We all probably wonder what our coworkers really think about us from time to time. I mean, it's only human to be curious about how well (or not well) we're pulling off our ✨professional personas.✨ Well, 25-year-old Dax recently went viral on TikTok for sharing their story about how they got an uncensored peek at what their coworkers were saying about them on the messaging app Slack.
In a video that's been viewed over a million times, she kicks things off with a pro tip. "If you work for a moderately sized company, like midsize to large-sized company, and you use Slack, go ahead and search your name on Slack because you will be surprised at the channels that are public, that are talking about you, that you can read."
Then Dax tells her story, saying, "I searched my name on Slack once at a company that I was working for. It was a remote company, and I had spoken at an all-hands meeting, and after I just got the compulsion to search my name."
And what they found is pretty shocking. Like, stuff that really should not have been in public channels. "I saw notes from when I was interviewing, I saw a group chat that was talking about me. In that group chat, I became a running joke, apparently. Like, I was named dropped many, many times in that same group chat. So it may be valuable to look that up."
And in the comments, people are reacting to Dax's harrowing tale and coping with the fact that a new fear has just been unlocked.
Some commenters also shared what they found when they searched in their company's Slack channels and in other company apps.
Dax told BuzzFeed that the group chat incident took place at a previous job, back in 2021. "We were entirely remote, so all of our communication was done over Slack. It was the sort of workplace where you rarely communicated with anyone outside of your immediate circle."
So Dax was pretty shocked to stumble across the group chat, which consisted of a manager and their direct reports. "This was a group chat set up specifically for work, and not just a group chat between friends. They seemed to have a pretty casual rapport, though, and seemed blissfully unaware that someone might be watching. I had also never met or interacted with a single person on this chat."
But instead of closing the tab to go have a good cry, like I would have done, Dax investigated. "Using the chat, I was able to come up with a rough timeline. While I spoke at an all-hands meeting, they wrote to each other about my appearance, what I did for fun, and what they thought I was like as a person. They joked that I 'definitely party' and commented on my mullet (which has sadly been retired)."
"I thought after the all-hands had passed, they’d be done talking about me, but my name came up several more times over the following months. I seemed to become a running joke. They’d joke about bringing me onto their team or comment whenever I’d appear in another call, even if I didn’t speak. It never moved past light ribbing so I didn’t get HR involved, but it was nice to be a main character for a bit."
Dax says that the group chat incident has definitely made them think twice about what they write on Slack, email, and other work channels. "I never confronted them, because I never got a chance to meet them. I also left the workplace a few months later for unrelated reasons. It was totally a learning experience though, and since then I’ve been a lot more careful about what I say on company software. I wasn’t offended, just amused at the boldness of it all."
She also says she's heard suggestions from others on even more interesting things to search for at work. "Someone brought up the suggestion of searching your name in SharePoint or any other file sharing service your company might use. One person found a list of every single person’s salary at their company. Another person recommended searching your CEO or any other executive at the company, followed by 'disagree,' 'hate,' or any expletives. It might lead to finding something a little spicy."
