In the late 1990s I was working at a large telecommunications company. Several employees would use our staff meetings, hallways and general conversations as bitch sessions.
It got to the point where I needed to identify good complaining from bad complaining. I finally decided that it is OK to point out a problem, but what you do immediately thereafter is more important.
I created this Problem Identification Definitions as a tool to help me and others to determine what the person was who was pointing out a problem. I posted this quotation on my home page on our company's intranet web site.
My supervisor ordered me to take it down because it offended some people.
Fast forward to twenty years later, April, 2019. I am now a manager. I have actually met people who do not point out any problems. Whether they realize there are problems around them I do not know. They seem like they just don't care.
See also 3-Step Problem Resolution and my Favorite Quotations.