The idea of employment has always left me with a subtle bad feeling. It’s difficult to put into words, but worth trying. We are born without asking to be here and are involuntarily signed up for what seems like a lifetime of servitude. While I am in a good position now, that wasn’t always the case and I know many are in very difficult positions when it comes to employment.
It’s not a coincidence that work is tied to our survival, as that’s how the system guarantees that we participate. But there is a difference in meeting our own survival needs to that of working a job that in many cases, is useless and / or often soul sucking. Something I’ve noticed throughout my life through direct observation is this: the more someone else wants you to do something, the more they are getting something out of it. It won’t be framed like that of course, it’s framed as if it will benefit you. You can see this in marketing all the time. The interesting thing is that most people don’t even see work as a survival mechanism but as some sort of moral defining characteristic. We are told certain things about work as children and most people simply never question it.
I don’t believe people should get something for nothing or that a person’s survival should be someone else’s responsibility. I often don’t even mind doing work as it gives leisure time it’s meaning. I have earned everything I have through spending my time on some sort of work. But there’s something very off about the employment system. Maybe it’s because this system seems to be more consolidated than ever, is increasingly controlled by powerful individuals and often corrupt? Or the fact that most of our jobs are either directly or indirectly contributing to something toxic or are causing injustice / inequality or are harming the planet? I have looked for jobs that don’t fall into these categories and it is very difficult to find one that pays anything at all. I get this vibe that we are moving further and further away from meaningful work at our own detriment. More tech and AI than ever, but will this benefit most of us? What’s the point, if we all don’t get to work less and have more freedom?
But beyond all this are the problems within the work environment and they are not something most of us choose willingly.
Here’s what I’ve noticed over 20+ years of working:
1. In many cases you are forced to be with people you wouldn’t otherwise choose to be around. While I’ve met a few great people at work, it’s no doubt an environment in which you only have so much control over. And of course this depends on where you work and the quality of people working there. I’ve heard plenty of horror stories about coworkers and managers.
2. There is often a toxic environment with conformity, gossiping and office politics, being forced to deal with petty crap that goes far beyond just getting the work done. It is never just about getting the work done, that would be way too easy.
3. The environment is undoubtably bad for your health and well-being. For example crap lighting, lack of quiet and privacy, open office seating, surveillance (perceived or otherwise), the work either requires you do be unnaturally sedentary or moving in a repetitive stressful way, or may even require tolerating dangerous conditions. How many health problems are caused by the work people do? I know that since around age 35 I have had perpetual wrist, upper back and neck pain. Also, I often wonder how much of the drinking, drugs, and excessive spending that goes on in society is just a way of coping with being trapped in employment?
4. It’s based in inequality and a skewed playing field. There are those that hire people and those that are employed. It takes money to even start a business and even more to keep it going, especially in the beginning. It seems like the pool of people able to start businesses is ever shrinking. Some businesses drive out small businesses using a pricing tactic where they lower their prices for a period of time, operating at a loss. Obviously, this can only be done if you have a lot of money. Most people cannot take the huge risk of starting a business.
5. Jobs that can be easily done remotely are often not and I think it’s to keep excess management employed and to limit people’s freedom. You are certainly not forced to go into the office and do your long commute because it benefits you.
6. People are treated as expendable, because there is always someone to replace you, and this has gotten even worse over the years. It doesn’t matter if you are happy with the work environment because there are only so many jobs and they will likely find someone else, so you have to put up with it.
7. The amount of hours required is ridiculous. It’s counterproductive to work 40 hours a week for the individual, but an employee’s time isn’t valued. You can be ‘asked’ to work overtime, but are never given the option to work less if it’s not busy. In many office jobs, at least part of the day is filled with unnecessary socializing to pass time out of boredom and meetings that aren’t necessary or useful in any way. If you are there for a full day, that time will be filled up with things, regardless of whether they are needed or not. I keep hearing there aren’t enough jobs. Why doesn’t the part time workweek become a standard then? People could have more time for what they actually want to live for like family, personal development and passions. Why does life have to revolve around work?
8. Work limits creativity. You spend the best hours of your day at work and are often too tired to do what you actually want to do outside of it. Isn’t it strange that you need to work for 40+ years just to afford a place to live, car and the day to day necessities? It really doesn’t make any sense. But this literally shapes your life, greatly limits what you can do, limits your mind and your ability to think.
9. Work limits freedom and autonomy. You can’t live where you would choose to live, because you have to base living on having a job and often end up paying much more to live somewhere because of it. This, to me, is by far the worst part of being employed.
10. The ‘work hard and get ahead’ mindset is one of the worst things about working. Often this is more about a way to be perceived than actually doing anything. This idiotic performative bullshit has always pissed me off. I spotted this early on and decided I wasn’t going to be a trained monkey jumping through hoops for approval. I realized that I didn’t have to tie my worth to any job. The other side of it is that if you work really hard, the ‘reward’ is usually more work and that often just leads to burnout and more stress. But most workplaces seem to have some sort of performative BS ideology they shove down everyone’s throat. I remember a friend telling me someone they knew would stay 1 hour late every day at the office just surfing the internet because everyone else stayed late. I couldn’t believe it.
Some people will say this is just how it is. But does it have to continue to be this way? Work shouldn’t be some sort of made up moral social proof done in a increasingly delusional way. Isn’t its function supposed to be to support our survival in a healthy, fair way, while protecting the environment we are living in? Human beings often claim to be more intelligent than animals, yet when I look at the world we have created for ourselves with our supposed intelligence, it seems like we could do so much better.