Personal business conversations on LinkedIn never fail. There is a literary genre that all vacationers on this beach consume: that of those who happily leave the apparent corpo paradise. “I am leaving the company after four incredible years, incredibly grateful that I learned more than I imagined…”.
And you, who hugged the crying person in the bathroom, know full well that he has been bleeding to death for three and a half years.
If there’s one thing we say in the corporate world, it’s this: We’re obscuring the truth. And the blame lies with us. We invented an emotional diplomacy in which everything was “a privilege,” even if that privilege consisted of surviving (already fragmented).
The problem is not gratitude. The problem is emotional botox, word inflation.
All is bright in the hyper-wholesale supermarket of corporate hypocrisy, where fabricated bulk prices rain down from the shelves. For example: There are more promotions than layoffs. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but in the midst of restructuring fever, no one is getting laid off anymore (that’s a thing of the past).: Everyone leaves because “they are completing cycles, completing phases” or because “other personal projects” are waiting for them. Serial euphemisms.
Thank you “Many thanks to the exceptional team!” and so many “unforgettable experiences”! In the end you invalidate the meaning if you know the background. It’s true: it’s often the relief of not being there anymore that determines this gratitude. “You have to do it well,” says the Delphi organizational oracle. A game of selective amnesia.
Sometimes it is so exaggerated that we no longer know whether it was a job, a vacation or a cult. These white lies also appear in interview advice: “Don’t talk badly about your previous employer”; “Be careful what you say about your pain points because it can have a negative impact on you.” In short: don’t be yourself because you won’t be liked. Edit yourself.
So the contestants come to this brawl wondering what to say and what not to say, so it all becomes a laboratory designed to fake and please. A carousel of rejections.
Meanwhile, real people—those who are tired, frustrated, or just ready to come full circle—still feel like they can’t say, “Thanks, I’ve learned, and I’m exhausted too. I’m leaving to get better.”
So with a washed face, no shine or Storytelling Epos. Maybe it would be better to say nothing than to invent things that aren’t.
Maybe we need a little more courage to say what’s happening in organizations: more skin and less makeup.
Otherwise, LinkedIn becomes a false marquee, a Showroom of melamine happiness, of exaggerated life.
I think that with less personal encounters and more truth we would feel more at home. It depends on us.
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