Long back I used to be a boomer uncle on Twitter. Dunking on HR (including TA) to get the likes and the cheap thrills.

I stopped though. Not to virtue signal, not because HR jokes stopped bringing likes, not because I can’t re share HR jokes.

There is a selfish reason.

Imagine as a Hiring Manager if I was working on an open role with a TA and let’s say I posted about that role on Twitter, and the TA came to my profile and saw a joke on HR below the tweet about the role.

How will that person feel when they have to get on a call with me next?

If I ever become a founder in the future and want to hire experienced HR people and they come to my profile and see these low quality dumb HR jokes, how will they feel?If I was them, and had any self respect, I would definitely not join. Why would I?

I am selfish and I want only the smartest and most capable people to work with me.

I might have already pissed some of them off by posting dumb shit posts.Why alienate the rest of them by attacking their identity?

If you are a junior designer with 1 year experience and know that you have to build a relationship with your PM, and they will probably be writing your 360* review, what do you think the upside is for you by calling your PM useless on social media? Maybe you will get a few likes. The downside is that your PM might read your tweet, remember you and what you think of PMs, and never go out of the way to help you. Do they think they will endorse your promotion? Your relationship will be defined by what you think: that PMs are not needed and you could have done their job. We all think we are rational, beyond twitter, and we don’t get affected by twitter jokes. We are all signalling and also consuming signals. Be careful of what you signal.

The same applies to any other work relationship.

I think people see a few dumb identity jokes getting viral on Twitter, and in their desperate need to earn a few likes, they post the dumbest identity takes without thinking the long term repercussions on their career.