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The humanity has been taken out of jobs. It's all about making an optimised monkey making machine. I think MBAs are destroying everything. See how Google is bei

by deskr 2y ago

The humanity has been taken out of jobs. It's all about making an optimised monkey making machine. I think MBAs are destroying everything. See how Google is being destroyed from the inside. Boeing has pretty much been destroyed from the inside.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
> The humanity has been taken out of jobs. Absolutely, but... The humanity was taken out of jobs before, too. An assembly-line job wasn't like being a craftsman. There was "alienation" (to use the Marxist term) there too. The factory workers were just biological components of a big machine. The difference between then and now was that much of the rest of life still had the humanity in it. You knew people in your neighborhood, at your church, at the bar, at the barbershop, at the grocery store. Now... not so much. There's no humanity anywhere. So people feel alienated, not just at work, but everywhere. But they feel it especially at work, because that's the place that they interact with other people the most, so it's the place where there should be the best chance of real human contact. And it's not there.
- anal_reactor 2y ago
  > But they feel it especially at work, because that's the place that they interact with other people the most, so it's the place where there should be the best chance of real human contact. And it's not there. The worst part is, modern workplace is actively hostile to creating meaningful interpersonal bonds, while it keeps a face of being ridiculously welcoming and inclusive. When you are in such environment it's hard to spot that the game is rigged, and you blame yourself for your interpersonal failures.
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    I'm not saying you're wrong. But would you (or anyone) mind listing the ways that you think that the modern workplace is "actively hostile to creating meaningful interpersonal bonds"?
    - anal_reactor 2y ago
      1. Telling people about their shortcomings will result in them retaliating, instead of improving or explaining why this isn't possible. So you just secretly hate them for being stupid instead of creating dialogue 2. The HR officially encourages people to escalate all and any issues, instead of having people deal with things between themselves. This makes me distrustful because people can be smiling towards me while gathering evidence about my mistakes to make a complaint 3. All conflicts are resolved according to "who is technically right" instead of "who is a better human". Think of all the people who got a promotion by throwing their coworker under a bus because technically speaking they didn't break any rules. This is selective breeding of shitty people 4. Negative behaviors are heavily punished, while positive behaviors are not rewarded. Nobody cares that you helped out many people in need, if you said something mean because you were having a bad day or you simply misread the situation, you're out 5. Companies discourage employees from discussing difficult topics that could potentially bridge gaps between people 6. We collectively accept "at work pretend to be whoever your employer wants you to be" as a normal thing
      - ryandrake 2y ago
        > Think of all the people who got a promotion by throwing their coworker under a bus because technically speaking they didn't break any rules. This is selective breeding of shitty people It creates an org chart where everyone "above you" is shitty, and those people, by virtue of being above you, are the role models that you look to for hints on how to behave. So if you're not shitty, you start to conclude that you need to either at least act shitty to get promoted, or leave. Eventually, the company is entirely full of either shitty people or good people cosplaying as shitty people.
      - deskr 2y ago
        You're 100% correct. I have noticed though that in small startups (perhaps around 5 people) you have much less of these problems. Perhaps that's the reason for why they can be so incredibly productive.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  > The difference between then and now was that much of the rest of life still had the humanity in it. You knew people in your neighborhood, at your church, at the bar, at the barbershop, at the grocery store. Now... not so much. There's no humanity anywhere. So people feel alienated, not just at work, but everywhere. We are expected to be well-behaved little worker-consumer automatons. Go to work. Behave. Don't get out of line. Don't rock the boat. Produce value to enrich the tree of people above you and shareholders. Don't talk too much to co-workers--they're competing with you for promotion. Leave (or get tossed out) when you're used up. Go to stores. Behave. Buy things. Don't protest. Don't talk too much to people around you--they're competing with you for what you want. Grow the economy by spending your money. Believe in God so you die happily when you are no longer economically viable. We're lines in someone's spreadsheet.
lurking15 2y ago
I'm convinced this is caused by monetary policy. Inflation through monetary expansion leads to cheap substitutes for EVERYTHING. Whether it's food, labor, housing or education you get junk swapped out for the real thing.

by deskr 2y ago

AnimalMuppet 2y ago

> The humanity has been taken out of jobs. Absolutely, but... The humanity was taken out of jobs before, too. An assembly-line job wasn't like being a craftsman. There was "alienation" (to use the Marxist term) there too. The factory workers were just biological components of a big machine. The difference between then and now was that much of the rest of life still had the humanity in it. You knew people in your neighborhood, at your church, at the bar, at the barbershop, at the grocery store. Now... not so much. There's no humanity anywhere. So people feel alienated, not just at work, but everywhere. But they feel it especially at work, because that's the place that they interact with other people the most, so it's the place where there should be the best chance of real human contact. And it's not there.

anal_reactor 2y ago
> But they feel it especially at work, because that's the place that they interact with other people the most, so it's the place where there should be the best chance of real human contact. And it's not there. The worst part is, modern workplace is actively hostile to creating meaningful interpersonal bonds, while it keeps a face of being ridiculously welcoming and inclusive. When you are in such environment it's hard to spot that the game is rigged, and you blame yourself for your interpersonal failures.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  I'm not saying you're wrong. But would you (or anyone) mind listing the ways that you think that the modern workplace is "actively hostile to creating meaningful interpersonal bonds"?
  - anal_reactor 2y ago
    1. Telling people about their shortcomings will result in them retaliating, instead of improving or explaining why this isn't possible. So you just secretly hate them for being stupid instead of creating dialogue 2. The HR officially encourages people to escalate all and any issues, instead of having people deal with things between themselves. This makes me distrustful because people can be smiling towards me while gathering evidence about my mistakes to make a complaint 3. All conflicts are resolved according to "who is technically right" instead of "who is a better human". Think of all the people who got a promotion by throwing their coworker under a bus because technically speaking they didn't break any rules. This is selective breeding of shitty people 4. Negative behaviors are heavily punished, while positive behaviors are not rewarded. Nobody cares that you helped out many people in need, if you said something mean because you were having a bad day or you simply misread the situation, you're out 5. Companies discourage employees from discussing difficult topics that could potentially bridge gaps between people 6. We collectively accept "at work pretend to be whoever your employer wants you to be" as a normal thing
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      > Think of all the people who got a promotion by throwing their coworker under a bus because technically speaking they didn't break any rules. This is selective breeding of shitty people It creates an org chart where everyone "above you" is shitty, and those people, by virtue of being above you, are the role models that you look to for hints on how to behave. So if you're not shitty, you start to conclude that you need to either at least act shitty to get promoted, or leave. Eventually, the company is entirely full of either shitty people or good people cosplaying as shitty people.
    - deskr 2y ago
      You're 100% correct. I have noticed though that in small startups (perhaps around 5 people) you have much less of these problems. Perhaps that's the reason for why they can be so incredibly productive.
ryandrake 2y ago
> The difference between then and now was that much of the rest of life still had the humanity in it. You knew people in your neighborhood, at your church, at the bar, at the barbershop, at the grocery store. Now... not so much. There's no humanity anywhere. So people feel alienated, not just at work, but everywhere. We are expected to be well-behaved little worker-consumer automatons. Go to work. Behave. Don't get out of line. Don't rock the boat. Produce value to enrich the tree of people above you and shareholders. Don't talk too much to co-workers--they're competing with you for promotion. Leave (or get tossed out) when you're used up. Go to stores. Behave. Buy things. Don't protest. Don't talk too much to people around you--they're competing with you for what you want. Grow the economy by spending your money. Believe in God so you die happily when you are no longer economically viable. We're lines in someone's spreadsheet.

lurking15 2y ago

I'm convinced this is caused by monetary policy. Inflation through monetary expansion leads to cheap substitutes for EVERYTHING. Whether it's food, labor, housing or education you get junk swapped out for the real thing.