Meet Mr TikTok Time
The employee assessment of that employee who views work as a means to document his life on social media
Corporate America offers some fascinating wildlife that you seldom see in the world of entrepreneurship and results-oriented work. In the Meet Mr Series, we meet some of these corporate creatures and their challenges for talent management. One of these costly corporate creatures is Mr TikTok Time. Mr TikTok Time doesn't care about your company or working to obtain results for your company. Mr TikTok Time cares only about how his position in your company is worthy of telling everyone he knows so that he can boast about how great his job is, even if he literally does nothing that gets results for the company.
But first, a fictional story. Because I'm creating a fictional stories as examples in this series, I'll call Mr TikTok Time in my story Tommy. As a reminder, our fictional company is ABCZ Corporation.
Story
"Let me share with all of you a day in the life of a product manager at ABCZ Corporation," Tommy started his video with a big smile on his face as he walked through the giant glass doors of ABCZ Corporation. "First, I say hello to the security guard at the front desk - hey George!"
"I'm Chris," the security guard replied.
"Oh hey Chris, I'll just edit that part out," Tommy laughed. "Then I walk over to the elevators and press the giant button to be taken to where my office is. Of course, I'll first get an early morning mimosa." The elevator doors opened and Tommy walked in with two other people joining him. "As you can see our elevator is very spacious and the ride is extremely smooth. Probably most of you have bump elevator rides - I had one at my last company and it was the worst!"
"Excuse me," one of the other elevator passengers interrupted. "Can you keep your voice down, I'm trying to listen to this voice note my wife sent?"
"Oh, I'm sorry but I'm recording a video for my TikTok," Tommy started. "It's a video about the day in the life of a product manager at ABCZ Corporation. You should follow me, my account is [REMOVED]. I think you'll find that my ..."
"Again, could you please keep your voice down. I'm trying to listen to this voice note - I'm not interested in anything on TikTok. Thanks."
"Oh my god, you're not on TikTok?" Tommy asked surprised.
"No."
"You need to join! It's so amazing," Tommy exclaimed. "I have the best account and you'll absolutely love my content!"
"Do you work for TikTok?"
"No, I'm the product manager at ABCZ Corporation." The elevator door opened and the man rolled his eyes at Tommy and got off the elevator. The elevator continued a few more floors, then the door opened and Tommy started, "And we're here! Yay!" He walked in the foyer and circled his camera around the room saying, "Look how spacious our floor is!" As he walked into the breakroom he continued, "This is where I have to start my day with a mimosa. You would not believe the amount of work I get done on a daily basis and it's so good to start on the right path!"
"Tommy!" a voice screamed.
"Oh my god you guys, it's Paul from accounting!"
"Hey TikTokers! Tommy and I are about to spend a few hours playing our daily ping pong tournament. I had the best of 25 yesterday, but Tommy assures that he'll get me today."
"Paul's right you guys," Tommy agreed. "We love to spend the first few hours in the morning play ping pong. We've gotten really good and we think that we can enter a tournament and making make some money. It's a side hustle really, kind of like this! I'll catch you guys in a bit." Tommy turned off his camera and put his phone in his pocket. As he turned to Paul, he exclaimed, "Let's go!" Tommy and Paul played ping pong for the next few hours until the finance director interrupted Paul and asked him if he had completed the slides for the meeting with the chief financial officer later in day. Paul had forgotten, so he quickly left.
"Hey guys, I'm back," Tommy said turning on his camera again. "I just played a few hours of ping pong with Paul and I am so worn out! Let me show you guys our rooftop view because I need to nap until lunch." Tommy walked up a spiral staircase in the middle of the office and when he arrived on the top floor, he opened a large glass door where the wind blew into his face immediately. "Woah guys, it's a windy day, but I love the breeze because I am sweating. Let me grab a chair right here and lay down. I'll see you guys in a few!" Tommy turned off his camera and put his phone in his pocket then slept for a few hours until lunch time arrived.
"Lunch has arrived," a loud voice in a speaker sounded.
Tommy got up and pulled out his phone, enabling his camera as quickly as he could. "Lunch is here guys! Our company caters lunches daily and today we ordered from the famous downtown restaurant Wasting-Your-Investors-Money, who I have to say has the BEST sushi I've ever had in my life. I know it's expensive, but it so good guys." Tommy showed the camera him placing sushi on his plate. "The thing is that we work so hard here and the company found that by ordering from the best restaurants in the area, we work even harder. I'm so exhausted from work, that I needed a nap already. Luckily, that breeze felt so amazing so I slept like a baby!"
"Eeeeeeeeeeee! Tommy!" a loud voice screamed.
"Oh my god you guys, it's Darren!" Tommy pointed his camera at Darren and walked toward him. "This guy is the best. He's been creating a new product in Islamabad and just got back today from the looks of it. What's up Darren?"
"Our trip was great - if you know what I mean," Darren replied. "We spent weeks exploring the city and tasting new cuisines - it was amazing. I have a meetings with the executives later to tell them I just didn't have that much time to work on the product, so we can create it next year."
"Oh my god Darren, that's a lot you had to do," Tommy agreed. "I know what you mean though, I just finished a nap because I'm so exhausted from work already, though this sushi is going to hit the spot!"
"Yeah, if this company didn't cater our lunches, I'd be out of here," Darren whispered. "I'm so tired of these investors asking us when we're going to finally finish our product idea. Like guys, I just was in Islamabad seeing the city. Relax." Darren then nudged Tommy, "Oh and I got to catch up on all your TikToks too. I didn't realize that you had 100 hours of TikToks, but I got to watch all of them. Your life is so great!"
"I know!" Tommy agreed. They both continued their but Tommy started to feel a little sick, so he asked his director if he could take the rest of his afternoon off without using PTO since he didn't feel great.
"Sure," his director replied then added, "Plus we have unlimited PTO anyway so you can comp it however you'd like."
Research Wasn’t Necessary
The above fictional story was based on a mixture of five different actual social media posts (I added and eliminated some details so that no one could track the original source since these employees were all compromising their company's security). While unfortunate, what you read in the above story is similar to what you'll actually find on social media.
As a quick security point here that talent management should consider: the ease of which I can find people like this applies to hackers as well. If I can find social media accounts that are compromising their employers, so can a hacker. Employers should consider that there are major consequences for allowing employees to share details about their company. While there may be contexts in which this can assist with marketing, companies should equally be aware of the drawbacks.
Costs
Mr TikTok Time views work as a means to show how cool his life is to his audience. He desires celebrity status, not results for his company. If you were wondering what Mr TikTok Time does outside of his job title, the answer is nothing. But according to him, he's so busy. His busy status doesn't involve getting results, it involves attention from his audience. The first cost of Mr TikTok Time to talent management is that you've hired a non-existent employee when it comes to work.
The second cost to Mr TikTok Time is that he makes other workers pay. Someone is doing the work while he is doing nothing. What's humorous in my view of Mr TikTok Time is that there's a 100% correlation between the Mr TikTok Times of companies and the people who believe that AI will do all our work for us in the future. It makes perfect sense when I hear people say this because they aren't doing any work anyway. They don't even understand what work is. I agree that AI will do this because it’s nothing and anyone (including AI) can do nothing extremely well.
Unfortunately, these aren't the only problems with Mr TikTok Time for talent management. He's unintentionally engaging in massive security compromises. One of my professors once told our class how he had gained access to a very high level company without being an employee there. The underlying strategy was very simple - he followed people on social media who worked there. If you read the story again from a security perspective, you'll notice some things about Mr TikTok Time and ABCZ Corporation when it comes to security. What you have to consider is that a hacker would be doing the same thing, plus in the case of Mr TikTok Time, there's actual video to assist the hacker. You can do the same with any social media post from an employee: view it from a security lens. The employees are exposing their company to possible security compromises.
(If you’re a customer of these companies, run don’t walk as a severe hack could compromise you.)
The final cost is that none of us know how social media use will end when it involves other people. People have grown angry at how a social media influencer can portray others without their consent. If a person uses social media in a way that shows others and those others did not approve of them appearing on that person's social media, there could be legal consequences. If the influencer makes money, then the legal consequences in the future could be costly.
None of us have a right to show other people on our social media without their consent. Mr TikTok Time views everyone as a tool for popularity and he overlooks how others may dislike this. He's also unaware that there may be legal consequences in the future. Talent management should be aware that their company may be legally liable for allowing Mr TikTok Time’s action. A company that allows his behavior is giving their approval even if it’s not overtly stated, since they aren’t stopping this. How a court views this in the future could carry significant consequences.
Always remember, laws change. As behavior spirals out of control (like we see with social media), social attitudes toward that behavior grow hostile. How courts view social media influencers in the future may not be positive.
Mr TikTok Time should be fired immediately. If you don’t fire him fast enough, then you may face significant legal problems in the future.
The Meet Mr Series
For more in the Meet Mr Series of posts, check out Executive Decisions’ regular Series page. Some highlighted posts from this series:
All images are either sourced from Pixabay or created unless explicity stated. All written content and created images are copyright, all rights reserved. None of the content may be shared with any artificial intelligence.