How Venting to Colleagues Can Backfire

Grating coworkers, tone-deaf bosses, a ninth ask for revisions on a PowerPoint deck—as the workday annoyances pile up, it is only a matter of time before every worker hits a boiling point. And when they do, they often hit up a trusted colleague to vent to in a direct message on a platform like Slack or Teams.

"So often you're sitting in a meeting, you're hearing something and you're like, 'Am I crazy, or are they contradicting themselves? Did they change the strategy again? Can you believe they just said this thing?'" said one former employee at a consulting firm, who agreed to speak to Fast Company anonymously. Sounding off to coworkers in DMs feels like both an outlet and validation: "It's for your mental health, right?"

The problem: While this act feels like the equivalent of a private, hushed conversation in the hallway or sharing a drink at happy hour with a confidante, there's a risk in kvetching on your company's official corporate communications channels.

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