The Corporate Happiness Treadmill and the Case for Doing Less
0xff.nu
0xff.nu
He didn't quit, but he kinda broke and took some long term time off ( forget the exact legal framework ). So now the group as a whole has to recreate his processes that, while documented, did not account for constantly neglected changes imposed by other incoming timebombs ( all known and reported to management, mind ). So I spent hours in meeting yesterday trying to explain why things are thus to a new guy ( who appropriately was horrified -- and a little angry ) and his boss ( also new, just to spice things up ).
As it turns out, the guy was doing a lot, but was not good at making others notice that lack of him may make things difficult. Who knew? Well, I did. Did it help? No.
Bottom line. Be your best advocate. Don't kill yourself. None of this is real and, unless you really work as first responder, no one is going to die.
And I am saying this as a good corporate drone #9739843 not that many years ago.
I saw a situation just like the one you mention recently: guy burned out, broken inside, working way too much, but not being noticed at all.
Execs were basically claiming he didn't do a certain long-term task and that "nothing was delivered".
The problem is, there was a public Slack group for visibility with evidence of the task, artifacts of the task, plus relentless requests by a certain person that he deletes the data in there. This person is the same one who went around claiming he didn't deliver anything, a narrative that was bought by execs.
After presenting the evidence and being shown the artifacts in a meeting, no exec accepted reality, no exec walked back, and just shrugged off with "it's too hard for you to understand".
Half of this business is not really doing much work, and a big chunk of those are psychopaths that depend on throwing people under the bus to survive.
Earlier in my career, I was at a sporting event and realized that tens of thousands of people all around me had a device in their pocket that I helped make, that my team made. Seeing it made it real.
Never underestimate your potential impact. Each of us makes decisions that change the world, that write a new future, every single day. Make the best of those opportunities.
This is silly. 90% of corporate work employing millions of ppl is not 'meaningful work'
Plenty of people find meaning in work. They enjoy it and would do it even if they won the lottery. If that's you, then that's great.
But that will never be the cade for me. I serve organizations with missions I am proud to support. I work with reasonably smart, dedicated people. I am paid a decent amount. The work is sometimes challenging and fun. I am a consultant, so I can set my own hours.
But on any given day, I would rather do anything other than work. Go for a walk. Watch TV. Read a book. See friends.
And that's okay.
Even then though, most of that work is objectively not meaningful.
And if there really isn't, get out.
How is it "bad" for you? Make an argument that doesn’t simply devolve into vacuous platitudes and protestant work ethic nonsense.
If people have found meaning while pushing bits around, I'd love to hear about it. I think working to improve other's lives directly (healthcare, charity work, community involvement, etc.) can provide the most meaning to people.
More than that, phoning it in is bad for your character. That assumes you share a certain moral framework or outlook, though. If you're a moral nihilist, then it's really hard to make such an argument make sense to you. But let me at least try to make it make sense.
I want to be part of something, part of a team, not just a cog in a machine. I want relationships, not just for all of life to be transactional. But, see, wherever I go, I take me. The "me" that I take to my marriage or to hanging out with my buddies is the same "me" that goes to work. When I make one part of my life purely transactional, it's hard to keep that from leaking out into other areas that definitely should not be transactional.
Now, you're going to say that companies take advantage of that, and you'll be right. They do. They try to sell you on "we're all a big team!" and such. But the fact is that some places do actually try to live that out, and some places purely use it to try to extract the maximum effort from suckers. And the second group tends to be corrosive to your character, too, even if you don't phone it in, partly because such places tend to have lots of people who are phoning it in, but more because the company is phoning it in in how they relate to you. But the answer is not to phone it in in return. The answer is to start looking for somewhere better.
To simplify:
1. Reinforced behaviors become stronger, while others get weaker. Ultimately, I'm a behaviorist (ACT).
2. Work is a big part of your waking life.
3. If you spend that much of your life going through the motions, you're strengthening behaviors that may not be constructive.
4. When your situation changes, and you need those more constructive skills and behaviors, you may find them much more difficult to access.
That's a very functional lens. However, there's a deeper lens you can apply. I believe people feel most fulfilled when they're routinely acting in alignment with their core values (what they truly care about).
Phoning it in at work may actually be "workable" from an ACT standpoint if your personal life lights up all your values, and you are feeling completely fulfilled by friends, family, hobbies, etc.
However, I would venture that most people also want to feel that their work is giving them some feeling of intrinsic satisfaction, not just a paycheck. You can call it Purpose, Mission, Self-Efficacy, whatever you want. In my framing, people don't want to live in conflict with their values 8 hours/day.
But there's an even more basic argument that I would make: Life is incredibly short. You are hurtling toward death. If you're phoning it in, you're giving away your most precious resource for a small amount of financial security (and you still might get fired). You may find that when you hit 45 (or 65) you look back and weep for the decades you poured into something that you didn't care about, or even held in contempt.
You have to do what's right for you, but it's never too late. As someone who has admittedly phoned it in previously, I'm violently on the other side now. Regardless of how you feel about your job, I strongly recommend finding a way to give a shit, or getting out by any means necessary.
It's only wasted if there were better (realistic) options. For many people, they don't.
If your mortgage payment and overall living expenses are so high that you can only get by with a high paying job then you've shackled yourself to your org and should fear being fired
If you live well below your means you'll have a large savings buffer and won't care so much
> The philosopher Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king. Said Aristippus, "If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils."
> Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king."
Average home price in the US is 400k and mortgage rates are over 7%.
This is a meaningless statistic with zero nuance. Average is also the wrong thing to look at
Most of the issue preference. There are foreclosed homes that are <$100k, but they are in areas people don't want to live, or can't due to lack of job options.
If you start phoning it in, don't be surprised if you start becoming isolated. And that can definitely be bad for you in the long term.
Some people are okay with working 50+ hours a week and that's fine, but you shouldn't expect it from anybody.
I refuse to do more than 10% of the time written on my contract on a regular basis. There is ample evidence that doing more is counter-productive anyway.
Forcing your employee to be overworked is form of short-sightedness. Sure, you get 60 hours of work from your employee for a few weeks, but soon their performance will diminish, leading to them needing to more time to catch up.
For the potential employees reading this ask yourselves: what is more efficient, an employee working 40 h at 90% mental capacity or an employee working 60 h at 50 % mental capacity ? (feel free to ask ChatGPT if you cannot do the math).
I believe part of the message is correct though. Remember that you are an employee doing a job, and nothing more, to any corporation.
What you do under that contract is up to you.
The asynchronous part is a major distinction, I have met many companies who claim to be “remote”, but when you look closer, they are basically not. One company wanted to have a certain hours a day with cameras on.. another wanted to lock you in your house during work hours (yes, you can’t do your job say in the library), some other companies say remote within xyz country (or an indirect way by having a specific time zone), list goes on.
I would also add to that sentence: AND objective based, so whatever approach you do as long as you deliver it won’t matter.
I’m a software engineer so the above and beyond tasks involve trying new things out that I want to do for personal fulfillment, experience and learning. I would recommend it always being for those reasons. Don’t worry about or believe the performance goals
You can get thrown money and accolades by simply being visible, and you can synthesize visibility by helping other people even at the expense of your own tasks
I’m fulfilled by my work, I like getting paid to do things I would do anyway, but I don’t tell people about my occupation, I don’t tell people what I do for capitalism only what I do for fun. Yes, even though I’m fulfilled by the work.
This is not only offensive, but dehumanizing, reductive, and the co-opting of trauma in a hyperbolic way.
No one reading this is a fucking slave to their company. They may very well be in a third world country or a repressive regime; but, let’s be honest: those folks are not the intended audience here.
This is more of the, “quiet quitting trope,” rephrased in an objectively horrendous way.
edit: To be clear, when your relationship with work is good and your employer is largely benevolent, it can be fine.
When things go sideways and you're forced to do things that you disagree with (morally/ethically) or risk deportation, it is no longer OK.
Are you? You are most likely not a slave to that specific company, but you are definitely slave to the system, you can’t leave your current job without securing another, or in few months you will be literally homeless, and if you have a family, they will leave you too aka your life is over. Even if you have your own business, you are slave to the investors or the ones pay your contracts. Go a little higher in this “food chain” and you are slave to banks, get debanked or sanctioned, and no matter what, most likely you will end up homeless. Hell, even having low credit score “real life good boy score” is enough to prevent from accessing many basic needs from buying/renting houses to new jobs or others.
You are truly free if you are not afraid to lose your basic human needs (shelter, food, security, etc.) if you stop working either voluntarily or lose your job.
What if the economy gets so bad you have to work 16 hours a day just to afford food? What if you can't afford to have kids? Pets? What if your apartment is 150 square feet?
After a certain point a free person under capitalism has less than certain historical slaves, and has a worse life.
if your day isn’t at your discretion you are a slave in that older system, the popularity and normalization of that in our culture doesn’t change this. chattel slavery occurring in your country’s history doesn’t change this. there are many people at all socioeconomic brackets that have addressed it for themselves, based on the starkness of the observation.
It has been “basecamp” for a long time. Also they had a pretty big blowup where 1/3 of their employees took a walkout offer.
David went on stage last year and told people he would fire an employee who used their commit signoff process incorrectly. A process entirely designed around reducing CI costs by putting burden on the individual through increased process.
Which is to say that even companies that make a brand out of how well they treat their employees are still companies at the end of the day, and sometimes marketing and PR doesn't align with reality.
this is the silicon valley forum :(
After letting me vent he took out his phone and showed me pictures of tarps and buckets collecting rain water from the holes in the ceiling the company is too cheap to fix. These are safety issues that literally could hurt someone just doing their job.
It’s helpful to remind ourselves every once in a while that we are a privileged few right now and in the grand scheme of history and there are many who have or had it way way worse. It doesn’t mean we’re not miserable, stuck in our own stress or inequality doesn’t exist. It’s important to understand what makes you fulfilled in life but also getting a reality check every once in a while is helpful too.
Yes - there is a lot of variation in what 'obligation' means - and there are definitely questions about the nature of power in society and how surpluses are distributed, but at the end of the day, beyond very low paying work / unskilled labour, the system is fair by and large, to the extent that reality allows for that.
It's also understandable that people have a hard time finding their place in this system. Sometimes companies demand too much. Sometimes rewards are not commensurate. Sometimes we care too much. Sometimes we are compelled to care (medical services) which takes it's toll.
Some people have a natural affinity for a job, task or team, some want the burden of responsibility. Paradoxically, some don't stress about it.
And no system is ever perfect, not even close, and it will always be thus.
Let this sink in: "The Zen Buddhist way of "being" is an active, non-dual state of presence where ordinary actions—such as sitting, walking, eating, or working—are experienced directly without the barrier of ego, judgment, or conceptual overthinking". Powerful stuff.
About the 'systemic issues' - that's why you stay politically aware, and vote. That's your other 'job'.
The implication is that someone else should have to give you money for some kind of performative activity.
That's not how it works, it's a misunderstanding of the 'civil contract'.
If we wanted to Socialize All The Means of Everything, we could definitely have guaranteed work for everyone - it would be extremely inefficient - and you would almost never get to do the work you aspire to do.
You'd have to do the work the inefficient system required you to do.
But really nobody wants that, or almost nobody. Most people prefer some kind of economic dynamism that balances those things.
Being laid off is a bummer, and it 'feels unfair', and those chosen for furlough may not hav been chosen fairly, bit layoffs are not inherently unfair.
Probably in most US states, there could be a few inches more and better social systems to support people, but in some places, it's debatable if those systems are helpful.
In the Global South, this is a big problem.
That is your misunderstanding of the civil contract, not a 'definition of fairness'.
If you want the civic employment system to be 'fair' in the way you want to define it, then yes, 'socialism' is the way.
And socialism (I mean real socialism, not like 'Sweden') is always more unfair on the aggregate than otherwise. Possibly stable but very unfair.
This point is doing a lot of heavy lifting without evidence. Perhaps, if you are a white middle class European or North American it could be argued to be somewhat fair. "The system" as a whole is grossly unfair if you are born elsewhere, or into a poorer or marginalised family. That's without going into the gender and race pay gaps, the lack of employee protections, rising cost of living etc. etc. that even affect those luckier groups.
Asians are 5x over represented at the top institutions.
They are people of colour, and often immigrants.
Rates of crime, incarceration, LSAT scores, credit scores, educational outcomes, likelihood to vote - every data set you can get your hands on shows that some minority groups completely superced the 'average' - even as some other groups more poorly and obviously discrimination plays a role.
The data discredits the notion of 'arbitrary hardship'.
It's also unfair to suggest the system is 'grossly unfair' especially when those are the very people coming here literally because it is more fair.
They come because they actually are treated more or less fairly.
Choices that people make, especially to uproot their families, is an overwhelmingly more potent fact than almost anything.
I think that there are a lot of things that could be improved but by and large, those immigrants themselves have ironically a more positive view of the system than do educated progressives in North America, who are the most cynical bunch.
The system advantages wealthy people, full stop. White people tend to be more wealthy on average, and white men tend to be more wealthy than white women, but let's not confuse things. Wealth is really the biggest dividing line here
For instance, given the choice, would you be have 10 million dollars and be a nonwhite woman, or be an average-wealth white man or even above average wealth white man?
Wealth changes the equation more than other factors
But maybe I'm wrong, I am after all, a pretty thoroughly average white guy