Good work ethic vs obedient slave

In My Humble Opinion
1

Now many of us were taught to study hard, do our best work, show up on time, don’t steel from the company. The implication being that if you demonstrate a good work ethic, you will be rewarded with more responsibility, greater compensation, hopefully a better job.

OTOH, there is the meme popularized by films like Office Space, Fight Club, American Beauty, Horrible Bosses, Swimming with Sharks, The Devil Wears Prada and countless others of the corporate workplace as a soul-crushing, bureaucratic nightmare where employees are routinely abused, belittled, have no upward mobility and can be terminated at the capricious whim of some petty middle manager.

Reading some people’s posts on this and other message boards, many people do work in conditions that sound terrible.
So the question is, when does putting in the time and hard work constitute having a “good work ethic” and when does it become more like being, if not a slave, certainly a chump who is being taken advantage of?

2

For me it’s all about whether there’s skin in the game.

If I’m the owner or working on commission, then harder work means higher pay. Expecting me to work just as hard for a fixed salary is delusional. It forces a lowest common denominator, and employees are quick to figure out that baseline.

3

You’re ignoring the implication that you will enjoy your work and be proud of it, and feel satisfaction at the contribution you are making.

When you don’t enjoy your work or feel proud of it and feel no satisfaction at the contribution you are making.

4

There’s also the review and salary-increase cycle.

If you do a good job, and meet expectations, so that you receive good reviews, you get a larger merit increase than if you just slouch through your day and give nothing more than the minimum.

If the company is well run, then you will get $$$ in return for good, hard work.

Sad to say, a number of companies aren’t well run.

5

Except that there’s a lot of work that needs doing that isn’t particularly enjoyable.

Which I sort of guess is why slavery was invented in the first place.
I suppose the obvious difference is that you can always choose to quit and find another job (or no job if you have the means).

That’s a big part of it. A long time ago, someone started a thread asking why anyone would work for the Big 4 accounting firms (Deloitte, E&Y, PwC and KPMG). Starting salary isn’t particularly high and they make associates work long hours and travel a lot. The answer (also applying to most accounting, consulting and law firms) is that there is a clear path (although long) path to partnership.

But of course not every associate can become a partner and at 15% turnover a year, most don’t. And most companies don’t even make a pretense of offering any sort of ownership or profit sharing. At best you might get a token cost of living increase and a couple “title bump” promotions (new title, but overseeing the same staff, same budget and same job responsibilities).

And with the majority of wealth in the US owned by a small percentage of people, it begs the question of what and who those remaining people are working for. Particularly with employees increasingly treated as disposable cogs.

6

But there’s satisfaction to be had from understanding that it’s worthwhile and valuable, and knowing that you are doing it well.

Slavery, at least in modern times, is usually a response to labour shortage. It’s hard to get people to work in low-margin jobs like domestic service or agricultural labour if they can up sticks, head off to the frontier, shoot a few indigenes, grab some acres and set up farming their own land. Hence, slavery. Or, as in Australia, the convict system. Or something of the kind.

7

Hard work good
Hard work fine,
But first take care of head.

8

This seems more of an opinion poll than a focused debate.

Off to IMHO.

9

As noted, this seems to indicate that taking pride in one’s efforts has no value. I have had several crappy jobs. I still gave my best effort so that I could go home at night with a clear conscience that I had not shifted any of my responsibilities or duties onto co- workers who were trapped in the same workplace. I had accepted the employment as a known situation, (wages, hours, etc.), and while I was accepting the paycheck, I felt an ethical obligation to provide my best services.
I certainly looked for different employment, but while I was there I contributed.
Providing less than one’s best for not having “skin in the game” seems like an easy cop-out to rationalize crappy behavior.

10

You mean, you can always find another predatory corporation to abuse their power over you?

You can’t just vote with your feet – that’s Pastor Weems mythology. That’s like saying you can go and shop at a different supermarket, that hasn’t reduced the size of a 3.99 one-pound bag of potato chips to 14 ounces. Corporations can only compete with each other if they all screw the bottom feeders according to what they can get away with, regardless of whether it is through employment practices or marketing deception.

11

Why can’t it be both? I have a work ethic and I’ll work hard and do good work because that’s something that is important to me independent of how much I get paid. Sure, I’d have a harder time being motivated if I got paid less and maybe a somewhat easier time if I got paid a little more. Ultimately, it’s not fear of getting fired or otherwise disciplined that has me work, it’s my own ethics. When I perform up to my standards or exceed them, I feel a sense of satisfaction, and when I don’t, it sucks.

That said, I’m also aware that I’m not paid at the level I could be and also that I get billed out at a rate substantially higher than what I’m paid. The company I work for is very beaurucratic, and I don’t feel like anyone above my PM cares about me as more than a number filling a billet. Hell, even when I won a very prestigious award and senior VPs showed up, it was just to glad-hand me, be in the pictures, and make the company look good, because they sure as hell didn’t follow through on taking me to lunch or other crap they promised.

Ultimately, it’s that sort of stuff that hurts my motivation and makes me feel unappreciated and makes it difficult to work up to my own standards, but still, I’m not working up to those standards for them, I’m doing it for me, and for the customer, because even if I’m not treated as well as I feel I should be, my ethics also tell me that they still deserve what they expect from me.

In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that not only do I think that work ethic can and should stand on its own and, ultimately, if one feels abused or underappreciated, one has to make certain decisions about whether the salary, benefits, treatment, work environment, motivation, etc. are the best one can reasonably do and just suck it up, or if one can do better.

12

Not necessarily; for some people, harder work just means butting their head against the wall more times, and everybody has limits to how long, when or under what conditions we can work before the law of diminishing returns rears up.

I discovered a long time ago that I’m always willing to put in more hours (in fact, I may even turn up reserves of energy I didn’t even know I had) so long as there is a direct, measurable, positive impact and my body doesn’t reach the “non plus ultra” point.

For me, 1h of face time is actually a lot more tiresome than 10h of frantic typing, so long as the frenzy has actual, positive results (i.e., not just because some genius decided to change the formats in the documents and that “we need to review all Blueprint Documents to add a set of three new tables” when said Blueprints are already signed).

13

IMO it depends heavily on compensation and respect. If I’m being asked to work over 40 hours in a week, or handle nights and weekends, then my salary needs to reflect the damage that does to my life. Secondly, and of equal importance to me, is the knowledge that my employer understands my skill set(s) and values what I bring to the table. If my suggestions are continually ignored, then I’m being treated as a drone rather than a professional.

14

I think people basically have a concept of a baseline amount of performance and effort for their jobs, and extended periods above and beyond that baseline should be appropriately recognized and compensated-in some form- higher salary at review time, comp-time that next week, or a higher bonus.

I think the “having a good work ethic” vs. “being abused” divide comes down to whether the company expects and takes advantage of that extra effort and time above the baseline. Basically if people know that their manager will compensate them in some way for working on the weekends, or working 12 hr days for months on end, then it’s a good work ethic. If they have the feeling that the company’s taking advantage of them and just expects this with no intention of compensating them at all for doing this, then it falls into the abuse category.

To use personal examples, in my first job out of college, I knew that if I busted my ass and did right by the company, my boss (and his bosses) would appreciate it and probably reward me appropriately. It was part of the job, but acknowledged as an odious one that they’d show their appreciation for.

Conversely, when I was a consultant, I felt rather abused, because they routinely expected 12 hour days with no warning (i.e. show up at 8, and find out at 5 pm that you have to stay another 3 hours), last-second travel without preparation (we need you to catch the 3 pm to New Orleans this afternoon and be there a week.), and working over holidays and weekends, and gave no expectation of appreciation, recognition or compensation. It was just part of the job, and I was supposed to suck it up and deal with it.

15

This. Good to start assuming you will be rewarded. But if you do a good job (which is more than just hard work) and don’t get rewarded, and can’t leave, it only makes sense to reduce work to the minimum required for how they see you. I call it working down to your evaluation.
Or as the Russians used to say, you pretend to pay me, I pretend to work.

16

Being a consultant is somewhat of a special case. Consultants are treated as mercenaries to be deployed without any sort of consideration for their working conditions. To make up for that, most consultants are well paid for their services, which leads their clients to often say something to the effect of “Who cares about , I’m paying them more than enough.”

They don’t have to worry about running you off, because it’s not a permanent gig. The cycle never ends :smiley:

17

Many people’s definition of “working hard” vary and is somewhat subjective. Billy Bob may think that he works hard and deserves a raise. But Tommy Lee may believe that Billy Bob just coasts by and does the bare minimum. One of the most important things is that you and your boss have to have a clear understanding of what is expected and what defines success. And this understanding needs to occur at the beginning of the evaluation period/year. That way if you both understand and agree that you exceeded expectations then you should expect that bonus, pay raise, promotion, etc. And when it didn’t come there better be some explaining from the boss.

18

What makes consulting different is that the people are also the product. Your value as a Deloitte or Accenture consultant is exactly the market rate for your skills x the total number of hours you can work. Therefore the firm seeks to max out the number of hours you work until you either can’t work anymore or you can sell work. Closing a $10 million deal doesn’t necessarily require 5 x the work as closing a $2 million deal.

19

And slaves could take satisfaction from their job as well. A slave nanny could enjoy raising kids. Slave mason could like seeing a solid wall built. Still slaves.

20

I know, right? I certainly haven’t left four jobs for greener pastures. And there is no way I now make 4x what I made in 2008, for less work. No point in busting my chops 70 h/w for peanuts back then, because I wasn’t going anywhere.