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The Age of the Crisis of Work

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Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#111

Post by SL61 »

gdulli wrote: post #85
adamwong246 wrote: post #72

A lot of people are realizing it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you are great or terrible at your job, because you might get fired or laid-off either way. You can spend you whole life squirreling away your retirement, only to watch those savings evaporate at the next "financial crisis". We're told the system is meritocracy but it never seems to pan out that way.

I really this attitude is too dire. Effort is not always rewarded quickly or transactionally. But over the long run, it does make a difference. Even if there's more bullshit and frustration than there should be along the way.

The consequential factor isn't whether it's true, but the fact that a lot of people believe it. It's an attitude I hear from most of my peers, in and out of tech. What happens when a lot of the people who keep society running half-ass their jobs because they believe effort won't be rewarded?

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#112

Post by musicale »

adamwong246 wrote: post #72

A lot of people are realizing it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you are great or terrible at your job, because you might get fired or laid-off either way. You can spend you whole life squirreling away your retirement, only to watch those savings evaporate at the next "financial crisis". We're told the system is meritocracy but it never seems to pan out that way.

Meritocracy was originally a dystopian term, coined in the book "Rise of the Meritocracy" which:

"describes a dystopian society in a future United Kingdom in which intelligence and merit have become the central tenet of society, replacing previous divisions of social class and creating a society stratified between a merited power-holding elite and a disenfranchised underclass of the less merited."[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#113

Post by faeriechangling »

gdulli wrote: post #95
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting in effort, especially when it's perceived that the effort goes unrewarded, is stressful. If it's unpredictable how and when I'll be rewarded and it's predictable that I'll be stressed from effort, the calculus is to not be effortful for my own mental health. One might put effort into learning how to do their job better but I would argue that it's folly to put effort into doing everything one's employer tells…

But you have control over your perception. If you tell yourself only futility is possible, yes you'll experience futility. Some amount of stress is something we need to be able to deal with, not avoid altogether. It's not cyanide. There are workplaces toxic enough to be worth leaving, but not giving immediate rewards for doing more than the bare minimum isn't toxicity. At a certain point, if you need a salary and ben…

>But you have control over your perception.

Only if you are clinically insane. Otherwise ones perception is influenced by the reality of the world around you.

Mental health is on the decline as more and more people go to mental health specialists to help them change their perceptions, yet their lives get worse, and their mental health declines, because they live in more and more adverse circumstances. The parenting movement to make children successful by raising their self-esteem similarly failed. The idea that if you changed your Childs self-perception that they would be wonderfully successful in the future did not work.

If a situation is futile, and you tell yourself it is not so, you will only injure yourself in wasted effort and quiet desperation and end up greatly embarrassed. Changing your perception in an attempt to cheer yourself up will only result in your abuse and exploitation, and a later harrowing realisation you want to deny that you played the fool. What "quiet quitters" do is direct their optimism is a more realistic and grounded direction, the optimism they can maintain the same salary with less effort, which improves their quality of life much more than just changing their perception and waiting for the universe to deliver a fat paycheque and a big promotion.

If you have a good opportunity for advancement and extra pay if you work hard, by all means work hard, but many people are not in such a position.

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#114

Post by Thorrez »

sledgehammers wrote: post #63
Thorrez wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoy my job. I enjoy getting stuff done.

Good for you. How about the people you love? How about the rest of the humanity?

Honestly I kind of regret my comment. It was kind of flippant and bragging, and didn't really touch on what I think are the important points.

As a Catholic, I believe in the dignity of work.[1] We should attempt to do the best jobs we can in our work. I'm not saying we should work super long hours, but we should find out how many hours are expected for the role, and do the best job we can during those hours. If our boss gives us more work than we can do in those hours, we should be up front and say "Hey, I'm working as hard as I can during these x hours, and you're giving me more work than fits into the hours." If difficulties in our personal lives prevent us from working those x hours, we should be honest and say "Hey, due to constraints from my personal life, I can only work y hours currently, but I'll do the best possible job I can during those y hours."

We're dependent on the work of others for nearly every aspect of our lives. These 2 fairly similar quotes illustrate that:

>Man must work out of regard for others, especially his own family, but also for the society he belongs to, the country of which he is a child, and the whole human family of which he is a member, since he is the heir to the work of generations and at the same time a sharer in building the future of those who will come after him in the succession of history.

-- St. John Paul II [1]

> I grow little of the food I eat, and of the little I do grow I did not breed or perfect the seeds.

> I do not make any of my own clothing.

> ...

> I did not invent the transistor, the microprocessor, object oriented programming, or most of the technology I work with.

> I love and admire my species, living and dead, and am totally dependent on them for my life and well being.

-- Steve Jobs [2]

We could look at the Steve Jobs quote and say "Sure I'm benefiting from all the work those other people do. But I'm just going to sit back and enjoy it, and not contribute back." But when we look at it from a theological point of view, taking into account the purpose for our existence, why we were created, we see the problem. We were created to know, love, and serve God. Serving one another is part of serving God, since we were created in the image and likeness of God. If we're not serving God and one another, we're not fulling our purpose for existence, and thus we're not going to find fulfillment in this life or the next.

From the lowest employee to the highest, from the janitor to the CEO, each person can do the best they can with the talents and opportunities they have. And work encompasses more than just employment; we can work by caring for a sick relative or sick stranger (a la Mother Theresa), raising children, volunteering at a charity, or contributing to society in some other way.

I haven't talked to all my friends and family about this topic, but when the topic has come up generally they share this point of view.

[1] https://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/...

[2] https://putsomethingback.stevejobsarchive.com/

Re: The Age of the Crisis of Work

#115

Post by adamwong246 »

SL61 wrote: post #111
gdulli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really this attitude is too dire. Effort is not always rewarded quickly or transactionally. But over the long run, it does make a difference. Even if there's more bullshit and frustration than there should be along the way.

The consequential factor isn't whether it's true, but the fact that a lot of people believe it. It's an attitude I hear from most of my peers, in and out of tech. What happens when a lot of the people who keep society running half-ass their jobs because they believe effort won't be rewarded?

It's far far worse than workers lazing off. It paints a picture of a great "hollowing out" of our society as each member pulls away, "The tragedy of the commons" taken to its far conclusion. Trust is a necessary condition for a decent society and we've not given the little people many reasons to trust the system.
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