Haupz Blog

... still a totally disordered mix

We Are Not Family

2022-06-12 — Michael Haupt

For a long time, I've usually felt a tinge of discomfort whenever someone was mentioning the idea that we, at this company, are a family. (I mean no particular company here.) In fact, we're not, and it's important we avoid that analogy. Here's an article that I'm glad I found, because it makes many of the points that I couldn't properly formulate so far.

We all want to feel satisfaction from what we do at work, and we want the good work we do to be acknowledged. We want to be seen, instead of being anonymous. And all of that is possible in a workplace without that workplace branding itself as something that it inherently isn't.

We can't choose our family, and the family can't choose us. But we're all working where we are because we consciously decided to do so, and the company has us around because it decided to, by way of delegating that decision to a hiring manager. It's first and foremost a contractual relationship, and a social one only in the secondary perspective.

Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, mentioned some other things that a company - here: Shopify - isn't.

Tags: work