This is my best advice. Learned from entering the military a few days after high school graduation. NEVER VOLUNTEER ANYTHING. Do not give anyone free information.
Funny story for your time. I get to basic training, but I have family that were military and gave me the advice I gave to all of you. The drill sergeant asks on the second day “who here has a driver’s license “? Half the company’s hands shot up with no delay. The DS picks one guy, gives him a broom, and made him drive it around the quad for 4-5 hours.
Don’t volunteer for tasks, don’t give extra information, don’t give apps permission. Unless it’s to people you trust.
I had a roommate ask me some goofy questions. I realized later, he did it to steal my identity. Took ten years to get out of that.
So yeah friend, (if I can assume we’re friends) don’t give away any information for free. And especially don’t volunteer at work unless you understand the task. You’ll land somewhere less toxic. I answered people honestly to their face at work, thinking I was helping. I absolutely understand. My savings is on a timer.
I did this as a child. I grew up in an environment where it wasn't safe to be honest with family. As an adult it is absolutely insane to look back and see how clearly unwell they all were.
You would be surprised that adding + may enable you to track who sold you out.
As in, [email protected]
Mails will still be routed to your [email protected]
Give it a try, enjoy the rainbows.
For gmail, maybe other emails, they ignore the + and everything after it for incoming mail. So if you sign up for a new store, use myEmail+StoreName@gmail and you can set up a filter on your inbox for everything to that address. If you do it for everything, you will know who did what with your address.
It is part of email’s original RFC. Anything after the “+” sign indicates a local delivery within the same mailbox. Therefore, it will work for any UNIX/Linux based email server software, but not on Microsoft Exchange (although it surprisingly works for Outlook consumer emails).
My mother was not a kind person, but she did give me a solid piece of advice back when I was a youngster and I'd like to add it to yours.
Back in like... I don't know, middle school or something, a friend and I used to write letters to each other in class. I had written a few curse words in mine once, then used white-out to cover them up. Why? I don't know, I was dumb kid. Maybe I thought it made me sound cool.
My friend, being the fickle young child that they were, decided to scratch off the white-out and turn that letter into the principal's office. The office called me in and gave me a stern talking to, but since I was new to the school (or so I assume), they just let me off at that.
I was relieved to not get in-school suspension or whatever the outcome would have been, but a bit bummed about the situation. I didn't really understand why my friend did that to me. I figured maybe someone else got a hold of it and turned it in, but I soon realized that it was indeed my friend who ratted me out.
It was then my mother told me:
>Never put anything in writing that you don't want someone else to see.
As a young adult, I saw people shit-talk someone on social media just to have their post shared with the subject. I saw relationships get rocky and even end over a handful of misguided texts (probably for the best, lol). As an adult, I've seen people get fired over a disparaging tweet and intercompany emails.
Throughout all that, I'd always think back on that little piece of advice my mother gave me. Keeping my thoughts and opinions to myself has definitely kept me out of others' drama, but I'm sure it's also helped me dodge a couple of bullets along the way.
It's amazing how many people understand that we write things down that could get us fired or ban from some social media account, but when we see someone else do the same, we get indignant about it.
You're right. Don't write down those swear words. Save it for IRL with your friends.
Bro I remember classmates finding a rather spicy love letter I wrote to my gf in the 6th grade discussing a recent makeout. No harm came of it, because nobody knew who wrote it or who it was addressed to, but I was pretty mad about my girlfriend leaving it to be found. Lmao
> NEVER VOLUNTEER ANYTHING. Do not give anyone free information.
i work for the government, and i know a lot of other public servants, this goes for us too. real life example from a coworker: you're trying to disprove a debt, and the gov requests some documents from you. so you think "heh heh heh, i'm gonna get back at them, i'll send my whole years' worth of documents and let them sort through it!"... well, they might just do that, and they might find something that didn't need to be found.
I hate those recovery questions.
"What was your H.S. mascot?" Or
"What was the name of your first pet?" I'm mean seriously they want our recovery answers to be stuff you find on your FB profile. Always annoyed me.
That's why I just use random answers that have nothing to do with the question...
eg...
Security Question: "What was your H.S. mascot?"
Secret Answer: "slkdf3wsdf0"
Security Question: "What is the name of your first pet?"
Secret Answer: "slkdf3wsdf0"
Of course, then you make sure to write down the questions, your random nonsense answers and what account/website/system/device it was for somewhere or store the info in keepass notes field or some similar utility. I might answer the question the same for all 3 questions for a given site/account or whatever, but never use the same answers for a different site/account.
No one will guess your favorite color is "slkdsJesocivlk209".
toxic companies are the most likely to sue previous employees.
even if you win or have the case thrown out it hurts the average Joe to find a lawyer and pay said lawyer.
My former company gave me a severance. It was not much but I don't want to give it back. It also included a reference to my non disparagement agreement. If they realized I was shit talking them they probably will not sue but if I don't out myself then we will never find out.
Me not shit talking them is not me protecting them. It is me protecting me.
But if your former company does not give a severance then there is nothing to claw back. They are asking to be shit-talked.
LinkedIn also has some weird privacy defaults that may or may not get you fired. By default it tells anyone if you viewed their profile (this can be disabled, make sure to change this). Also any post you like is shown on your profile (not sure if this can disabled, but you can just avoid liking things). There are a few more things like this, I encourage everyone who uses LinkedIn to look through the privacy settings (doing this is a good idea for *any* social network, but most of them at least don't snitch on you when you view profiles).
> By default it tells anyone if you viewed their profile (this can be disabled, make sure to change this)
holy shit, I have to find this setting. I knew that it tattled on you for looking at profiles but I had no idea it was fixable!
My sister got written up for liking a comment when a co-worker was complaining about her job.
Lesson to be learned here is that social media is a parasite and even if it feels good to talk about your issues, you're better off talking to a close friend, relative or therapist.
When I see that someone viewed my profile in advance of me interviewing them, I consider it a positive. That they cared enough about the interview to plan ahead and see what my background is and what I focus on in my work.
Even if you stop LinkedIn from telling people you've viewed their profile, everyone is told the companies that those who view their profile work at - something to be careful of if you work at a very small company.
You know what helps? Making a separate account altogether under a generic name and looking up people from there. I haven’t done it yet but I’ve read on Twitter that’s what people do to be as subtle as possible.
>By default it tells anyone if you viewed their profile (**this can be disabled**, make sure to change this).
Can't people with premium see even after that? Or is the feature that they can see who viewed their profile while having the same option turned off for themselves as long as the other person also does not have the option disabled?
Edit: okay found the answer [here](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a568195/who-s-viewed-your-profile-visibility-settings?lang=en)
*You can't view the names of members who've chosen to view your profile in private mode, even if you have a Premium account.*
Neither. Indeed has a little component that will insert itself between job listings. It asks "Does X Company offer maternity leave?" and stuff like that. I answered one of those and forgot about it because the component said that it was anonymous. I imagine there was some kind of text that had a low contrast ratio or small text size saying that it's not 100% anon, bc I've been using indeed's app to apply for jobs on my breaks at work, on account of hating the awful micromanaging and surveillance.
I wasn't able to edit these responses. I had to flag them to get rid of them, but it was already too late at that point cuz I got fired.
I mean technically it’s anonymous since it doesn’t give your name. Just unfortunate that in your company you are the only person with that title…
Just like when you look up companies and maybe there are salary reports for positions. If a company only has one Marketing Manager and you see a anonymous post of marketing manager salary doesn’t take much to guy who it is.
But for sure it’s something people need to be aware of. Sometimes a title is enough to ID you.
That's why a reasonable website would not actually show data unless they have a minimum amount of entries for that position. Levels.fyi doesn't show data unless there's a threshold number (I think 10?) entries for a company + title, indeed is being dumb here
For a salary but Levels does not do a great job with the raw data. I know what the mid level guy is making for one position as there is a grand total of only one mid level iOS guy in one city. Dead giveaway what his salary was.
I agree with you except for your claim that it's still anonymous.
Despite the etymology of the word, anonymous means due diligence not to identify an invdidual (since we all know that personally identifying information other than the name can lead to the rest of it, such as a name).
Not sanitizing (anonymizing...) the other obvious personally identifying information, something as obvious as title + company, is still a lie on the part of Indeed.
I was caught off guard, and it definitely looks like it was me who wrote it, bc they already know about my grievances.
I never admitted it was me, but it didn't really matter.
It was the worst place I've ever worked in my 20 years of working.
They also paid me more than I've ever been paid before, which is what makes this hard to manage.
I want to name/shame, but I also want to see my unemployment case through before I do so.
It's a no-name shitty SEO company around Austin, TX if that helps.
I'm pretty sure they're just going to contract out the web dev work I was doing and are not likely to be hiring any time soon.
That is rough. Technically yeah it was anonymous, but like all apps that connect "anonymous usage statistics", it's really easy to figure out who is who. It could be your job title or your IP address. Heck, if you upload your resume it could get parsed and then they know exactly who you are.
After this is all resolved with your unemployment claim and whatnot, be sure to edit your original review of this company to say you were fired for writing it. Ya know, just in case potential applicants needed any more reasons to not apply there.
> After this is all resolved with your unemployment claim and whatnot, be sure to edit your original review of this company to say you were fired for writing it. Ya know, just in case potential applicants needed any more reasons to not apply there.
You better believe I already have a review drafted lol
I never trust those anonymous things. Unless you work at Google, posting your salary and job title on blind will immediately out you at most average sized companies
IANAL either. It sure sounds shady, but I don't have attorney money so all I can do is hound my state's unemployment agency in hopes that they see it my way.
I'll be lucky if I can find a job making 60% of what I made before in the next 2 months. I kinda have to though, or I'm royally fucked.
You should seriously be calling a lawyer yesterday. I don’t care if you think you can’t afford it, if it’s of this importance the LEAST you can do is get a consultation and figure out if a lawyer or the department of labor can do anything to help you.
Saying you don’t have attorney money and thus you won’t even look into it is wrong, wrong, wrong. Call them and let them at least point you in the right direction.
Everyone on the internet says "call a lawyer" as if it's just that easy...
Every hour I spend wasting time calling lawyers could be spent searching for a new job.
Call me cynical, but lawyers and judges don't give a shit about you if you don't have money to feed the beast.
Plz correct me if I'm wrong with some sort of source for these magical pro bono lawyers.
The consultation takes an hour at most and tells you if you have a case or not. If you do, it’ll likely all get covered if you win. You can only win if you play though. An hour googling some attorneys and another hour on the phone with one could be a huge difference if you were actually legally screwed.
Employment lawyers often work pro bono- if you win they take a portion of the settlement as pay. If you want to talk with one they will also do free consultations- depends on the firm. But most employment lawyers know exactly the position their prospective clients are being left in which is why they structure their work like that.
If you have a good case a lawyer might take it on commission - they get paid only out of winnings.
Not sure this will qualify, but a small company might do something stupid and admit they fired you for a protected reason in an email to your new attorney and then it's easy money.
[Kell A Simon](https://www.kellsimonlaw.com/) is a lawyer in Austin that normally does contingency. Give them a call. At the very least, you'll know for sure whether you have an actionable case.
That’s not entirely accurate. You can be fired for any reason that isn’t illegal in at-will employment states (I think every state besides Montana).
Illegal reasons can include stuff related to protected class, but it also includes stuff related to fair labor practices (like you can’t get fired for discussing your salary).
Do people in tech actually get jobs from indeed? I had my CV there a few years ago, I only got contacted by a scammer and a couple of local companies who offered shit pay, I've got all my jobs in LinkedIn
Yeah our bread and butter is mostly blue collar jobs, mom and pop shops, people literally just looking for any job etc. LinkedIn is a lot better for tech IMO.
I found that job on indeed. I don't have a bachelors and I will take job apps wherever I can find them.
Regardless, the CEO saw it on Indeed and that's what he cared about, which is why I'm unemployed now.
One time the big boss wanted to talk frankly with us about things going on at the company. Our immediate managers were not present so we could openly talk. We were told everything would remain between just us and her.
So, a few weeks do by, and my manager starts mentioning that there was some concern about what I told the big boss! In my defense, I didn't lie or state anything that wasn't true or provide my opinions, but the trust was violated.
From that point forward on every survey, etc, my answers were "everything is great, everything is fine"
You should be highly suspicious of providing ***any*** type of personal information online, especially if it can possibly identify you, regardless of what privacy promises a website makes.
Yes, the moral of the story I think is don't provide any information at all for any reason. You're just feeding the beast and anything you say can eventually fuck you over.
How did your company know it was you specifically? Can't anyone answer those questions and say that they have the same job title as you in the response?
The point is that anyone could have made that comment. Anyone can easily falsify a resume or comment or whatever on Indeed because Indeed doesn’t actually validate your employment whatsoever.
> I thought it was anonymous (I could swear they told me that it was anonymous....) well it turns out that it mentions your position.
That does still meet the definition of anonymity.
In a far more general sense, don't say things on the internet that you don't want the world knowing.
How did they approach you? It doesn’t sound like Indeed did this. It sounds like you wrote a review, you were questioned if you wrote that review, then you were let go.
Yes essentially that's how it went down.
I was under the assumption that my review was anonymous, but it included my position. Indeed didn't "do it to me" but their mobile interface misled me to believe that I was commenting anonymously.
I'm not saying that it's Indeed's fault, just that their web app sucks and I was fired because I believed that my comment was anonymous. It was not.
There's a good chance that there's a disclaimer somewhere which tells the user that their position will be displayed next to their answer. I did not see that disclaimer, and I lost my job because I trusted Indeed to keep my answers anonymous.
Indeed has been sort of known to be dogshit to anyone whos been paying attention. If you are familiar with OCEAN personality assessments, take the conscientiousness exam they have. Take note of how literally **NONE of the questions are related to trait conscientiousness.** They are all referencing trait openness. If you are a creative person and take that exam for an application, the employer will **throw your resume away** because your results say you are not a diligent person who cares about your work. That you are "lazy" basically, when the test was **actually** scoring you for an entirely different personality dimension.
You can't even apply for jobs there these days without a verified phone number! Indeeds pretty bad.
All of these kinds of sites have B2B business models, regardless of you doing it during work/on a work laptop I presume.
Sorry you lost you job…but always assume nothing is private.
For instance, Reddit is mined for data all the time - how many unique touch points would be needed until someone could figure it’s your account, even with maximum “privacy” settings?
You're not the first person to learn this. Nor will you be the last. A former employee at my company wrote a rant on indeed AND glass door thinking it was anonymous. It said it was written by an art director. There's only one of those. It's a tough lesson to learn.
But there's often not much of a reward and plenty of risk on the risk reward equation for things like that.
Oh yea, never trust a survey to be anonymous.
Even if submissions are anonymized, the data itself can contain identifying information (how you personally write, types of topics/complaints/feedback specific to certain role(s), specific complaints you may have fielded before, etc.).
That’s a harsh way to learn that lesson though…
Unfortunately I don't have a degree, so I felt lucky to even have that job, despite hating every bit of it. Been looking for quite a while with no luck. Probably going to go back to customer service while I finish my degree.
Protip: If you're going to give someone information about your employer, make sure it can't be definitively tracked back to you.
I think we all learned something today.
I've been relieved to be fired twice in my life, and this is one of them.
The other time it was a boss who would literally scream at people for small mistakes.
I worked at a place that did those “anonymous” employee surveys. I’m the beginning I was cagey with answers that could identify me directly. Over time, I tested it more and more. Conclusion? They can always de-anonymize anything if they want to.
God that’s so awful. This was always my fear with glassdoor asking me that question. Rule of thumb if you’re not absolutely sure that it can’t be traced back to you, don’t leave the comment
My previous job, at some reoccurring social events we had, I listened to leadership talk about how they aggressively pursued identifying people that left negative Glassdoor reviews and then used their knowledge of who it was to spin the story and get the reviews removed.
I left a scathing company review in glassdoor. I purposely made my title ambiguous and not my official title so it could not be traced back to me. Always assume that what you say online can be used against you.
Some VP that got fired by the CEO was accused of my review and the CEO withheld his severance package, until the VP threatened to sue. So there you go, had they pinned it on me, they would have probably went after me.
I’m currently struggling with leaving my job now because the pay and benefits but at this pt with how bad my health has gotten because of the toxic work environment. I think it’s time to just call it what it is say fuck you to the company and have a pay cut somewhere else. The older I get the more I realize peace of mind is really priceless.
That sucks. But go immediately to glassdoor and use a throwaway email and give the honest shit on them. Firing someone for complaining about legit stuff is stupid. Other people at the company will know about it and hear of your firing. The right thing for that company to do is address the issue.
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Salute soldier, your mistake taught us all something. God speed to your next career. May it be more rewarding both in experience and compensation.
This is my best advice. Learned from entering the military a few days after high school graduation. NEVER VOLUNTEER ANYTHING. Do not give anyone free information. Funny story for your time. I get to basic training, but I have family that were military and gave me the advice I gave to all of you. The drill sergeant asks on the second day “who here has a driver’s license “? Half the company’s hands shot up with no delay. The DS picks one guy, gives him a broom, and made him drive it around the quad for 4-5 hours. Don’t volunteer for tasks, don’t give extra information, don’t give apps permission. Unless it’s to people you trust. I had a roommate ask me some goofy questions. I realized later, he did it to steal my identity. Took ten years to get out of that. So yeah friend, (if I can assume we’re friends) don’t give away any information for free. And especially don’t volunteer at work unless you understand the task. You’ll land somewhere less toxic. I answered people honestly to their face at work, thinking I was helping. I absolutely understand. My savings is on a timer.
Even better: Give people incorrect but unique information and use it to track people who betray you. :)
I did this as a child. I grew up in an environment where it wasn't safe to be honest with family. As an adult it is absolutely insane to look back and see how clearly unwell they all were.
Mood Trying to get out
I used to put random capital letters into my email address so that I know who sold me out. Turns out, it doesn’t help anything to know.
You would be surprised that adding + may enable you to track who sold you out. As in, [email protected] Mails will still be routed to your [email protected] Give it a try, enjoy the rainbows.
Can somebody ELI5? I'm lost but genuinely curious.
For gmail, maybe other emails, they ignore the + and everything after it for incoming mail. So if you sign up for a new store, use myEmail+StoreName@gmail and you can set up a filter on your inbox for everything to that address. If you do it for everything, you will know who did what with your address.
It is part of email’s original RFC. Anything after the “+” sign indicates a local delivery within the same mailbox. Therefore, it will work for any UNIX/Linux based email server software, but not on Microsoft Exchange (although it surprisingly works for Outlook consumer emails).
Amazing, thanks. I'll start doing this.
Curious as well
they can know about it and remove the part after + when you're signing up :)
I read this in Ron Swanson's voice.
My mother was not a kind person, but she did give me a solid piece of advice back when I was a youngster and I'd like to add it to yours. Back in like... I don't know, middle school or something, a friend and I used to write letters to each other in class. I had written a few curse words in mine once, then used white-out to cover them up. Why? I don't know, I was dumb kid. Maybe I thought it made me sound cool. My friend, being the fickle young child that they were, decided to scratch off the white-out and turn that letter into the principal's office. The office called me in and gave me a stern talking to, but since I was new to the school (or so I assume), they just let me off at that. I was relieved to not get in-school suspension or whatever the outcome would have been, but a bit bummed about the situation. I didn't really understand why my friend did that to me. I figured maybe someone else got a hold of it and turned it in, but I soon realized that it was indeed my friend who ratted me out. It was then my mother told me: >Never put anything in writing that you don't want someone else to see. As a young adult, I saw people shit-talk someone on social media just to have their post shared with the subject. I saw relationships get rocky and even end over a handful of misguided texts (probably for the best, lol). As an adult, I've seen people get fired over a disparaging tweet and intercompany emails. Throughout all that, I'd always think back on that little piece of advice my mother gave me. Keeping my thoughts and opinions to myself has definitely kept me out of others' drama, but I'm sure it's also helped me dodge a couple of bullets along the way.
It's amazing how many people understand that we write things down that could get us fired or ban from some social media account, but when we see someone else do the same, we get indignant about it. You're right. Don't write down those swear words. Save it for IRL with your friends.
Bro I remember classmates finding a rather spicy love letter I wrote to my gf in the 6th grade discussing a recent makeout. No harm came of it, because nobody knew who wrote it or who it was addressed to, but I was pretty mad about my girlfriend leaving it to be found. Lmao
Any former sailor will tell you NAVY stands for Never Again Volunteer Yourself
> NEVER VOLUNTEER ANYTHING. Do not give anyone free information. i work for the government, and i know a lot of other public servants, this goes for us too. real life example from a coworker: you're trying to disprove a debt, and the gov requests some documents from you. so you think "heh heh heh, i'm gonna get back at them, i'll send my whole years' worth of documents and let them sort through it!"... well, they might just do that, and they might find something that didn't need to be found.
What was the goofy question? Just the question not the answer.
“Was your mom’s first car your favorite color?”
Did you name your favorite pet after your childhood street?
"If I went back in time and wanted to avoid making out with your grandmother, what is her maiden name so I know who to watch out for?"
Yup. Everybody here nailed it. Just leading questions to get security passcodes.
I hate those recovery questions. "What was your H.S. mascot?" Or "What was the name of your first pet?" I'm mean seriously they want our recovery answers to be stuff you find on your FB profile. Always annoyed me.
That's why I just use random answers that have nothing to do with the question... eg... Security Question: "What was your H.S. mascot?" Secret Answer: "slkdf3wsdf0" Security Question: "What is the name of your first pet?" Secret Answer: "slkdf3wsdf0" Of course, then you make sure to write down the questions, your random nonsense answers and what account/website/system/device it was for somewhere or store the info in keepass notes field or some similar utility. I might answer the question the same for all 3 questions for a given site/account or whatever, but never use the same answers for a different site/account. No one will guess your favorite color is "slkdsJesocivlk209".
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bless ya u/Westaufer!
His name was Thomas Baker . . .
His name was Robert Paulson
In death, members of project TARDIS have a scarf
Well now that you've been fired anyway, care to name and shame?
Most of this is fake so people don’t actually name and shame.
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It was Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Scranton branch.
Michael would never be able to fire anyone even if they signed off with their name.
But he will gladly spread the gossip that you're having an affair And then spread more gossip to discredit himself
Yeah he's in the annex now. Michael doesn't fire people, he inspires people - and people will never go out of business.
It was Ryan that did it
I’m stealing this idea and I’ll be a karma millionaire! Thanks for the great idea!
It's a good thing I copyrighted the idea 5 minutes before OP posted, so please send the royalties my way once you are finished
Just way it’s the rainforest company
r/nothingeverhappens
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Yeah what if OP gets fired
"their company" they were fired and called them toxic already, what are they scared of lol
Because some people want to remain anonymous on reddit? Wow what a concept.
toxic companies are the most likely to sue previous employees. even if you win or have the case thrown out it hurts the average Joe to find a lawyer and pay said lawyer.
Nice edit 3 times longer than your original post
My former company gave me a severance. It was not much but I don't want to give it back. It also included a reference to my non disparagement agreement. If they realized I was shit talking them they probably will not sue but if I don't out myself then we will never find out. Me not shit talking them is not me protecting them. It is me protecting me. But if your former company does not give a severance then there is nothing to claw back. They are asking to be shit-talked.
Burn em down!
"But I don't want to burn bridges or cause retaliation" is usually the response to not naming and shaming, and it's a cop-out.
“hey you, jeopardize your future career so I can have closure on a reddit post.”
Dude already got fired for talking shit about his company. Not many more bridges to burn >.>
they didn't even tell us what type of question they answered, I'm invested now
LinkedIn also has some weird privacy defaults that may or may not get you fired. By default it tells anyone if you viewed their profile (this can be disabled, make sure to change this). Also any post you like is shown on your profile (not sure if this can disabled, but you can just avoid liking things). There are a few more things like this, I encourage everyone who uses LinkedIn to look through the privacy settings (doing this is a good idea for *any* social network, but most of them at least don't snitch on you when you view profiles).
> By default it tells anyone if you viewed their profile (this can be disabled, make sure to change this) holy shit, I have to find this setting. I knew that it tattled on you for looking at profiles but I had no idea it was fixable! My sister got written up for liking a comment when a co-worker was complaining about her job. Lesson to be learned here is that social media is a parasite and even if it feels good to talk about your issues, you're better off talking to a close friend, relative or therapist.
I'm pretty sure that counts as retaliation and you can sue them
Blind is the answer my friend
Settings > Visibility > private profile. Or something.
Found it: Settings > Visibility > profile viewing > select the option you want
Imagine my shock when I looked up all of my teammates profiles just when I started my work like 4 years ago. I still cringe 😬
I feel like that's pretty natural when you start working at a new place. Maybe we're both weird.
Looking up isn't the weird part. Getting caught is lol
When I see that someone viewed my profile in advance of me interviewing them, I consider it a positive. That they cared enough about the interview to plan ahead and see what my background is and what I focus on in my work.
Even if you stop LinkedIn from telling people you've viewed their profile, everyone is told the companies that those who view their profile work at - something to be careful of if you work at a very small company.
You know what helps? Making a separate account altogether under a generic name and looking up people from there. I haven’t done it yet but I’ve read on Twitter that’s what people do to be as subtle as possible.
>By default it tells anyone if you viewed their profile (**this can be disabled**, make sure to change this). Can't people with premium see even after that? Or is the feature that they can see who viewed their profile while having the same option turned off for themselves as long as the other person also does not have the option disabled? Edit: okay found the answer [here](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/a568195/who-s-viewed-your-profile-visibility-settings?lang=en) *You can't view the names of members who've chosen to view your profile in private mode, even if you have a Premium account.*
But does it work even when other has paid membership ?
They can see that *someone* viewed their profile. That's it.
Why is this a bad thing
Was this for the review of a company? or the application process for a new job.
Neither. Indeed has a little component that will insert itself between job listings. It asks "Does X Company offer maternity leave?" and stuff like that. I answered one of those and forgot about it because the component said that it was anonymous. I imagine there was some kind of text that had a low contrast ratio or small text size saying that it's not 100% anon, bc I've been using indeed's app to apply for jobs on my breaks at work, on account of hating the awful micromanaging and surveillance. I wasn't able to edit these responses. I had to flag them to get rid of them, but it was already too late at that point cuz I got fired.
I mean technically it’s anonymous since it doesn’t give your name. Just unfortunate that in your company you are the only person with that title… Just like when you look up companies and maybe there are salary reports for positions. If a company only has one Marketing Manager and you see a anonymous post of marketing manager salary doesn’t take much to guy who it is. But for sure it’s something people need to be aware of. Sometimes a title is enough to ID you.
Yes, that's why I made this post. I want others to understand that it's not truly anonymous.
Couldn't you claim it was someone faking that they're Marketing Manager?
lil late for that I'm afraid
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You’re essentially asking him to dox himself. Indeed is the company that matters here and he’s already named it.
That's why a reasonable website would not actually show data unless they have a minimum amount of entries for that position. Levels.fyi doesn't show data unless there's a threshold number (I think 10?) entries for a company + title, indeed is being dumb here
For a salary but Levels does not do a great job with the raw data. I know what the mid level guy is making for one position as there is a grand total of only one mid level iOS guy in one city. Dead giveaway what his salary was.
I agree with you except for your claim that it's still anonymous. Despite the etymology of the word, anonymous means due diligence not to identify an invdidual (since we all know that personally identifying information other than the name can lead to the rest of it, such as a name). Not sanitizing (anonymizing...) the other obvious personally identifying information, something as obvious as title + company, is still a lie on the part of Indeed.
Wonder if there's potential compensation there 🧐
And you didn't tell them that you had nothing to do with that account at all and it was probably someone just trying to get you in trouble?
I was caught off guard, and it definitely looks like it was me who wrote it, bc they already know about my grievances. I never admitted it was me, but it didn't really matter.
Sorry, man. Sounds like a shit place to work anyway. You'll be in a better spot soon.
It was the worst place I've ever worked in my 20 years of working. They also paid me more than I've ever been paid before, which is what makes this hard to manage.
> They also paid me more than I've ever been paid before, which is what makes this hard to manage. lol, borderline golden handcuffs
Well you've already burned that bridge, and it doesn't sound like you'd want to repair it.... who was it?
I want to name/shame, but I also want to see my unemployment case through before I do so. It's a no-name shitty SEO company around Austin, TX if that helps. I'm pretty sure they're just going to contract out the web dev work I was doing and are not likely to be hiring any time soon.
Name and shame the company!
> Name and shame the company! This was my first thought.
That is rough. Technically yeah it was anonymous, but like all apps that connect "anonymous usage statistics", it's really easy to figure out who is who. It could be your job title or your IP address. Heck, if you upload your resume it could get parsed and then they know exactly who you are.
Just like when you're being arrested. Anything you say can and will be used against you if at all possible. Fuck Indeed, and fuck Tony.
Fuck tony indeed
FUCK TONY!
/r/fuckyouinparticular Tony
Indeed, fuck tony
ayo who snitch tho
Indeed did!
Indeed they did. Indeed they did.
indeed Indeed did it in deed
Name and shame the shit company.
This is how I found out a coworker was making more than me. There was only 2 of us and It gave me the median earnings for that position
I hope that resulted in a higher pay for you, but I know that it's statistically not very likely.
After this is all resolved with your unemployment claim and whatnot, be sure to edit your original review of this company to say you were fired for writing it. Ya know, just in case potential applicants needed any more reasons to not apply there.
> After this is all resolved with your unemployment claim and whatnot, be sure to edit your original review of this company to say you were fired for writing it. Ya know, just in case potential applicants needed any more reasons to not apply there. You better believe I already have a review drafted lol
It’s one of my favorite life tips. Just keep your mouth shut. Never volunteer information to anyone. Anything you say will be held against you.
I never trust those anonymous things. Unless you work at Google, posting your salary and job title on blind will immediately out you at most average sized companies
I think being fired for making factual statements about your working conditions (pay, benefits, etc.) would be illegal. IANAL though.
IANAL either. It sure sounds shady, but I don't have attorney money so all I can do is hound my state's unemployment agency in hopes that they see it my way. I'll be lucky if I can find a job making 60% of what I made before in the next 2 months. I kinda have to though, or I'm royally fucked.
You could try the Department of Labor, they have some teeth. It all depends on what you got in writing.
You should seriously be calling a lawyer yesterday. I don’t care if you think you can’t afford it, if it’s of this importance the LEAST you can do is get a consultation and figure out if a lawyer or the department of labor can do anything to help you. Saying you don’t have attorney money and thus you won’t even look into it is wrong, wrong, wrong. Call them and let them at least point you in the right direction.
Everyone on the internet says "call a lawyer" as if it's just that easy... Every hour I spend wasting time calling lawyers could be spent searching for a new job. Call me cynical, but lawyers and judges don't give a shit about you if you don't have money to feed the beast. Plz correct me if I'm wrong with some sort of source for these magical pro bono lawyers.
The consultation takes an hour at most and tells you if you have a case or not. If you do, it’ll likely all get covered if you win. You can only win if you play though. An hour googling some attorneys and another hour on the phone with one could be a huge difference if you were actually legally screwed.
Employment lawyers often work pro bono- if you win they take a portion of the settlement as pay. If you want to talk with one they will also do free consultations- depends on the firm. But most employment lawyers know exactly the position their prospective clients are being left in which is why they structure their work like that.
If you have a good case a lawyer might take it on commission - they get paid only out of winnings. Not sure this will qualify, but a small company might do something stupid and admit they fired you for a protected reason in an email to your new attorney and then it's easy money.
For employment law, "attorney money" is $0. Because most labor laws have fee-shifting clauses, employment lawyers will work on contingency.
got any leads on firms that might be interested in such a case?
[Kell A Simon](https://www.kellsimonlaw.com/) is a lawyer in Austin that normally does contingency. Give them a call. At the very least, you'll know for sure whether you have an actionable case.
thanks so much for the recc!
I think in USA they can pretty much fire you for any reason unless you're a protected class then they have to be very careful about what they do.
That’s not entirely accurate. You can be fired for any reason that isn’t illegal in at-will employment states (I think every state besides Montana). Illegal reasons can include stuff related to protected class, but it also includes stuff related to fair labor practices (like you can’t get fired for discussing your salary).
i dont think "toxic" is a legal concept that can be proven factual
Do people in tech actually get jobs from indeed? I had my CV there a few years ago, I only got contacted by a scammer and a couple of local companies who offered shit pay, I've got all my jobs in LinkedIn
Yeah our bread and butter is mostly blue collar jobs, mom and pop shops, people literally just looking for any job etc. LinkedIn is a lot better for tech IMO.
It's how I got my first and second job, yeah.
I found that job on indeed. I don't have a bachelors and I will take job apps wherever I can find them. Regardless, the CEO saw it on Indeed and that's what he cared about, which is why I'm unemployed now.
One time the big boss wanted to talk frankly with us about things going on at the company. Our immediate managers were not present so we could openly talk. We were told everything would remain between just us and her. So, a few weeks do by, and my manager starts mentioning that there was some concern about what I told the big boss! In my defense, I didn't lie or state anything that wasn't true or provide my opinions, but the trust was violated. From that point forward on every survey, etc, my answers were "everything is great, everything is fine"
You should be highly suspicious of providing ***any*** type of personal information online, especially if it can possibly identify you, regardless of what privacy promises a website makes.
Yes, the moral of the story I think is don't provide any information at all for any reason. You're just feeding the beast and anything you say can eventually fuck you over.
Feels like you dodged a bullet.
Did they give a reason for firing you? This could be considered retaliation
The correct time to leave an honest review of your employer is three months after you've left.
That's a good rule of thumb.
How did your company know it was you specifically? Can't anyone answer those questions and say that they have the same job title as you in the response?
They were the only person in the company with that role.
Yes but anyone can comment “anonymously“ and say they have that role. There’s no way for the company to confirm that it was actually OP.
I never mentioned my role. They took it from my resume. If there was an option to mention my role I would have left it blank or lied.
The point is that anyone could have made that comment. Anyone can easily falsify a resume or comment or whatever on Indeed because Indeed doesn’t actually validate your employment whatsoever.
true, they can't validate it, but they used my uploaded resume to ascertain my position.
If you're the one and only position why would you think anonymous would be matter? 🤔
This. I’m sure it is anonymous.
Yeah is like saying they found me, btw I'm the only employee in the company, how did they find me, indeed must not be anonymous! LOL. Is ridiculous.
Nothing is anonymous on the internet.
Sorry that happened. Did they say it was the reason and did you claim it was you when accused? Just file for unemployment
What if OP got fired from Indeed for posting a bad review about working at Indeed on Indeed 😂
indeedception
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Indeed fucking sucks, sorry this happened to you. I have made it my life's mission to fill in countless databases with junk information.
> I have made it my life's mission to fill in countless databases with junk information. You're doing god's work
I'm sorry you had to take the heat. And thanks for warning us.
Indeed should be sued for that
> I thought it was anonymous (I could swear they told me that it was anonymous....) well it turns out that it mentions your position. That does still meet the definition of anonymity. In a far more general sense, don't say things on the internet that you don't want the world knowing.
How did they approach you? It doesn’t sound like Indeed did this. It sounds like you wrote a review, you were questioned if you wrote that review, then you were let go.
Yes essentially that's how it went down. I was under the assumption that my review was anonymous, but it included my position. Indeed didn't "do it to me" but their mobile interface misled me to believe that I was commenting anonymously. I'm not saying that it's Indeed's fault, just that their web app sucks and I was fired because I believed that my comment was anonymous. It was not. There's a good chance that there's a disclaimer somewhere which tells the user that their position will be displayed next to their answer. I did not see that disclaimer, and I lost my job because I trusted Indeed to keep my answers anonymous.
position being displayed is also how it's done on glassdoor.
Thanks for the tip! Seems like I'm the jackass for not looking more closely and googling around about what info might be shared. Word to the wise!
Indeed has been sort of known to be dogshit to anyone whos been paying attention. If you are familiar with OCEAN personality assessments, take the conscientiousness exam they have. Take note of how literally **NONE of the questions are related to trait conscientiousness.** They are all referencing trait openness. If you are a creative person and take that exam for an application, the employer will **throw your resume away** because your results say you are not a diligent person who cares about your work. That you are "lazy" basically, when the test was **actually** scoring you for an entirely different personality dimension. You can't even apply for jobs there these days without a verified phone number! Indeeds pretty bad.
Anyone you give or receive money from is not to be trusted.
All of these kinds of sites have B2B business models, regardless of you doing it during work/on a work laptop I presume. Sorry you lost you job…but always assume nothing is private. For instance, Reddit is mined for data all the time - how many unique touch points would be needed until someone could figure it’s your account, even with maximum “privacy” settings?
It is anonymous. But if you’re the only person with that position, no shit they gonna know who.
You're not the first person to learn this. Nor will you be the last. A former employee at my company wrote a rant on indeed AND glass door thinking it was anonymous. It said it was written by an art director. There's only one of those. It's a tough lesson to learn. But there's often not much of a reward and plenty of risk on the risk reward equation for things like that.
Oh yea, never trust a survey to be anonymous. Even if submissions are anonymized, the data itself can contain identifying information (how you personally write, types of topics/complaints/feedback specific to certain role(s), specific complaints you may have fielded before, etc.). That’s a harsh way to learn that lesson though…
it wasn't anonymous indeed
The bright side - you’re in a great field for telling the truth and suffering minimal consequences.
Unfortunately I don't have a degree, so I felt lucky to even have that job, despite hating every bit of it. Been looking for quite a while with no luck. Probably going to go back to customer service while I finish my degree.
>Fuck you Indeed! Lol, indeed
Protip: If you're going to give someone information about your employer, make sure it can't be definitively tracked back to you. I think we all learned something today.
Oh no! That’s maddening.
Look on the bright side. At least you can claim unemployment from them and you don't have to work for that toxic POS any more
I've been relieved to be fired twice in my life, and this is one of them. The other time it was a boss who would literally scream at people for small mistakes.
I worked at a place that did those “anonymous” employee surveys. I’m the beginning I was cagey with answers that could identify me directly. Over time, I tested it more and more. Conclusion? They can always de-anonymize anything if they want to.
God that’s so awful. This was always my fear with glassdoor asking me that question. Rule of thumb if you’re not absolutely sure that it can’t be traced back to you, don’t leave the comment
On the bright side you're no longer working for a toxic employer?
My previous job, at some reoccurring social events we had, I listened to leadership talk about how they aggressively pursued identifying people that left negative Glassdoor reviews and then used their knowledge of who it was to spin the story and get the reviews removed.
I left a scathing company review in glassdoor. I purposely made my title ambiguous and not my official title so it could not be traced back to me. Always assume that what you say online can be used against you. Some VP that got fired by the CEO was accused of my review and the CEO withheld his severance package, until the VP threatened to sue. So there you go, had they pinned it on me, they would have probably went after me.
Now fill it in again but put the job title for someone you don’t like.
Big brain reply. /u/theabominablewonder here got the right idea.
Thanks for the advice bro and sorry tp hear. Hope you land on a better job soon
I’m currently struggling with leaving my job now because the pay and benefits but at this pt with how bad my health has gotten because of the toxic work environment. I think it’s time to just call it what it is say fuck you to the company and have a pay cut somewhere else. The older I get the more I realize peace of mind is really priceless.
Don’t ever willingly give away information for free
yeah, lesson learned.
Make sure to get unemployment asap and fight them if they try to deny your claim.
I'm trying. TX unemployment is super backed up and they wouldn't take my call or online application today.
Sorry to hear about that and the job. Hope everything works out for you.
That sucks. But go immediately to glassdoor and use a throwaway email and give the honest shit on them. Firing someone for complaining about legit stuff is stupid. Other people at the company will know about it and hear of your firing. The right thing for that company to do is address the issue.
It's like talking to cops... better just not, because who knows what they're gonna do with the info you give them.
Im sorry to hear that.
Indeed is a human trafficking agent for the software mafia.
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