In a Healthy Company Culture, It’s Okay to Vent in Private
At the troubled luggage startup Away, private messaging and group chats were effectively banned
One detail still haunts me from that explosive report on workplace dysfunction at the luggage company Away that the Verge published last month: Private messaging, for all intents and purposes, was banned at the luggage startup.
“Employees were not allowed to email each other, and direct messages were supposed to be used rarely (never about work, and only for small requests, like asking if someone wanted to eat lunch),” wrote the Verge reporter Zoe Schiffer. “Private channels were also to be created sparingly and mainly for work-specific reasons, so making channels to, say, commiserate about a tough workday was not encouraged.”
Steph Korey, Away’s CEO and co-founder, went so far as to fire six employees for comments they made in a private Slack channel called #Hot-Topics, Schiffer reported. The channel was used by LGBTQ people and people of color, employees told the Verge, and used to vent about insensitive interactions. (Korey initially issued an apology amid the social media firestorm following the Verge’s viral story, and stepped down from her role into an executive chairwoman role — but has since returned as co-CEO, calling the Verge’s…
