Picture a scene
After a long working week in your bullshit job, it was the weekend time. So you decided to go to the local coffee shop to meet up with your friend, only to find him complaining about his job. Dude! What the fuck! I was going to complain to you! But it seems that your friend is really angry, complaining about the disrespect, the devaluation, raising his voice with a heartbreaking story of what he is going through at work.
Slowly, people around you who have been listening to you start to show sympathy and join in on the pity party at table 9. One complaining about the overload at work, one about sexual harassment. one hates the name calling. Even the waiter joins in and complains about how he is underpaid and how the owner is saying stuff like "There is cost-reduction, you are at the beginning of your career, you should focus less on the pay and more on the experience. And me as a job creator I am giving you exposure for your career". Like, dude, I am putting coals on one hookah shared by 8 people, what do you mean exposure and experience?
Anyway, seeing everyone's reaction, made you realize that this is not an individual thing. Everyone is having a real existential crisis, raising the question: Why are we miserable at work?
End of scene
Why are we miserable at work?
Well, that is a question with many, many parts to its answer and that is the reason for which this series has been created.Why are there swarm of young people living their lives like zombies from one weekend to another?
There are of course many reasons for that, for example they might not be working a job they like, also they might be working a job that bullshit and therefore he himself is bullshit, something that will come up at a later part. But these reasons aren't enough to explain the misery people feel at work.
In a study conducted by the British Economic Journal in 2016, a question was asked: Are you happy while you work? This study was conducted on thousands of people in Britain, measuring their happiness and relaxation level while doing 39 different activities during the day. The study found that their happiness is at their lowest while they were working, except for when they are sick and laying in bed. So basically, unless fighting an illness is worst for you than when you are at work.
That is normal, work is a tough responsibility.
That shouldn't be the case, what we will be talking about here is a goal beyond that, one to make people happy at work. Many studies and researches showed that people nowadays hate going to work. In America for example, the percentage of happy employees at work declined from 67% in 1987 to 50% in 2016.
Yes, work can be difficult and all, but why is the percentages of happy people at work is declining? In a study conducted by Gallup, we learned that only 15% of worldwide employees feel engaged at work.
So what they are not happy? The hell with them. They are after all making a living.
Pressure at work is bad mentally and physically
In a study done in 2014, 61% of employees said that work-related pressure left physically ill. We hear about those people, Iraqis, spending tens of hours researching a subject, only to get 0.10$ in payment on Hive, just to name a random example. People are exhausted at work, 46% said that they had to take sick leaves due to work, and 7% actually entered a hospital due to it. It is not just overload at work, there are plenty of other reasons why people are miserable at work, including:
Coworkers
Much like what the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said "Hell is other people". Most of those people are the ones you meet at work. In the book "Toxic Workplace! Managing Toxic Personalities and Their Systems of Power", psychology scientists Elizabeth Holloway and Mitchell Kusy pointed out that percentage of people at work who are affected by a toxic person at work is that of 94%. In a 2014 study, the percentage of employees who suffered from bullying at work is 27%, 21% said that they have witnessed someone getting bullied at work. How many times have you seen your boss bully someone and resorted to silence so you could get a raise or vacation? We are all corrupt.
A 2017 study conducted between RAND corporation and Harvard university on 3000 male and female employees, said that 20% of the employees suffered humiliation, threats, and sexual harassment on monthly basis. Parents really should worry about their offspring going to work rather than anywhere else, we are getting tortured not jobs. This leads us to a question.
Is work a reason for the declining of psychological health? Is it the reason behind the increasing of misery and suicide rate?
For example, the number of consumption for antidepressants increased by 6 times in the last 30 years. Of course this could be a post hoc of sort as you can also credit that to the awareness of mental health plus the commercial efforts pharmaceutical companies. But according to the American National Center for Health Statistics, the increase of suicide rates especially for the age group between 45 to 64 is related directly to work pressure and its logistics.
That must be happening in old-styled companies, which don't have culture, value and bean bags. They don't have communities and positive vibes.
No, these things are happening in the new startups as well. In 2016, American engineer Joseph Thomas received a job offer from Apple, beautiful company with billions of dollars in cash and they the famous Iphone. Joseph rejected their offer and opted to work instead in one of the best startups in the world: Uber. 5 months later, he committed suicide with self-inflicted gunshot wound. His wife revealed that he had told her about racism and work pressure at the company, but he refused to leave in order to keep his 170 thousand dollars a year salary.
170 thousand dollars is a big number as it is 4 times the average income. Joseph was suffering so much that he went to psychiatrists to deal with his panic attacks. In the end he wasn't able to comprehend the pressure and took his own life at the age of 33 with work pressure to blame.
There are those who took their own lives. But there are those who opted to be reclusive from the world entirely, what is known in Japan as Hikikomoris. Half a million of Japanese youth raised a flag that said "Wait for me, or you know what? I am not coming".
In his amazing book "Lab Rats: Why Modern Work Makes People Miserable", Daniel Lyons tries to answer the question: How did you and them turn into miserable employees? By the way, this sentence has 4 rhymes in Arabic but your language sucked the interest out of it. In spite of companies claiming today that they care about the happiness of their employees, so much so that they appoint what is known as a "Chief of happiness officers" who bring their employees free food and bean bags.
That, according to the writer, doesn't really solve anything when it comes to the misery at work in the modern life. According to the author, modern work these days have two aspects: Cruelty and silliness.
Cruelty
Companies these days have what you can identify as fear of commitment. Companies these days say "Listen, I like you and all, but let's keep shallow. I prefer that we become employees and employers with benefits". In the old days, an employee's relationship with their company is that of long term "You are a HOT employee, let's get married!"
Modern work is like a one night stand, you basically dispensable. Companies could come up to you at any minute and tell you "I wanna see other people" What? Do you already like someone else? Give me a chance, I can do better. "I just don't want to be with you anymore" Then they will block you on LinkedIn, block on Facebook, block on Twitter, block, block, block, how cruel. Many companies are quoting Maron 5 and saying "Nothing lasts forever"
Silliness
It was represented in what I find to be an interesting concept, which is "Forced fun". Nowadays company would gather all its employees and take them to the zoo. "Let's go, come on! Let's play with balloons", dude, I am a 47 years old senior manager, you want me to blow balloons? "Go, there's a guy over painting the Joker on faces". Also they would have silly activities. "I am a 53 years old manager and you want me to carry an egg on a spoon, what is the matter with you?"
All done in the name of "Team building exercise". If then, you don't enjoy those activities you are considered "Not cool" enough to be in those modern companies."You are a depressing fuck, do you know that?"
The author points out that there are four main elements to our misery at work.
- Low salaries
- Constant change
- Lack of job security
- The dehumanization
In the end you can't give little to no money, keep changing everything, not provide me with knowledge that I will keep my job, then don't treat me as a human, after that expect me to perform and be happy about work just because you gave me a balloon. According to Daniel Lyons these 4 aspects are primary reason that a job miserable.
All of which, plus many more will be discussed in future parts
Please, upvote, share, and comment on this post. Thank you, and stay tuned.
Hey @Amir, I just found your post so funny, I emphatize completely. We are brought up and educated to find a job and when we find the job, Them\n more often than not we do not find the dream job. The jobs we find most times has nothing to do with what our areas of speciality, our major, what we said we wanted to do in life.
We give up what we want for what we need i.e. income.
As a resulot we feel underpaid, undervalued,nojob security, and we are constantly dehumanized; you are so right. I loved your reference to a 53 year old man playing with an spoon and egg and enjoying it. A good reason we feel so unsatisfied is that we are just over broke and ready to quit but hate the consequences of quitting.
One year, I made over $100k in a sales job and I still hated it, evenually I walked away from that job. Life is about being happy not making money. That is why we are so depressed with the jobs we are forced into by society.
Again, thanks you for sharing your sentiments I feel you.
I couldn't agree more with the 4 points. The last job I had, had all those 4 ingredients ... and yes it made me unhappy. My contract didn't get renewed after 3 years, so end of the job. And except for the financial part, I was much happier after that. But, society made me feel bad again.
Never an easy situation.
I think about this concept a lot, especially lately, as here in the states we are having a labor crisis. People have finally started figuring out that they could have been paid more, worked less, enjoyed life, and overall been treated as a human being that is more than just the sum of labor for a productive industry. Life is about more than enduring misery just for the sake of a job.
I'm a super big optimist though, I believe we can (and will) do better, the process is just a bit messy.
Seriously though, I am so glad you are emailing out series of posts that I have missed of yours, I am enjoying catching up on all of them!
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Great metaphor for both work and colonisation.
I was very disappointed because the phrasing was so neat in Arabic lol!
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I was lucky. I found my dream job from the start. I loved my job for over 40 years. The last 2 years were kind of boring but still good. Thanks for sharing on ListNerds.