Employee woes at Facebook

Compared to some places, Facebook seems like a good place to work. However, employees recently took to the internet to say why you can have too much of a good thing.

BY Cameron Edmond 21 Jun 2013

While some people face workplace bullying, unforgiving deadlines, tyrannical bosses and unreasonable hours, Facebook employees seem to be doing it tough, too. As reported by News Ltd, current and former employees have aired out their qualms online about working for the social media juggernaut.

Some of the complaints were legitimate claims of lack of management and evaluation, as well as a blurring of the work-life balance (one woman stated because her husband worked for Facebook, she began receiving requests from others to help them solve problems), but others seemed a little odd.

With a liberal pinch of salt, here are some of HC’s favourite “gripes” as taken from Quora.com:

Trying to be trendy. One poster commented that Facebook’s insistence on acting like a young company despite its size made it seem like an “Adam Sandler movie where he's old but wants to act like a teenager”.
Having fun. One employee really doesn’t appreciate the expectation to be social, hang out and have a drink with their co-workers. The “unofficial sport” of the company being beer-pong doesn’t sit too well with them, either.
Being Facebook. One poster seemed to be disgusted by the very identity of the organisation, simply saying their problem was “It’s not Google.”
Too much food. The cream-of-the-crop came from one poster who said their main complaint was that they “Have but one stomach for all the food.”

Another comment brought to attention Philip Su’s (possibly tongue-in-cheek) blog post outlining some of the things he hates about working for Facebook. The list includes the food being too good, too many ideas stemming from “coding parties” and too much internal trust.

Facebook is often cited as a Best Employer in global polls, so you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking these complaints weren’t completely serious. Regardless, they raise the question: can there be too much of a good thing?