Rate: 4/5
Medium: Audiobook
Overview (Spoilers Abound):
Going into books blind as to the content can be an adventure. When this read showed up in my library queue, I honestly couldn’t remember even requesting it. Based off the title, I made the leap that it must be yet another management read and I wasn’t quite wrong, but this was in no way what I was expecting. I was hooked to say the least.
Careless People is alarming, thought-provoking, and dark. I honestly just wanted to give Wynn-Williams a hug throughout most of it. I felt drawn to her, recognizing a kindred spirit who tries to do right in every situation, even if it is against the current or the unpopular opinion. It is not easy to be that person in work settings and Wynn-Williams was put in situation after situation where she tried to be a moral compass, but was consistently overruled.
It was fascinating and concerning to read how Facebook evolved during her time there, especially considering how much she advocated to be hired in the first place. I read Wynn-Williams’ account with a skeptical eye, trying to weigh whether she was just a disgruntled employee. Her stories though rang sincere, and to me felt plausible, especially considering all the stories of the past couple of years.
Wynn-Williams accusations of sexual harassment and the Facebook Leadership/HR lack of action were shocking and incredibly sad if true. I have several acquaintances who work at Facebook in various capacities and I kept wondering of their own experiences.
The travel that Wynn-Williams was able to do sounds like a dream, though several of the key experiences were alarming and quite frankly scary. As she has children and went through her own medical scares, the travel takes on a quite different tone than before she had kids. I have a hard time imagining leaving my own kids, who were the same age as Wynn-Williams’ children at the end of the story for any significant amount of time. This year I’ve traveled four times for work and it was so hard to be apart.
After reading this book, I spent some time searching the recesses of the internet to see what anyone had said about her version of events at Facebook. I found another woman’s LinkedIn post discussing how she overlapped with Wynn-Willams at the DC office and she was in some of the same meetings and could confirm her experience of those meetings from the book.
While I thoroughly enjoyed Wynn-Williams alarming and dark insights into Facebook, I’m ready to venture back into the recesses of cozy fantasy again. The world and especially social media are not places I want to spend much time seeing the true nature of right now.
The Critiquing Chemist 