Every so often I check LinkedIn, I have colleagues, friends, and a few enemies on there I catch up with periodically. And EVERY time my brain seems to end up scrolling the LinkedIn feed and reading things, today I saw this post:
(I am SO sorry if you’re reading this)
One of my employees asked for every Friday off this summer. Not PTO. Not sick days.
Just… Fridays. For 3 months.
My first instinct was to say no. We’re in the middle of our biggest AI launch. Fridays are ship days. Losing a full day every week for 3 months? I wasn’t sure we could absorb that.
But before I said no, I asked why.
She told me her dad was diagnosed in the spring. Not a lot of summers left. They always went fishing on Fridays when she was a kid.
She wasn’t asking for a break from work. She was asking to not miss these ones with her father.
So I said yes. We shifted her ship days. The team covered without blinking.
Here’s what I didn’t expect:
- She delivers every single thing on time
- She’s mentored two juniors better than she ever had
- She told me it’s the best summer of her life
We’re only halfway through it.
But she already looks at this company differently. And I know she’ll never forget that we said yes when it mattered most.
Engagement isn’t a survey score.
It’s what your people remember when they think about who had their back. Say yes more often. You rarely regret it.
(WTAFWT) - What. The. Actual. Fuck. Was. That.
Why? Just Why? Why would anyone post this?
I’m going to be a little reductive and say this post has two possibilities, it is (mostly) true or (mostly) false. Let’s think about what each possibility says about this kind of thing.
It’s (mostly) True
How could someone, with a straight face, ask the employee who is going through the grief of losing a parent, that you were just patting yourself on the back about about being so empathetic to, “Hey Vicki, excuse me, can I post about how I was a really good person today, and about your father dying on LinkedIn? Yeah yeah, it’s for engagement.”
Or WORSE, not asking?
And assuming it is true. Why? Why LinkedIn? Is this not a private matter? Charity isn’t charity when it is public.
It’s (mostly) False
A CEO of a company is lying, publicly, about something that did not happen, about an employee who does not exist, about a story that is fabricated, and about a person who is dying, to get people to feel like they are a good person. Why would someone tell the world that the only stories they have about being empathetic, and kind, are fabricated? I don’t understand why you’d want to inform the world you think lying is okay. Being a CEO should be a position where you exhume honesty.
And.. If it is false, why? Presumably to build reputation, and obtain more money?
You can tell me I’m being facetious, that many many people do this, this is how you beat the algorithm and rise to the top. I just. I don’t care. This is weird. And gross. And people shouldn’t be rewarded for whatever the hell that weird story was. If I made a friend, and I learnt they posted on LinkedIn like this, I would quickly not hang out with this person.