Familial
I stumbled across this the other day from 37signals:
When companies say they’re a family, it’s a veiled way of demanding total sacrifice. Nights, weekends, whatever it takes for, you know, “the family”. But great companies aren’t fake families — they’re allies of real families. They don’t eat into people’s personal time, they don’t ask people to dial-in during vacations, and they don’t push them to work Sundays to prep for the meeting on Monday.
I think we’ve all dealt with some flavor of this throughout our careers, more so if you’ve worked for an agency, and yet even more if you did so in the early 2000s as I did. In those days the veil wasn’t even there; it was just flat out expected. All-nighters were the norm, and you’d be lucky to have your effort acknowledged.
I moved into the tech space in 2006 and have heard variations of the “family bit” at almost every employer — usually during a company all hands or one of the requisite team offsites.
On two occasions the sentiment was fast-followed by a significant round of layoffs. The irony was palpable, as was the vacuousness of the statement. Nothing more than lip service uttered from a pulpit of platitudes. There are exceptions, of course, but these seem to be the outliers.
Don’t misunderstand — the first time you hear it, it has the affect of making you feel invited, reassured, even protected. A seduction of a kind. But after the same utterances are offered at the third, fourth, and fifth company, you realize there is a playbook. It’s a kind of tech vernacular that pervades the leadership culture inside of these monolithic orgs.
I don’t think the intent is of the Machiavellian sort. Rather, I think it’s more like a shallow attempt at asking you to suspend your professional principles — your integrity — for the sake of keeping things moving and meeting deadlines without much pushback. It can sounds something like this:
“We wouldn’t ask so much of you if we didn’t truly value what you bring to the table.”
But what it means is this:
“We ask so much of you because we don’t value you as a person with a life and other interests. You’re an asset, and we can replace you. You need to perform — at all costs.”
It sounds harsh, but I think if anyone tries to convince you otherwise they’re intentionally spraying shit or just plain delusional.
This isn’t to suggest that you can’t be close with your colleagues; that you can’t admire, care for, value, or respect them. You can and you should — if warranted. What I’m saying is that you don’t need to feel like you’re a part of a family in a work setting, and your employer doesn’t need to make you feel part of a family.
Your family is your family. Your work colleagues are just that: work colleagues.
I’ve found that — and it’s what I’m arguing here — what is needed from a great employer is rather straightforward:
- A professional work environment centered around the work that needs to be done
- Challenging projects that help you learn and grow
- Trust from your manager(s) that you can do the job you were hired to do
- The acknowledgment that work is only part of what you do and that you hold other interests and passions
- Some recognition that the work you are doing is not, in fact, changing the world (spoiler, it’s not). Unless, of course, you are engaged in work that is in fact literally changing the world, but this category of work is such a small percentage of what’s actually being done
- Colleagues that you get along with and respect, but not necessarily people that you would like to hang out with
- Respectful pay, good benefits, and a supportive work/life balance (the US is historically shit at the this last one)
And that’s kind of it — give or take. Depending on your professional experience thus far, this list may feel like a lot of big asks, but honestly it’s table stakes.