A reader writes:
Do you assume it’s a purple flag when a crew in a smaller firm instantly drops you into a gaggle textual content in your private telephone upon hiring?
The context is that I’m very completely happy in my mid-level place at my very not-toxic Fortune 100 firm. I just like the work and the individuals and whereas I wouldn’t hang around with a number of of those people for leisure espresso, we’re Work Mates. I’ve labored for smaller firms and have discovered them to at all times be cliquey and poisonous and in one another’s enterprise. Like high-stakes highschool, the place as a substitute of dropping head cheerleader, you lose your job.
For me the widespread denominator purple 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 firms. The final one she was at was so poisonous and went thus far south I legally can’t say what occurred. She advised me that from day one at her present job, she’s been in group texts with the “crew.” Extra “morning guys!” and so on. I’m not going to diss my mother’s new job as a result of she’s so completely happy to be out of the opposite place, however I’m seeing indicators already and I’m curious in the event you and/or the readers assume group chats/texts are a purple flag!
I don’t assume groups with group chats are inherently a purple flag.
I do assume that when a crew is dysfunctional, a gaggle chat can typically be one thing that reinforces that — as a result of it’s utilized in ways in which trample individuals’s boundaries (like unwelcome work texts throughout your off hours, or an expectation that you just’ll take part in infinite 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 usually a mirrored image of different problematic norms on the crew, not one thing elementary to the group texts themselves.
There are wholesome, useful groups which have group chats! In these instances, I’d theorize that they’re extra prone to pop up in particular use instances, like when the work is emotionally tough and the group chat is a spot to blow off steam, or if all the crew is in a youthful (learn: going out) stage of life, or comparable. However that’s not completely the case both.
