I can’t really recall seeing anyone getting much of a “reward” for a work ethic outside of high school. I’ve seen lots of people get rewarded for results though. As an adult, I’ve just put it in the category of simple minded nonsense adults feel like they have tell to their kids.
That’s ridiculous. Yes results matter but you get results with effort, generally. Teaching kids to value effort is not remotely simple minded. A hard working average guy usually out performs a lazy “genius”.
The work ethic morality tale is an ideology that benefits those in power, and since those in power are the ones with the influence to spread ideologies at scale, it perpetuates…
The way I see it is pretty simple: on aggregate, I’m getting more out of my job than my job is sucking out of me. Things that I get out of it may be money, or job satisfaction, or hugs (in my job, literally - nothing makes a sucky day worth it like a big hug from a happy patient), accolades and recognition or new titles and job duties to put on my resume…and it’s really some of all of those. Things that my work suck out of me include time, energy, my general level of anxiety (an inverse sucking, I suppose), etc. As long as the scales tip in my favor, I’m both capable of and proud to consider my good work ethic exactly that. If my job starts to suck more than it benefits me, then to go along with their game is me in the role of obedient slave.
I certainly have days when the balance is not in my favor. Tonight being one of them. But on the whole, it’s still working in my favor.
Of course, my boss thinks he gets more out of me than he puts into me, so it’s win-win. As long as we both think we’re getting a good deal, it’s a good job.
Well, yes and no. If nobody did their jobs (or did them half asses), nothing would get done. Homes wouldn’t get built. Buses wouldn’t run. Food wouldn’t make it’s way to the grocery store.
The presumed arrangement in a healthy economy is that I do my job as a bus driver in exchange for you doing your job as a carpenter or farmer. We both benefit from the exchange of goods and services. In an unhealthy economy, a significant percentage of that value is siphoned off and consolidated under the control of a relative few.
Of course, from the perspective of the Left, it’s Big Corporate Interests who is siphoning off all that value while from the percentage of the Right, it’s Big Nanny Government. IMHO, they’re both right.
That’s why I think job satisfaction is a horrible indicator of “free vs slave labor”. Perhaps one of the worst indicators. Why does a person not have the freedom to hate their job? Even slaves were allowed to hate their job, so long as they just did it. It seems extremely Orwellian to me that not only are you supposed to do a job you may not particularly care for, you have to love doing it and the faceless organization you are doing it for.
I bet your expenses have increased 4x as well to fit your more affluent lifestyle. They call that “Golden Handcuffs”. Sure you could quit your 100 hour a week job as partner at our big law firm for a less stressful, easier job. But then how are you going to afford the Hamptons house the wife loves going to every weekend or the private school for the kids?
Say hi to The Man for me!
Many can vote with their feet. I suppose that if you can’t that’s somebody else’s fault.
My recommendation for anyone else similarly working his or her way up is to do as I did and increase automatic withdrawals to investment accounts with each raise. And keep driving that '02 Honda.
As for private schools, that’s part of the impetus for wanting to earn more, as I would feel irresponsible bringing a child into this world if I could not afford to provide a quality education.
What’s the end goal though? Living an unnecessarily meager life driving a 12 year old car with a big investment portfolio seems about as short sighted as indulging in every luxury you can marginally afford. I think a much wiser and much more difficult approach is to find a balance so you can enjoy your youth and middle age and then retire to a similar lifestyle.
Most people can’t amass such a fortune that no conceivable disaster would ruin us though, so you have to do the best you can. On the other hand, dying with a few million in the bank after driving a dumpy car and using discount toilet paper your whole life seems sadder somehow. You’ve only got the one lifetime.
I saved tons for my retirement while driving a 12 year old car also. You seem to think it is a burden. Nope, until it fell apart it was just as good as driving a new luxury car. When I did need a new car I could pay cash for it.
I could afford a Lexus, but the thought of paying an extra $10k to keep my butt warm in the Bay Area make me ill. The upside is that I can retire now any time I want to without any cares. That’s worth a lot more than a warm bun to me.
Sure. I now have an apartment that costs 2.5x the old, with no crack dealer neighbors. The point is that you don’t have to wear golden handcuffs.
Is a twelve year old car really that meager? That’s about the age of the average car on the road today.
And the point of my original post is that working hard now can get you somewhere where you can relax a bit.
Bwah, this rebuttal is rediculous; it’s not even a rebuttal it’s just saying the same thing I’m saying. You’re saying if you work hard you get good results, and thus the reward. I’m saying you have no results you get no reward. If you have results without work, you still get rewarded. If you work and yet fail to get the right result you don’t get rewarded for that. So. I think having a work ethic is rather trite, “Ohh look at me I work so hard someone give me a cookie/gold star smiley face sticker.”
The work ethic seems little different than the ethics of a religious flagellant to me, not really something I relate to. Its sort of a self mortification as a display of piety in a secular society.
I think it much more wise to focus on results - and efficiently getting the desired result - and that alone. Unfortunately, you often have to work and sacrifice to get results, but if the opportunity to avoid doing so is available that seem much more desirable to me. YMMV.
I think it’s better to teach your kids to be winners and free people; not drones who comfort themselves with their dull pitiful lot on life with the cheap salve of feeling they are somehow good for being pathetic put upon employees of an indifferent employer.
For me, I think a big part of the difference between good work ethic and obedient slave is the extent to which people can be stakeholders in the whole job - do they have to blindly obey inefficient directives or do they have any voice or valued opinion in the processes of work.
I expect to work hard and I expect my team to work hard. I expect to often be stretched to reach a little beyond ‘normal’ capacity, but I don’t want that hard work and stretch to be a result of stupid decisions or short-sighted plans. We have to get the job done, but I want people to speak up if they think we’re making it harder than it need be.
People that can do that will make us more efficient as a team, which will make my team more highly valued by the company, and it will make it easier for me as a manager to argue for better pay increases, expenditure on necessary tools, etc.
And the company pays bonuses based on profitability - we have the direct power to make that payout better or worse.
Good answer. I think that part about the hard work and stretch NOT being the results of stupid decisions or short sighted plans is key, at least in my career experience.
I’ve never minded putting in extra effort on projects that I’ve found interesting or fulfilling. I usually end up thinking about them in my off time anyway, whether I intend to or not.
It’s the “OMG! Our sales goons sold this package of services that we (IT) said we’re not ready to support yet, and now it’s our problem to actually support it six months before we planned on being ready.”
That kind of thing tends to demotivate people REAL fast- you bust your hump like a cracked-out monkey to get something half-assed in place by the unrealistic deadline, knowing that it’s half-assed while you’re doing it, get totally stressed out by the experience, and then you literally have to spend years dealing with the consequences of the half-assed hurried solution, all the while, having the business side of things bitch at you about it, doubly so if their management changed and wasn’t aware of the reasons for the half-assed solution.
And… to top it all off, you don’t get paid any more for any of this BS, and had you stomped your foot and spoken up early on, you’d have been tagged as “not a team player” and possibly fired.
That’s the way you treat people you don’t care about and who you view as cogs in the machine, not the way you treat people you value and whose expertise and wisdom you want to benefit from.
For me it boils down to a few things: maturity, autonomy and support. In my 20s, I would’ve done whatever the hell someone asked of me, no questions asked on my part. Now I’m experienced enough, if someone asks me to do something that makes no sense or that is inefficient, I have both the maturity to recognize it and the autonomy to question why we’re doing it that way and to refuse. I also have the support from my boss when I do refuse something that is stupid.
That said, I’m in a high enough paying job with an unusual skill set. If I were working in a call center, for example, at minimum wage with no safety net (husband and I both work, contribute heavily to savings and have families who could help us if necessary), that changes the dynamic. I would need more from my job than my job might need from me specifically and given certain circumstances, no amount of maturity and autonomy would make me feel safe. I’d always be scared not work like hell or the consequences could be disastrous.
An old and very smart boss of mine told me to never say that you can do it all when they say they are going to cut your budget. Tell them what won’t get done. Now, if they just cut the padding you put in to anticipate budget cuts, fine. If they cut more, don’t make your people suffer - just cut deliverables. Preferably the stuff your internal customers really want so they’ll start complaining.
The real secret though is to always be ready to be fired. I’ve never seen anyone fired for doing it their way. (Assuming that they are minimally competent.) I’ve seen plenty of drones laid off, though.
One word of advice - save. I’m now 2 years to Medicare with a nice pot of money saved up. Last week my boss asked me to work 4 more years, and I told him that it ain’t going to happen. He’ll be lucky if he gets two. Right now if they’d fire me (which they won’t) they would be in far worse shape than me. It is very relaxing.
The Dilbertesque Pointy Haired Boss is a two-pronged attack on your motivation.
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Being at the whim of stupid decision making underscored just exactly how little your opinion is valued.
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Being at the whim of an incompetent idiot further drives home the point that you are in some sort of class structure that isn’t based on intelligence, aptitude or competency. Whatever mechanism put your boss in place above you is at best arbitrary and at worst the function of an entranced power system that is likely corrupt and probably outside of your understanding.
To a point. Speaking as a manager, we aren’t infallible and often have to make unpopular decisions using imperfect information with finite resources. Often my job feels like a daily Kobayashi Maru test.
I’m surprised how many people hold this attitude of not bucking the system. I feel like a lot of people, particularly older generations, seem to have a mentality that someone is doing you a favor by giving you a job, regardless of how shitty the job is or how badly you are treated.
Regardless of “fault” it’s often not that easy to simply change jobs.
I’d think communicating a lot of that would go a long way with workers. If they know that you’re trying to make lemonade out of lemons, but it’s turning out more sour than you’d hoped because the project was only allocated 2/3 the sugar that you’d normally choose to use, they’ll be much more on board than if they think that **you’re **the asshole who skimped on the sugar to save a buck or curry favor with the higher-ups at their expense.
I feel for the mid and lower-level managers. They’re usually in the most thankless positions. It’s the C-level people and the people right under them who need to be kicked in the nuts for demanding things in unreasonable time frames and budgets in my experience.
Are corporations the only entities that have slavery, or bad business practices?
I think it has to do with what class you were raised in to a certain degree(this is probably the most assholish thing I’ll ever say on the boards). People from lower classes buy into a lot of this nonsense about hard work being a virtue unto itself. It’s really one on the easiest ways I’m able to tell what someone’s background is. YMMV