Let's be Kind!

I have been quiet on the blog front for a little while, but the events of the past few weeks have caused me to pause and reflect. I joined Datarobot because I believe it is truly a pioneering company, doing great things in the field of AI.

However, like many other technology companies enduring tough market conditions (over which we have no control), we have had to make some difficult adjustments recently. This has given rise to some alarming content online in the last few weeks. Clearly, working for a tech start-up can be a bit of a rollercoaster ride at times!

Websites including Linkedin, Glassdoor, Comparably and Blind mean that employees (former and current) can freely make posts, or leave anonymous company reviews, which inform potential new hires and usually give them an unmoderated perspective. This is great when it offers an insider’s view, but when the opinions expressed are very personal then it can begin to feel a bit more like trolling, which is unfortunately common in the world of social media, but not so much in the workplace.

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Whilst we would tend to take an unreservedly glowing review with a degree of pragmatism, a negative review can be left anonymously, without much forethought or consideration. In the extreme, if it is emotionally charged, then it can come across as quite hurtful or just plain untrue.

A degree of criticism comes with any senior job and the higher up you go the more you seem to get. However, some of the words that I have seen, or heard being used, in supposedly professional posts online recently are actually quite mean. In some cases they have been pretty upsetting to those that were targeted. ?I don’t believe there is any need for people who are just doing their jobs like everyone else, to end up in tears at work because of what is being written online.

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Fortunately most of the comments put out onto work social media sites are positive and professional. And whilst I would never discount anybody’s opinion, I would hope that in this day and age, even if we don’t agree, we can still treat one another with a modicum of kindness, and pause before we put something out there in anger that can’t be taken back?