Over the holidays, my family and I were discussing something like this… one of my family members had an interesting hypothesis.
He suggested dissatisfaction is probably at about the same level that it always has been, but people on average are more accustomed to and capable of articulating their feelings than before.
"I hear that you're feeling that you're trapped in a 'BS job', and do you hear that I'm feeling that my boss is ADHD with NPD who is gaslighting me by appealing to how 'we're not just a business, we're a family'? Would I be better served by meditation, sauna, Wim Hof or a cold plunge for this?"
"He suggested dissatisfaction is probably at about the same level that it always has been, but people on average are more accustomed to and capable of articulating their feelings than before."
Come on, emotional intelligence wasn't born yesterday; articulating feelings wasn't born yesterday. Literal Mesopotamian tablets of laborers expressing their frustrations to their employers, debtors, etc exist. Nevermind, people literally died for our 5-day, 40-hour work week; they absolutely articulated that problem both to themselves, their co-workers, and their employers.
I read it in a different way than you. Now, we can express our feelings not just to family and friends, but to the whole planet as well as consuming theirs. What might have been just a local conversation now feels like the weight of the world.
From a family discussion about this, we wondered if it was because it is harder to disconnect from work. Not that long ago, with most jobs once you left your workplace, you couldn't really interact with work -- you certainly couldn't keep in contact while on holiday. Now many people basically never truly disconnect from work.
I think this is one piece of the puzzle absolutely. I also think companies try to compensate for this blurring of boundaries by offering so many wellness benefits - and perhaps it's asking employees to frequently turn inward and evaluate emotions too often (or in the wrong setting).
I find that when I'm focused on myself, I feel worse. When I'm focused on others, I feel better. I find that when I'm self-evaluating, I feel worse. When I'm assessing my next goal, I feel better.
As a people manager, I certainly do spend time building relationships, but in a 1:1, I never mine for "how are you doing?" information. I almost always focus on 1) making it clear what the goal is; 2) offering help in supporting achieving that goal (so they gain new skills).
This should be super obvious. Too many people who don't do what I want and also stop me from doing what I want. You'd have to be a Zen master or something to not be ticked off by that over time. OTOH, that's why it's called work and you get payed for it.
The main takeaway in this article, which I agree with, is distributed / remote work for all of its benefits also comes with occupational hazards which manifest as mental vs. physical problems so it's more difficult to understand, quantify, and do something about them.
This isn’t complicated. People want self determination. To live their lives as they see fit.
Work, inherently, requires people to give that up. If we had a utopian society where work was optional, how many would do their current jobs voluntarily? Almost nil.
What’s happening now, and is very very good, is people are realizing their power. They’re less afraid to demand more compensation, to unionize, or to quit. They’re setting an example for others. They’re using the internet to show the way. The pandemic opened the door a little bit, and now our foot is in the crack. The door is never closing.
The only way it closes is through authoritarianism/totalitarianism, which, as we know from history, is not sustainable (low-trust societies are inherently unstable).
I agree mostly with this observation, but would add to it - people are willing to work when they own their work. There are definitely a lot of jobs and likely entire industries that would disappear tomorrow if we stopped optimizing for money and focused on optimizing for humanity, but a lot of necessary work - farming, construction, distribution of goods, etc. - would still need to happen, and I honestly believe there are a number of folks who would be happy in those jobs if they owned their work.
In a job, you sell a huge chunk of your waking life for a discount to faceless owners and investors who care less about employee and customer happiness than they do about their own bottom lines. In a truly cooperative setting - one where the work and proceeds are as equally shared as possible among all participants - everyone would have greater control over their work and would have full ownership over it. Such companies would necessarily run smaller and leaner with a tighter customer focus, which I think would improve the experience for everyone.
I truly believe switching from corporate hierarchies to radical cooperatives would solve a LOT of societal issues.
I'm learning French. The word for "work" in French is travailler, which is similar to its Spanish counterpart, trabajar. Both words stem from the Latin word "tripalium" which translates to "torture" or "torture device."
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 160 ms ] threadHe suggested dissatisfaction is probably at about the same level that it always has been, but people on average are more accustomed to and capable of articulating their feelings than before.
Come on, emotional intelligence wasn't born yesterday; articulating feelings wasn't born yesterday. Literal Mesopotamian tablets of laborers expressing their frustrations to their employers, debtors, etc exist. Nevermind, people literally died for our 5-day, 40-hour work week; they absolutely articulated that problem both to themselves, their co-workers, and their employers.
Customers too.
https://qz.com/1364934/the-worlds-first-customer-complaint-i...
I find that when I'm focused on myself, I feel worse. When I'm focused on others, I feel better. I find that when I'm self-evaluating, I feel worse. When I'm assessing my next goal, I feel better.
As a people manager, I certainly do spend time building relationships, but in a 1:1, I never mine for "how are you doing?" information. I almost always focus on 1) making it clear what the goal is; 2) offering help in supporting achieving that goal (so they gain new skills).
So in theory you can still be paid, and not do something you hate
Think about all the startups that fail. People work really hard for two years, and then the whole thing fails with nothing to show for it.
In the grand scheme of things, no value was created, even though each day the people worked, value was created.
Work, inherently, requires people to give that up. If we had a utopian society where work was optional, how many would do their current jobs voluntarily? Almost nil.
What’s happening now, and is very very good, is people are realizing their power. They’re less afraid to demand more compensation, to unionize, or to quit. They’re setting an example for others. They’re using the internet to show the way. The pandemic opened the door a little bit, and now our foot is in the crack. The door is never closing.
In a job, you sell a huge chunk of your waking life for a discount to faceless owners and investors who care less about employee and customer happiness than they do about their own bottom lines. In a truly cooperative setting - one where the work and proceeds are as equally shared as possible among all participants - everyone would have greater control over their work and would have full ownership over it. Such companies would necessarily run smaller and leaner with a tighter customer focus, which I think would improve the experience for everyone.
I truly believe switching from corporate hierarchies to radical cooperatives would solve a LOT of societal issues.
So maybe what's old is new again?