That anecdote at the beginning brought to mind a personal event recently that I keep meaning to write a proper blog about.
A friend of mine, who is much younger than I am and to whom I've acted as something of a mentor for many years, has her first proper job in a long time. It's a blue-collar job for an understaffed place, and she's been working her ass off to keep things moving along smoothly. And she likes that! She likes holding things together, overcoming the challenges that workplace puts on her, being the one standing between them and the whole place falling apart. She likes doing a good job, and finds personal value in it.
She asked me whether or not that was okay.
Because, she reasoned, the harder she worked, the more her employers would just use that as an excuse not to hire the people they need. Every time she plugs a leak, she's removing pressure from the owners to fix it. Her hard work, she reasoned, isn't rewarded, it's exploited, and it paves the way for further exploitation of both my friend and her coworkers.
That's horrifying! It's way beyond alienation from your product, it's punishment for pursuing virtue and excellence.
Work is a good thing! It's a natural part of who we are, it can be a massive source of self-worth and self-esteem, it's a core defining part of human life to the point that a lot of our very names come from the labor of our ancestors. For me, it proved to be the cure to many of my mental health ills almost all by itself. Working hard at a job I liked turned my entire life around piece by piece, and not working for a bit afterward turned out to be poison to my well-being. I was so stressed about my current work I couldn't sleep last night, and it's still better than I felt not working, because work is that important to my stability and self-esteem.
I ended up telling my friend that yeah, she should feel okay about it and try to better herself, because she can take every way she grows with her when she leaves. But it's hard to argue that she's wrong about the adversarial calculus, and I get why people check out. It's a painful thing to see.
When we feel bad in our jobs, we tend to put blame on coworkers, managers, or the organization's structure. But often the situation is not as bad as we think, we just feel bad and want to find a cause.
As long as we feel good on the other hand, we tend to think, where's the catch?
So indeed as long as she likes the job, she just should keep doing it and get personal growth out of it.
I would be interested in reading mentioned personal blog.
A friend of mine, who is much younger than I am and to whom I've acted as something of a mentor for many years, has her first proper job in a long time. It's a blue-collar job for an understaffed place, and she's been working her ass off to keep things moving along smoothly. And she likes that! She likes holding things together, overcoming the challenges that workplace puts on her, being the one standing between them and the whole place falling apart. She likes doing a good job, and finds personal value in it.
She asked me whether or not that was okay.
Because, she reasoned, the harder she worked, the more her employers would just use that as an excuse not to hire the people they need. Every time she plugs a leak, she's removing pressure from the owners to fix it. Her hard work, she reasoned, isn't rewarded, it's exploited, and it paves the way for further exploitation of both my friend and her coworkers.
That's horrifying! It's way beyond alienation from your product, it's punishment for pursuing virtue and excellence.
Work is a good thing! It's a natural part of who we are, it can be a massive source of self-worth and self-esteem, it's a core defining part of human life to the point that a lot of our very names come from the labor of our ancestors. For me, it proved to be the cure to many of my mental health ills almost all by itself. Working hard at a job I liked turned my entire life around piece by piece, and not working for a bit afterward turned out to be poison to my well-being. I was so stressed about my current work I couldn't sleep last night, and it's still better than I felt not working, because work is that important to my stability and self-esteem.
I ended up telling my friend that yeah, she should feel okay about it and try to better herself, because she can take every way she grows with her when she leaves. But it's hard to argue that she's wrong about the adversarial calculus, and I get why people check out. It's a painful thing to see.