Every time a new client tells me, “We’re family,” I brace for overwork, blurred boundaries, and burnout disguised as camaraderie.
In 25 years of consulting on technology systems for organizations of all sizes, I’ve learned that the challenges I’m called to solve rarely end with code or infrastructure.
Technology is meant to simplify, optimize, and scale operations. But too often, it’s burdened by the very culture it’s supposed to support.
When I’m told, “We’re a family here,” it’s always delivered with a smile, as though it’s an undeniable truth everyone is proud of.
But in practice, I’ve come to see it as a red flag. It’s not that camaraderie is inherently bad; it’s that the “family” metaphor disguises deeper dysfunction.
It imposes expectations that bleed into every corner of an organization — demanding personal sacrifices that no system upgrade can address.
Where technology meets expectations
On one memorable project, I was brought in to lead the migration of a sprawling legacy system for a manufacturing company. Their team was talented, eager, and worked well under pressure.
But it became clear early on that they were working under a different kind of pressure than I’d anticipated. “We’re a family,” their CIO said in our kickoff meeting. “Everyone pitches in when things get tough.”
By the second week, I saw what that meant. Employees were answering emails at 11 p.m. and skipping PTO to ensure the project stayed on track.
These weren’t executives — they were junior developers, frontline support, and QA analysts. When I asked one of them how they managed, he shrugged and said, “We’re all in this together.”
Translation? “We’re all here to burn out in unison.”
On the surface, it might have looked like dedication. But what I saw was burnout waiting to happen. The project finished on time, but it left many employees disillusioned.
While the new system ran smoothly, the human toll was undeniable.
Blurred lines, broken systems
In tech consulting, it’s easy to think our work starts and ends with the system itself. But systems are only as effective as the people who use them.
The “family” mindset, in my experience, often undermines even the best technology by fostering inefficiency and unnecessary strain.
One of my clients, a business focused on retail logistics, was a perfect example of this. Their new inventory management platform should have been a game-changer, eliminating manual errors and streamlining processes.
But implementation stalled repeatedly because employees were hesitant to report issues. They didn’t want to be seen as “complainers,” especially when leadership framed the rollout as a shared effort that everyone needed to support “like family.”
By the time I stepped in to address the delays, the platform had become a point of frustration instead of a solution. Technology can’t fix a culture where employees feel compelled to overextend themselves.
And when personal boundaries are ignored, even the most sophisticated systems fail to deliver their full potential.
Success without sacrifice
Not every workplace falls into this trap. Some organizations strike a healthy balance, fostering collaboration without leaning on the “family” crutch.
One of my most successful projects was with a healthcare provider implementing a telemedicine platform. From the outset, the leadership team set clear expectations and boundaries.
They emphasized respect for employees’ time and made adjustments when workloads became overwhelming. When issues arose, team members didn’t hesitate to bring them forward. The project manager encouraged open discussions, ensuring every concern was addressed promptly.
This transparency allowed us to stay on track and avoid burnout. The result? The platform launched on schedule, with widespread adoption and minimal hiccups.
This team didn’t need to call themselves a family to work well together. They relied on professionalism and mutual respect — and it showed.
The cost of loyalty at any cost
The pressure to perform as part of the “family” also impacts decision-making at the leadership level. I’ve worked with executives who’ve delayed necessary upgrades or skipped essential training sessions because they didn’t want to burden their teams.
They believed that asking for more would disrupt the harmony they valued so highly. The irony, of course, is that avoiding short-term discomfort often creates long-term chaos.
I had one client who postponed critical cloud migration work for months, citing concerns over team morale. “We don’t want to push too hard right now,” the IT director told me.
Yet, their hesitation left the organization vulnerable to downtime and security risks. When the inevitable outage occurred, the cost of delaying the migration far outweighed the discomfort they’d been trying to avoid.
Technology isn’t a family, and that’s a good thing
The “family” narrative isn’t just misleading; it’s unnecessary. Technology succeeds when it serves the needs of an organization and its people — not when it relies on personal sacrifice to compensate for flawed processes.
As a technology consultant, my work is to ensure systems function reliably, securely, and efficiently. But that work becomes infinitely harder in environments where loyalty is leveraged over logic.
I’ve learned to navigate these dynamics with a mix of realism and humor. Sometimes, it’s a quiet acknowledgment: this isn’t my battle to fight. Other times, it’s speaking up when the stakes are too high to stay silent.
Either way, I know better than to let “family” talk cloud my judgment — or my scope of work.
The workplaces I admire most are those that value their people enough to let them be professionals, not stand-ins for a metaphorical family. These organizations invest in their teams without asking for unreasonable sacrifices.
They prioritize results over appearances. And they recognize that while technology can transform operations, it can’t solve the human costs of misplaced loyalty.
Let’s stop pretending the office is a Thanksgiving dinner. If I want awkward conversations over mashed potatoes, I’ll visit my actual family.
When we leave the family myth behind, we gain something better: workplaces where people — and technology — can thrive on their own terms.
