Thread by @QuinnyPig

And now I present tonight’s thread: Red Flags that your company might suck.

Former employees have nothing good to say about the place.

Former employees only say "I have nothing disparaging or critical in any way to say" about the place.

Glassdoor has oh so very much to say about the place.

The owners are spouses. Add one point if their primary communications method is "via attorneys, screaming, or both."

Every time the brand account tweets it turns into a Twitter pile-on.

Recruiters reach out with new roles you might be interested in, citing "you know... the stuff that's going on."

There's a non-compete that covers basically every company on the planet.

They pay 3x market rate for no discernible reason. (I promise you, there's a reason.)

Nobody has anything nice to say about former staff. When pressed, they secretly suspect one person might have been the actual devil.

The retirement plan has a 4 year vest.

The retirement plan is "when we exit..."

You go for what you think is a job interview somewhere else, but the interviewer is wearing a badge and the offer includes something called "immunity."

Your company emails out talking points for staff to use at Thanksgiving dinner.

You're pretty sure you'd see better diversity stats and many of the same people at a Klan rally.

When you ask your peers if they have friends who work there, the response is "no, because people who work there aren't my friends."

If you have to engage in @Cirque level feats of acrobatics to reassure yourself that when your kids ask where their college funds came from you won't be ashamed of the answer.

You're asked at any time to do something that violates labor law. Do training unpaid, work overtime and not report it, slay your boss's rival in another department, etc.

There's a keg in the office kitchen.

The only woman on the team handles HR, Operations, and other support duties as needed.

You're asked to do real work for the company during the interview process.

The desks, keyboards, and chairs are shitty. The computers are all horrible. (Compared to payroll, these costs are NOTHING).

You ask what the process is for you to expense a book and are met with "I don't pay you to read."

You've been a contestant on Jeopardy and it was a less adversarial trivia game than the technical interview.

If you're told during the interview that you'll be replacing another employee who's clueless that this is the case.

You have to change your wardrobe to enter the office (removing shoes, etc.).

You're repeatedly lauded and appreciated for being an older worker.

You are 28 years old.

I will now entertain your questions. DMs are open if you'd rather not ask publicly.

You tell me something about your workplace, I will judge what shade the flag is.

"Former peers ask you to be references on their job applications because they don’t trust their former managers as references."

Possible. It depends upon if they were a crap employee or not. If not, red flag!

"Your CEO sits on a raised platform with his dog at his feet. The dog is walked daily by one of the women in the administration team who is on a working visa."

The only way this flag is redder is if the dog and the woman swap places. AVOID.

"We don't do ergonomic assessments for hot-desks." Hey, with both of those red flags you can start applying for other jobs via semaphore signalling.

"An employer 'forgot' to celebrate certain holidays that are listed in the employee handbook and have either civil rights or labor movement associations in the midst of a pandemic."

Yellow flag that turns red depending upon the reaction once they're made aware.

"All company meetings where they announce the new white man in leadership and follow it up with 10 minutes of explanation for why the female candidate wasn’t good enough."

Oof. There are times this is legitimate, but those times generally don't require ten minutes of exposition.

"10k retention bonus offered on 190k salary/bonus, it is paid at the end of the year term as long as you don't quit on receiving it, and includes new restrictions on working for any of the companies clients."

That's not a flag, that's a weak opening offer.

Same as the keg problem. Not everyone drinks. Not everyone drinks responsibly. This is a risky move. Mandatory is right out.

"Your company all-hands has a mandatory wine tasting as a team building exercise."

If you like playing "am I fired or not" every week, go nuts.

"Your boss schedules all meetings with the barest of descriptions in the subject of the email and never an agenda?"

After the third time start declining the invite.

"How about your boss regularly cancels 1 on 1s with you and other employees with no explanation."

"Workplace barely gives you raises but has fundraisers asking you to contribute to the workplace? (University)"

They can fuck off. Money flows one direction, from them to you.

"CEO (of 50-employee startup) tells engineers to make secret changes for him by lying in commit messages."

It's a teachable moment. In this case, about git-blame-someone-else.

"Owner of the company starts the company picnic by having everyone bow their heads in prayer."

Unless you work at a faith-based org, it's time to leave.

"You don't get bathroom breaks, so you need to pee in bottles and defecate in bags."

Hold out for higher quality company swag.

"Mandatory daily 8am standups."

Fair enough, but I have mandatory 5PM out-the-door obligations in return.

"You have to fingerprint into the building, not for any security purposes but to track the hours of salaried employees. And once they made us scan out during a fire alarm."

I refuse to accept that this one is real.

All right, give me a few and I'll fire up a Twitter Spaces so we can chat about this and other assorted nonsense.

Here we go:

twitter.com/i/spaces/1ypKd…