Woman Searches Her Name On Her Company's Slack And Finds Co-Workers' 'Running Jokes' About Her
It's a subtle sign that a workplace is toxic.
fizkes / Shutterstock Starting a new job, especially in an office, is nerve-wracking. Not only are you in a new environment with different tasks than your previous jobs, but you're thrown into an office of strangers you hope will like you.
Corporate CEOs, long-time employees, HR — these are all people you'll meet in the early stages of a new career. But just when you think they will accept you, you might come to find that maybe they're not as far off from your high school enemies as you thought.
That's what happened to a woman at her job when she discovered a not-so-pleasant secret.
The woman found her co-workers making fun of her after searching her name on the company's Slack.
In a video, a woman named Dero shocked her followers with a horrifying discovery she made on her company's Slack, a messaging program often used by employees to communicate.
"Go ahead and search your name on slack. You will be surprised at the channels that are public, talking about you — that you can read! I saw notes from when I was interviewing. I saw a group chat that was talking about me. In that group chat, I became a running joke… I was name-dropped many, many times,” Dero said.
Many people immediately commented about how anxious it made them to think of searching for their name on Slack and finding something similar to Dero.
Dero claimed that her "weirdness" lent her co-workers to joke about her.
"For context, I am a weird person," she quipped. Coming into a corporate position, and a seemingly very professional environment, she said she tried her hardest to "keep [her weirdness] under wraps."
Although, she admitted while laughing, "If you ask me a personal question, it will just seep through." A reminder that it's almost impossible to hide your personality when you remain true to yourself.
When her remote position started and she met with all of her co-workers online, she was ready to set "her weirdness" aside and bluff through her forced introduction. Like a pro, that's just what she did.
"They asked me the dreaded question: What do you do for fun? I don't remember what I said. I just lied," she said.
However, her coworkers weren't necessarily envious or ready to start a new friendship. The Slack conversations revealed managers, not just co-workers, jokingly theorizing about what she did for fun.
"They were talking about that exact moment," she revealed, talking about her brief introduction to the team. One manager said, "Oh, she parties. She definitely parties." Other co-workers made jokes about her mullet-style hair.
Sounds too much like high school gossip to ignore, right?
Rude and bully-like behavior from co-workers is a subtle sign that a workplace is toxic.
A toxic workplace is one in which the "environment is a detrimental setting that significantly affects the well-being and productivity of employees. It is characterized by a pervasive negative atmosphere, where employees constantly experience unhealthy conditions that hinder their professional growth and personal happiness."
For Dero, though she wasn't victim to other signs of a toxic workplace — which can include poor communication, a lack of boundaries, and being overworked — it appears she was on the receiving end of bullying, though not directly to her face.
While many people in the comments urged her to sue, it's unlikely Dero would find a resolution doing so. Because although there are federal laws against bullying and harassment, making fun of her hobbies and hair isn't illegal, unfortunately.
Luckily, Dero explained that this was a previous job, not one that she currently holds. And since then, she's seemed to brush it off. But employees who find themselves in similar situations would do best by going to Human Resources, reporting the bullying or harassment, or finding a job that treats them kindly.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a News & Entertainment Writer at YourTango who focuses on health and wellness, social policy, and human interest stories.