Image by Afroswede via FlickrPeople are getting increasingly angry about the places that they work, and social networking, blogging, and even Facebook gives a place for people to vent. Two web sites have tried to capture that angry worker meme by giving folks an additional, but anonymous place to vent, and do it responsibly along the way.

Glassdoor has been a site that I have written about in the past because it provides a saner way of looking at a company. Overall, the site is respectable, and the information is of good quality, written by insiders for people about to join the company. Glassdoor has flown under just about everyone’s radar, which makes it all the more interesting a place to find information about a company, and what it is really like to work there. It is not ad infested, and many of the comments are a genuine effort at working out what it really is like to work at a company. This does not mean that the occasional vent, angry employee or ex employee does not stop off and pay a visit to the site and try to carpet bomb the companies review.

Job Vent is another old standby in internet age, and provides a Love my Job or Hate my Job viewpoint. It is also written by insiders for people to look at, you can browse by company, or just make your own review. They do their best to keep it anonymous, which is good. The love hate columns are interesting, you get a real idea that the core issues boil down to pay, respect, and managers. With managers being the number one reason why people have a tendency to flee a company.

The last site in the list is Job Schmob. This one web site is a great place to figure out why people need to vent, and usually focuses on managers and employee relations. The contrast here in relationship to the other sites is that people can forward e-mail that is very funny. This is almost along the lines of the office humor and forwarding of jokes that will get a person fired. The Job Schmob site is more about ranting about work in particular, and is also anonymous when it comes down to someone posting. This is also an interesting place to go visit before you decide to take a job. Many company names are mentioned, but they tend to stay away from people names, which also keep them out of trouble.

If you are a business management person, or a management consultant, you might want to run the company through all of these sites to get a biased but interesting view on the issues that the company is dealing with. If you are a job seeker, these sites also will help you decide if the place is a nice place to work, or if you are dealing with managers from hell right and left. While all of these sites are biased in favor of the self-reporting, or those with an axe to grind, these are an interesting look deep inside the company.

Tags: Glassdoor, job vent, job schmob, angry, workers, worker, manager, management, consulting, job seeker