly discourage anyone from making things up. I have participated in these exercises, and many people simply said, “I really have nothing to share that would interest you.” Those were the people others respected the most.
They might share personal things with close friends, but they had a clear definition of what friendship meant.
In other words, be a person of character.
It is perfectly fine not to be friends with everyone. Just be respectful and honest. Do not lie. Say, “I cannot tell you that because of this or that,” or simply remain silent.
Although it seems like this would be an extreme take to someone who's luckily kept a steady job despite not keeping their personal life out of their work life, I completely agree. It's not worth it.
I think everyone gets a pass for something kid related, and to a lesser—probably unequal—extent, something spouse or family related, everything else can and will be used against you unless you're just humming along as the most normal predictable person.
As far as people at work are concerned, you've never smoked pot, you're not taikng stimulants even though they're prescribed, you won't even drink coffee after 5pm, and you've definitely never had insomnia.
Have one drink with the team if you're inclined to, and then gtfo, go drink with real friends.
Managers only care about perception and control, and if anything at all doesn't fit into their directive or world view, it'll go into their mental spreadsheet of blemishes like a vindictive romantic partner next time you fight.
"Hey there was a bug last release in some code with your name on it, might be time to go to bed at a reasonable hour!?". Ya thanks, I'll note your advice for next time that happens I'm sure it'll help. Why did you approve the change again?
You can also politely decline to share. You are not obligated to share personal stories to your coworkers and employer for camaraderie’s sake, and they should have no reasonable expectation that you will. Sure, it may be difficult to overcome the peer pressure in the moment, but it is your right, so fight for it.
No. It's like with cops. There is no safe thing to say. The least damaging thing is simply say nothing. Even that costs, but it costs the least and there is nothing better you can do.
I wonder if this is a generational thing. I grew up before social media and have long taken the position that I never post anything to the Internet that I wouldn't want public. I don't have a secret Reddit account or anonymous Twitter profile where I post stuff that could be fired, charged or worse.
This goes moreso for work. I assume anything you do can and will be used against you. I have zero trust. You're being a sanitized version of yourself. Do people not know this?
It's part of the reason I hate these working bonding activities. Well, that and being neurodivergent. There are fiarly standard questions and I have prepared answers that may or may not be the truth. Just like with interview questions. Sorry, but none of you are my friends or can be trusted. You might be shocked how often confiding in a coworker is used against you.
The trick with coworkers is saying just enough so they think they can trust you without saying anything that might get you fired or have other consequences. You can't say nothing. That's almost worse. But you have to basically invent a persona, particularly if you're neurodivergent because the default position of neurotyhpical people is to not like you.
And at the end of the day so much of your work life is governed by whether or not people like you. And I hate it.
So for a trust exercise, I'd come up with something everybody has likely done or is at least sympathetic to. Like, nothing to do with stealing. That might get you fired. Here's an example: "when I was in high school, I lied to my parents and drove to another state for a party and got drunk with my friends".
It's better to base your sanitized answer on the truth but I'm not above wholesale lies. They're just harder to remember so you have to be light on details but not too light.
I am not sure how old he was, but I would guess he was under 40 and relatively inexperienced.
Part of the purpose of these exercises is to train management, especially executives, to remain fully focused and make decisions solely on performance and the business, even when someone asks them to show emotion. Anyone who is in executive management position should understand that.
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