🚩 Red Flags: My Experience 🚩

• 🚩 Unlimited PTO 🚩

  I see that people see this as a red flag because it means NO PTO. However, this is my experience and how I see it as a green flag ✅

  I’ve been at Netflix for 6 months and have already taken 3 weeks of vacation. I questioned unlimited PTO before coming to Netflix because I’ve only been in companies that have a vacation accrual. However, from my experience, I hardly took time when I was accruing. The reason was that there wasn’t a lot of support for taking time off. I usually felt guilty and didn’t feel encouraged.

  I believe that unlimited PTO “works” when it is encouraged throughout the company as well as encouraged by your team and manager. At Netflix I’ve not met anyone who hasn’t taken time off and my team, my manager, and I are always supportive of each other when it comes to taking a vacation.

  So what do encouragement and support look like?

  ✅ The team and manager getting you excited about your vacation! They asked about my plans and genuinely cared to make sure I would be stepping away.

  ✅ We came up with a coverage plan and they genuinely wanted to help to make sure I wouldn’t be thinking about work while on vacation.

  ✅ We talked about boundaries early on and respect what each individual person needs

  ✅ We celebrated when someone came back from vacation and talked about the fun!

  ✅ In addition to the coverage plan, we had a plan to transition work back to the person who was out. Instead of dumping the work back, we made sure to smoothly move it over.

  Again, this is my experience and I’m quite happy and proud to have unlimited PTO. It’s given me flexibility, it helps with my physical and mental health, and I get to actually recharge where I look forward to coming back to work!

• 🚩 We're Family Here 🚩

  I hear a lot about why companies calling coworkers “family” is a 🚩red flag 🚩. It’s because family means unconditional. It means you’ll do anything for them, sacrificing boundaries, values, and integrity for them. It means that even if they are in the wrong, you keep them and carry their weight so no one gets hurt. Professional and personal start to blur. There’s an exaggerated sense of loyalty. Lastly, there’s a creation of an environment where people can be taken advantage of.

  I’ve definitely worked in places that claimed a family-type culture. I did everything for them. I was taken advantage of. I believed I was being loyal, but over time I felt resentment.

  But as I grew in my career, I was able to separate and make sense of individual people. I learned the kind of people who respected my boundaries, who cared about my career and well-being, who were hard workers, and who created environments where we can be our best selves and do our best work ✨

  This is whom I call my work family. These are people I stayed close to. Yes, professional and personal did blur. We know each other’s families. Our kids play with each other. But professionally, these are whom I consider work-family because, given the chance to work with them again, I would do it in a heartbeat. I know their work ethics and would vouch for them. I would refer them. I’m confident they would refer me too. Some may call this their ultimate network 🤝

  I share my story to show that red flags exist, but that it isn’t something to completely turn down and run away from like most people claim you should do. I understand that companies need to do better and fix this. Working at Netflix, we don’t use the term family, but Dream Team instead. I love this because I know the people I’m working with are top-tier. But because of this, I personally feel the same sentiments towards them on how I define a work family. I know their worth ethic, so I can vouch for them anytime.

  Some of my best work friends/family have come from being in places that claimed a family culture. But again, it came down to individuals. A culture can claim it, but you don’t have to drink the kool-aid. There are ways to make it work FOR you, instead of against you.

• 🚩 Fast-paced environment 🚩

  Everywhere I’ve worked in my career, it was written in my job description or mentioned in my interview that the company had a fast-paced environment. It was part of the culture.

  Today, we are told to avoid fast-paced environments because that’s a red flag for a company and its culture. It means there is no sense of prioritization. Everything is treated as time-sensitive. People are more prone to burnout. It means you’re always working.

  But here’s how I experienced fast-paced environments in my career and what it actually meant.

  🟢 It meant the company moves fast with decisions

  🟢 There is a sense of urgency to certain tasks

  🟢 It meant that no one day was the same

  🟢 You wouldn’t be stuck in a routine

  🟢 Juggling multiple projects

  Some of the best things I learned from fast-paced environments:

  ⭐️ How to talk about boundaries and prioritization

  ⭐️ Better time management

  ⭐️ How to be proactive vs reactive

  ⭐️ How to be flexible and pivot

  ⭐️ How to efficiently lead projects for better planning and execution

  ⭐️ How to be resourceful

  ⭐️ How to be the best collaborator

  I consider having worked in fast-paced environments beneficial and I owe my success in my career and professional development to it because it set a very high bar in how I work. I personally don’t think anything other than what I’m doing now would be a good fit for me. I like fast because it’s exciting!

  So in my opinion, it’s not something to run away from. It’s just not everyone’s cup of tea.

• 🚩 “Work Hard, Play Hard” 🚩

  I’ll leave this short and sweet because the “work hard” part is very similar to what I posted yesterday about “fast-paced environments”. (I'll link it in the comments for anyone who missed it). When a company claims it works hard, it means things move very quickly. People take the work seriously. There are no idle hands, only busy ones. Teams run lean and there’s a lot to do.

  Again, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But I like the work hard culture because it’s given me opportunities in my career to step up. Sure, I’ve had to handle things outside of my pay grade, but I made sure it didn’t stay that way. I communicated and voiced what I do and have done. I take the opportunities outside of my comfort zone and add them to my resume and toolbox of skills and experience. I make sure I grow in all aspects of my development.

  So what’s the Play Hard part? ✅ Getting to be included and rewarded with incredible, unique, and sometimes once-in-a-lifetime experiences and moments in the workplace!

  Here’s some of my fav:

  💥 Getting to experience and see a piece of technology not released yet to the public

  💥 Perks like Disneyland tickets

  💥 Getting to see and meet celebrities

  💥 Getting to meet industry greats

  💥 Getting to see movies, films, and video games before their release

  💥 Getting to see behind the scenes

  💥 Getting to see a theme park before the public

  💥 Lots of really cool swag

  Work hard is hard work. Like really hard work. But playing hard is super fun!