[pmiller2]

You lost me at "anonymous." I treat every single one of those stupid surveys as if everyone in the whole company was watching me fill it out. I never leave free response comments, because I don't want to be identified by my words. Maybe it's paranoid, but it's worked for me so far. And, yes, if other people think the same as me, then it's surely biased the data a bit, as well.

[spery]

I'm quite the opposite. I always try to give the honest feedback hoping it would be read. If company tries to use anonymity to track down people who give negative feedback and try to mistreat them, I'd rather not work there anyway. So its a win/win for me.

[pmiller2]

Long periods of financial insecurity in the past have trained (beaten?) that impulse out of me. I'm glad you can still do it.

[DevKoala]

I am sorry. I empathize because I know that a great deal of my confidence as a software engineer came thanks to financial security; I don’t fear being fired so I will speak my mind. However, had I failed to achieve that, would I have stood for myself? Who stays silent because of this? I always feel it is my duty to listen to everybody in the room because of that reason.

[ornornor]

Any company I’ve worked at, anonymous feedback surveys were never anonymous.

The most egregious one was a startup that I worked for. There was a weekly all hands where anyone could ask anything either by raising their hand or by using a home made tool to ask questions. They would then get selected (we were 30 people, selection was not because we lacked time to answer questions) and the hardest questions would rarely get answered. People could also vote on which questions they wanted answered most. It was guaranteed to be anonymous but we were encouraged to sign our questions so that they could “ask clarifications.”

Questions that were not signed that were selected were always answered with “I wish I knew who asked that so I could answer them directly” from the cofounders.

But they didn’t really need that anyway. They knew exactly who asked what and who upvoted what because it was all in the database for the service.

I asked why we were not paying interns at all (it’s illegal and unfair) and signed my question. I was promptly shown the door and everyone was discouraged do good to ever use this tool to ask meaningful questions ever again.

So, yes, unfortunately the workplace is not a democracy. It’s a dictatorship in which you have no right to free speech. No one is interested in fixing anything because it puts their job or power in jeopardy. They know it sucks, but that’s why they pay you to bite your tongue and sit there 40h a week. But if you want to keep getting a salary regularly, stay quiet, do your own thing so that you meet the performance expectations, and suck it up or look for a new job while enjoying life outside work. But spoiler: your next job won’t be better, just different. Oh, and sont say anything bad on the exit form/interview: it won’t change anything about the workplace you’re never working at again, but it will bite you in the ass through references and gossip.

Really, it’s lose lose to try and provide “constructive criticism” about the process or idiotic things that are in your manager or superiors hands.

[meddlin]

"Anonymous" is a bit much to ask for this, yes. I'm really just asking for the company to--for once--lower its defenses so we can have a conversation. Air the frustrations without fear of immediate professional retaliation.

If a company, manager, exec, or leader can't exercise that kind of humility, then quite frankly they don't deserve the position.