The Big Lie About Work

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Jessica Grose shared an interesting perspective in a recent New York Times op-ed. She notes: “We have allowed chief executives of enormous corporations to frame the entire conversation around what makes a “good” employee. In their estimation, it’s ‘morally wrong’ (Elon Musk) to work from home, because a good employee is one who wants to ‘hustle’ (Jamie Dimon) working long hours in the office every single day. Joan Williams, the chair and director of the Center for WorkLife Law, has called this the ‘ideal worker’ norm — a set of beliefs that assumes labor will be performed by full-time employees with no caregiving responsibilities or life outside work, continuously, for 40 years.”

To Grose’s point, what nonsense. Yes, we want a fair exchange between employer and employee. However, there are few executive positions available, and not everyone needs to aspire to them. Still, we have somehow created this lasting narrative that everyone should compete to get the big title and bucks. And then there are those companies that have dangled the vesting stock option, with the promise that after working 14 hours a day and getting past the performance hurdles, one day you will become one of those fabled “Microsoft millionaires.” Of course your kids won’t recognize you and those days you missed their school events will never be recaptured. They’re GONE.

There seems to be a subliminal and somewhat controlling narrative in the term “return to work.” Goldman Sachs, as an example, is insisting on everyone being back five days a week in the office. The additional, not so subtle message is “we need to see the extra hustle, the late nights, the two week vacation sprinkled with Zoom meetings and email jail. Let’s reward people who work extra hard and put in those crazy hours.” What a load of ego driven crap.

One of the things lots of people, especially knowledge workers, discovered during the pandemic is that more work life integration is possible when we have additional flexibility not enslaved to a cubicle.

Life and work need to be thoughtfully meshed so that we might be most productive in every sense of who we are as HUMANS FIRST. That’s why I constantly encourage people to connect before content. We all work on some process or product, however we are NOT the process or product. We are people first and foremost. That means we are NOT machines, and on average, should be working about eight hours, sleeping about eight hours and recreating in some way about eight hours. And most of us ideally should have about 30 days to do whatever the heck we want.

Executives, stop this big lie. Be leaders. Model the right behavior. Your teammates, customers and shareholders will all be better off. And don’t worry, there will still be lots of people clamoring up the ladder to sit in your leather chair, drive that Tesla, getting home late every night. (PS, I was one of them).

Think Better (Big), Start Small, Act Now,

- Lorne

One Millennial View: Comedian Dan Soder joked that Michael Jordan might have screwed up an entire generation, because what did he teach us kids in the 90’s? He taught us that when you’re as talented as he is at basketball, you can be wildly competitive, talk down to both your competition and teammates (just watch his Hall of Fame speech), and the entire world will still want to be like you and wear your shoes. It’s a level of success that is nearly unfathomable. Like it or not, he was just better than everyone else, and humility was unapologetically out the window.

Here’s what seems true: When you put in a ton of work, you’d think it should yield better results than putting in less work. It’s just the most simple way to attempt success, even if it’s flawed, and I think many of us like to rely on a 2 + 2 = 4 formula, because the equation of perfect work/life balance is a tougher problem to solve.

Hustle culture is obnoxious, and full of misrepresentation, because we’re likely not Michael Jordan, so we have to figure out a different formula that makes the best sense for us. Unfortunately, it’s just a little more complicated than being the best basketball player in the world.

- Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

The Big Lie About Work

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