Don’t Post That on Facebook! 5 Anonymous Ways to Complain About Your Job
Work can be tough. Given the opportunity, we’re going to complain a little.
Talking about it is healthy. But oversharing on Facebook isn’t good for your career prospects. You don’t want a boss, coworker or prospective employer to catch wind of your workday rants.
Of course, you could always talk with other human beings after a hard day. The internet won’t keep a record of that.
But I get it. Other humans are truly the worst.
If a lunch, happy hour, phone call or text message with a real person is too much to handle, try these other venues to anonymously vent about your workday.
1. Better Company
Better Company is a website and app for iPhone and Android that’s actually meant to connect you anonymously with people in your industry so you can ask questions and get advice from peers.
The only information displayed in your profile is your job title, so no one knows who you are, where you work or even where in the world you’re located.
The website explains, “We actively moderate the community to ensure the positive, constructive spirit of the community always shines through.”
Unsurprisingly, though, “questions” at Better Company easily turn into thinly masked complaints, like a registered nurse asking, “Why do some managers and Chiefs allow doctors to bully us nurses? Do they think doctors will do our jobs?”
Or a graphic designer asking, “Just curious about how many designers/creative professionals actually work a normal 40 hour work week or is unpaid overtime just normal?”
Or a teacher who asks, “I’ve been at the same school for 2 years. How come someone who’s been here six months get a raise? ? And I don’t ask for anything!”
2. Glassdoor
This site aggregates data from thousands of employees to rate companies, positions and industries.
Submit your review of your experience, from interview to company culture to management.
Your review even contributes to Glassdoor’s periodic round-ups of things like Best Places to Work and Highest Rated CEOs.
Whether you get hired or not, you can use Glassdoor to review some of the weirdest interview questions you get, like when Trader Joe’s asked candidates, “What would you do if you found a penguin in the freezer?”
3. Complaint App
Download this free app to lodge anonymous complaints about everything from a bad boss to a bad oyster at your local crab shack.
Here are some of my favorites:
One anonymous philosopher pondered, “Snails run faster than our salaries. Give a snail a whole morning and it can move a few inches. Give our careers decades, and the salary barely moves.”
A frustrated user said, “Applied for a job in January, interviewed in May, was told a decision would be made by mid-June. STILL F’N WAITING!!!”
Side note: Multiple exclamation points, or, my personal favorite, the interrobang — ?! — are essential to a good venting.
4. Who Pays
These crowdsourced lists share the inside scoop on who pays freelance writers and photographers, how much and on what terms.
The sites can help you support good publications and expose the bad ones, without developing a reputation for a being an online gossip.
Did you know you could make $600 writing a 500-word feature for the Economist? Compare that to $150 for a 1,000-word blog post for National Geographic!
And Salon.com might be a popular credit, but it pays just $0.05-$0.10 per word for features upwards of 1,000 to 2,000 words.
5. eBossWatch
Rate your boss — good or bad — on this site to give future employees a heads up.
Users can search the database for reviews of bosses and companies to see what others think of a potential employer.
About to apply for a job at Johnson and Johnson? You could first consider this bad review from an employee, simply titled “Worst boss ever!” — “He had his own personal issues and took it out on me.”
And, it ought to go without saying, but just in case: Take reviews, especially the bad, with a grain of salt.
Your Turn: Where do you vent about your workplace at the end of a long day?
Dana Sitar (@danasitar) is a staff writer at The Penny Hoarder. She’s written for Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, Writer’s Digest and more, attempting humor wherever it’s allowed (and sometimes where it’s not).
