The Workplace...A Modern Tragedy?

[PrettySquareGal]

However, many people will staunchly defend the need for dress codes etc (respect for coworkers yada yada yada) while decrying the state of the workplace, not realising the inextricability of the two.

bk

I'm one of those. I worked at an office where the girls wore bathing suits with shorts and flip flops in the summer. It didn't make a favorable impression on visiting clients, and if it did, it wasn't the right kind. It gave an atmosphere of the beach, not a place of business. I never felt that wearing clean, neat and conservative clothing stifled my ability to produce quality and creative work.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Bosses want senseless clones. Bosses are power-hungry sociopaths whose only pleasure is in pushing people around, and seeing how much people will take in the name of the Dollar. The entire thinking is demonstrably wrong-headed but prevails. This is reflected in the rotten-ness of most workplaces.

While I don't want to push this line of analysis too hard, because I think that workers bring their own issues to the toxic mix, too, clearly there is something apt about your sociopath idea. Not all bosses are sociopaths, but we do privilege sociopaths in making those promotions. The era of the "rock star" CEO has not, I think, been a good thing. Many workplaces are actually more paternalistic now than they were during the Fifties and Sixties. That's just bizarre.

At my company, I've been asked to identify "the problems." If, say, my findings should indicate that the bosses themselves are one of the main problems, what then? That is not a winning finding for me to bring back to them, is it? This is purely hypothetical, of course.

Despite the opinions of a couple of posters, I don't think that strategies for managing diversity are dragging down the workplace especially. Diversity exists, and managing it is tricky, and we are still feeling our way in that respect. Believe me, many managers could use a whole lot more sensitivity, not less! In my observation, political correctness is an extremely intermittent phenomenon that is used anecdotally by certain commentators in order to make political points. I just don't see it as an actual scourge.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

As an aside, an issue that drives me particularly buggy is that my own manager speaks, to a greater extent than I have ever encountered before, in a non-stop barrage of corporate jargon and buzzwords. His speech is peppered a hundred times a day with the following sorts of phrases; he can scarcely get a sentence out without one.

"On a moving forward basis"
"We'll have that conversation"
"Re-set the relationship"
"At the end of the day"
"Mission critical"
"Give visibility to"
"Deliverables"
"Bandwidth"
"Pull the trigger"
"Value-added"
"Air it out"
"Reach out"
"Share best practices"

Etc, etc, etc. Listening to him spout this stuff is just painful. There's no thought behind any of it; it's a substitute for thought.

 

[Mid-fogey]

Hmm...

....interesting perspectives.

The purpose of a work place is to get work done. The notion that it exists to suppress or fulfill people isn't sensible. My experience is that good workplaces are where everyone remembers why they are really there -- the work. It's hard for me to say if indifferent employees cause callous managers or the other way around.

I think that many problems are caused by the collapse of people's personal lives and the attempt to turn to turn to work places to fill the void. Related to this need for more personal contact is the increased informality in the work place. Casual dress is just part of the change. People getting too much into each others personal lives is part of it too.

I saw some references to workplaces in television and the movies. I wouldn't credit them. People who write, direct, produce, and act in the media usually have trivial work place experience -- and the little they do have is wildly unrepresentative.

I saw some really unhappy sounding reactions here to the workplace. That usually indicates to me that someone has ended up in a line of work that doesn't fit them. If you are really that unhappy in your work, you need to think really hard abound finding something else to do.

 

[carebear]

Interesting comments Mid,

I think it's been noted in actual studies that nowadays for many people their social life is their work life. Their friends are their work friends, their outside activities end up being work-related.

No more getting off work and having a cocktail party with friends who work elsewhere, or going down to the lodge with acquaintences from all over town.

Modern communication has allowed work to invade our non-work hours to a degree never before possible. If one doesn't fall in line with the 24/7 workday you're replaced by someone who will.

Now, I don't think that's something for the State to get involved in, but it is heartening to see some companies reexamining their policies to regain the productivity lost even while hours-worked increased. Quality over quantity.

Loyalty going both ways produces a productive organization.

Gotta blame modern society and its throwing out the baby with the bathwater of proper behavior.

Patrick,

As far as "diversity" needing special rules, i.e. PC, I disagree. Regular old etiquette and proper behavior is color, and everything else, -blind. We don't need added policy manuals or new lists of forbidden words, just require that all people are treated with respect. Mentioning special "classes" in policy manuals does no good and in fact creates harm as it is, by definition, divisive.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

The purpose of a work place is to get work done. The notion that it exists to suppress or fulfill people isn't sensible. My experience is that good workplaces are where everyone remembers why they are really there -- the work.

One of the points in my original post was that many workplaces were ineffective at just that, getting actual work done. I wasn't concentrating as much on work as an arena for fulfillment -- although we spend so much of our lives doing it, it is perhaps not inappropriate to look to it for something beyond a paycheck.

I think that many problems are caused by the collapse of people's personal lives and the attempt to turn to turn to work places to fill the void. Related to this need for more personal contact is the increased informality in the work place. Casual dress is just part of the change. People getting too much into each others personal lives is part of it too.[/QUOTE}

The long hours demanded by many modern careers, business and otherwise, virtually ensure that people's primary social outlet will be the workplace itself. I don't think that's good, but that's where we're at.

I do prefer business formal dress codes, in part because they provide a visual line of demaracation between business life and private life.

I saw some references to workplaces in television and the movies. I wouldn't credit them. People who write, direct, produce, and act in the media usually have trivial work place experience -- and the little they do have is wildly unrepresentative.

Just intended as handy illustrations. I have some academic background in sociology, and I picked examples that seemed to me reflective of what was going on historically at the time.

I saw some really unhappy sounding reactions here to the workplace. That usually indicates to me that someone has ended up in a line of work that doesn't fit them. If you are really that unhappy in your work, you need to think really hard abound finding something else to do.

I would dispute this -- it may or may not be indicative of that. The line of work may be just fine; the specific workplace may not. It's really all on a case-by-case basis. I just wish I had more examples of functional workplaces to point to. Workplaces are frequently acknowledged as dysfunctional from inside the organizations, and considerable effort is often expended trying to "improve" them, but that effort often doesn't amount to much in the end. We don't seem to be good at making those improvements, although there is endless theorizing about how they should be made.

My pet suspicion is that we are just ahead of ourselves as a species. Our prehistoric biologic mechanisms, including our intellectual and emotional capacities, are really not aligned with the developments in our world since the Industrial Revolution. I suspect that many people are "depressed" because our bodies and brains are not designed for the lives we have to lead.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

As far as "diversity" needing special rules, i.e. PC, I disagree. Regular old etiquette and proper behavior is color, and everything else, -blind. We don't need added policy manuals or new lists of forbidden words, just require that all people are treated with respect. Mentioning special "classes" in policy manuals does no good and in fact creates harm as it is, by definition, divisive.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this. It is precisely because "diverse" individuals were not being treated with respect and "conforming" individuals were being privilieged in every conceivable way that the diversity industry came about. Left to their own devices, most power structures will simply tend to replicate the status quo.

 

[matei]

I work to live, not live to work, and setting out with this bias is going to make any workplace the less-than-ideal place for me.

That being said, if you can get on well with a colleague or two, it really makes the experience more bearable.

Here in the UK, while not the best, it is supportable. People don't seem hung up on the whole "political correctness" thing like they were in the US. I worked there for several years and it was bizarre.

Thankfully I don't work in a high-pressure environment (anything but). I can see however that the minions of HR are "pushing their agenda" to turn our rather calm oasis into HR/PC hell.

 

[Fletch]

As an aside, an issue that drives me particularly buggy is that my own manager speaks, to a greater extent than I have ever encountered before, in a non-stop barrage of corporate jargon and buzzwords. His speech is peppered a hundred times a day with the following sorts of phrases; he can scarcely get a sentence out without one.

"On a moving forward basis"
"We'll have that conversation"
"Re-set the relationship"
"At the end of the day"
"Mission critical"
"Give visibility to"
"Deliverables"
"Bandwidth"
"Pull the trigger"
"Value-added"
"Air it out"
"Reach out"
"Share best practices"

Etc, etc, etc. Listening to him spout this stuff is just painful. There's no thought behind any of it; it's a substitute for thought.

Execrable.

However, it's very little commented on that the military and police communities have their own jargon and buzzwords, and in organizations where dress and haircut codes are very well defined indeed, these are enforced even more strongly than those in corporate offices.

The general feeling it gives me is that those who volunteer to protect us are really very separate from us, whatever their families and ranch houses and backyard cookouts may look like.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I firmly believe that the entire purpose of "the workplace" is to utterly destroy any semblance of individuality that might be present in the worker. Look at the regimented and expected dress code, the absurd non-meritocratic hierarchies, and the social conditioning mentioned by many people above. Bosses want senseless clones. Bosses are power-hungry sociopaths whose only pleasure is in pushing people around, and seeing how much people will take in the name of the Dollar. The entire thinking is demonstrably wrong-headed but prevails. This is reflected in the rotten-ness of most workplaces.

Recognising that this is a problem - and, more to the point, that it can be better! - is the first sign that you have not been successfully assimilated. This is a good sign.

However, many people will staunchly defend the need for dress codes etc (respect for coworkers yada yada yada) while decrying the state of the workplace, not realising the inextricability of the two.

bk

Exactly my own perceptions and experience, ... almost everything that has been mentioned in this thread seems to be common knowledge to everyone. As this is obvious,...why would anyone that runs a business want to follow this all-to-familiar and odious pattern??? Are not the sociopathic bosses also former victims of the exact same sort of abuse?
It's upsetting to think that scraps of paper with pictures of presidents on them can have this effect on people. Makes me think that the majority of people lack the character to realize that we are all truly equals, and that having a few more scraps of paper than the next person does not make one a better person. :rage:

 

[Undertow]

Just to comment on the first post...

I was laid off last week, too. I'm going to take a shot at a better paying, likely less secure job next week.

I recall hearing someone on the radio, or perhaps on public television, commenting on how today's worker typically does not stay with a company for 30 or 40 years anymore. In fact, the reporter said, most people consider it quite common to leave an office after only 5 years. To finish, the reporter mourned the loss of the typical American Career, and also wept at the thought of our youth jumping from employer to employer until they finally retire with no social security or pensions.

As has been my experience, and to speak to some of this thread, corporations and non-profits are trying to make as much money as humanly possible - NOT to augment the American economy.

Simply put, I doubt your company, or any company around you, cares much how fulfilling your experience is at the workplace, how well you do your job or how reliable you are as an employee. They see numbers. If numbers aren't met, they hire a consultant who comes in and recommends cuts. After that, there's some doublespeak about needing more efficiency, etc. and you're gone before you know it (along with 8, 30 or 150 of your coworkers).

Unless there is some sort of drastic, massive shift in the way corporations do business, workplaces will only grow more insipid, "careers" will only grow shorter and the passive-agressive, greedy attitudes will only pervade.

But hey, I'm a pessimist.

 

[Paisley]

A workplace rots from the top down -- if management treats the staff like interchangeable serfs, nobody's going to be happy. I've been treated like a serf and I've been treated like a valued colleague, and there's no question what sort of workplace I prefer.

Exactly right. The tone comes from the top. I don't envy anyone who has to tell this to their superiors.

I've worked at about 20 different places, and my current employer is the best I've had. Here are some factors:

• Great leadership. Our partner in charge hires competent people and lets them do their jobs.
• We're slightly understaffed. It keeps everyone fairly busy, and we don't worry about layoffs.
• We're a profitable and growing company. We can afford to hire the best help available, we get good raises, have good benefits, and there's room to move up.
• Unproductive staff is let go pretty quickly. The usual method is to ask them to find another job, but people are occasionally just fired.
• We do good work and have a good reputation as a company. Our letterhead alone helps make our clients' problems go away. We also have conservative practices: no debt, no fast-and-loose accounting practices, and we're highly selective about our clientele. All of this is like having a moat around us.
• It's tough to recruit accountants. So, if we were to act like little tin gods toward staff, they'd leave. It's also tough to find good admin help. So, we also have to be treated well to stay on.

 

[Patrick Murtha]

Just to comment on the first post...

I was laid off last week, too. I'm going to take a shot at a better paying, likely less secure job next week.

I recall hearing someone on the radio, or perhaps on public television, commenting on how today's worker typically does not stay with a company for 30 or 40 years anymore. In fact, the reporter said, most people consider it quite common to leave an office after only 5 years. To finish, the reporter mourned the loss of the typical American Career, and also wept at the thought of our youth jumping from employer to employer until they finally retire with no social security or pensions.

As has been my experience, and to speak to some of this thread, corporations and non-profits are trying to make as much money as humanly possible - NOT to augment the American economy.

Simply put, I doubt your company, or any company around you, cares much how fulfilling your experience is at the workplace, how well you do your job or how reliable you are as an employee. They see numbers. If numbers aren't met, they hire a consultant who comes in and recommends cuts. After that, there's some doublespeak about needing more efficiency, etc. and you're gone before you know it (along with 8, 30 or 150 of your coworkers).

Unless there is some sort of drastic, massive shift in the way corporations do business, workplaces will only grow more insipid, "careers" will only grow shorter and the passive-agressive, greedy attitudes will only pervade.

But hey, I'm a pessimist.

I can't disagree with a word you say.

I'm wondering if the layoffs I'm starting to hear about are related to the recession-in-progress, which only means there'll be more of them ahead. I feel vulnerable myself. I just landed my current job in November, so I'm a new hire, and my position of its nature does not directly add to the bottom line.

Best of luck in the search, Undertow. Stay connected and let us know how you're doing.

 

[Feraud]

Some additional thoughts to ponder for the managers among us..

The Office: The Bad and the Ugly
by Leigh Buchanan
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
provided by

There's a reason Dilbert, The Office, and their ilk are so popular. Satire gets old fast, but the appeal of realism endures. And the real world, sadly, is full of lousy bosses. Someone ought to do a study on where these louts come from. Were they abused by their own bosses? Did they toss overboard the ballast of human kindness to hasten the ascent of their career balloons? Or is this an example of absolute power corrupting absolutely? Such research might also demonstrate how ubiquitous miserable managers are. The proliferation of boss-bashing screeds with titles like When You Work for a Bully, Nasty Bosses, and How To Work for an Idiot suggests a plague.


A few months ago I enumerated five ways in which bosses could be great. A bookend column about bad bosses would never fit in this space, because while goodness tends to be monochromatic, badness comes in every color of the rainbow. But bad bosses of all stripes evoke similar responses in employees; consequently, you can often tell that people hate you, even if you're not sure why.Inc. readers, of course, are all purebreds among top dogs. But on the off chance that a misfit manager stumbles across this page, here are seven signs that you are a bad boss:

1. The staff has developed guidelines for dealing with you and quietly passes them to new employees. "Never suggest that there might be another way of doing something," they might say. Or "Act self-deprecating so he doesn't feel threatened."

2. You have one or two fanatical acolytes. Yes, such devotion may be a testament to your fabulousness. But often when a boss is perceived as universally loathed, the staff opportunist offers herself up as sole confidante and friend, seeking power and favor at the expense of more honest, critical employees.

3. You never see people walk by. Employees would rather circumnavigate the entire office to get to the coffee machine or bathroom than take the shortcut past your door and risk being invited in.

4. Your 360-degree evaluations come back short and full of generically positive comments, with one very mild criticism ("Sometimes she works too damn hard for her own good") thrown in for credibility's sake.

5. People don't volunteer for your pet projects. The idea sucks, and they're afraid to tell you, or it's brilliant, but the consequences for letting you down are too terrible to imagine. And, of course, if it's your pet project, you'll probably work on it as well. Which means more time spent...gulp...with you.

6. You have legions of former employees, but they rarely give your name as a reference for new jobs. Either they don't trust you to give them their due, or they worry that because they were so miserable working for you, your recollections will also be dismal.

7. You have legions of former employees, period. If your staff falls away like linty Post-it notes, ask yourself: Is high turnover the problem? Or am I?

Copyrighted, Mansueto Ventures LLC. All rights reserved.

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/104318/The-Office-The-Bad-and-the-Ugly

 

[Paisley]

Great post, Feraud.

I think people tend to focus on lousy bosses, of which there are many, but if you're not getting along with your boss, you must consider the possibility that you aren't a stellar employee. It never hurts to check yourself.

Do you show up on time and get straight to work? Do you give your best effort? Do you avoid personal phone calls during working hours? Take the initiative? Avoid disturbing your coworkers? Make notes and look at them so you don't have to bother you boss or trainer every 10 minutes? Do you volunteer for your share of the lousy assignments? Do you make an effort to be pleasant? (BTW, all this applies to everyone, including managers, in the workplace.)

The biggest problem I've had is employees not following instructions. It's frustrating to tell someone the same thing ten times. If you have a new idea, that's fine--but first learn the procedures that are in place and then run the new idea by your boss.

 

[RetroBabydoll]

I notice so many problems at my job. I'm a receptionist and ever since I started more than half the people have quit. There is such a big turn around. I would leave if I could, but I need the job until I graduate beauty school. The closer to the top they get the more they look down on the other workers. There's so many people that go in and out of the office that pass by me and don't even glance over or say hi. I'm completely ignored and they don't realize how they are making me feel......like I'm nothing to them. If bosses are nice then the workers tend to be nice. I haven't been happy at any job I've been at because of the management and that's sad. I will still stick with a job for at least two years, but I dread every day I have to go.

Thank you for letting me rant.

 

[Paisley]

Hitchcock et al. had Higher Standards

Their behavior is a reflection on them, not on you.

I was just talking to my aunt in California last night, and she told me this story related to her by a Miss Williams, who spent her entire career in domestic service for Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock threw a big dinner for several Hollywood stars, and afterward asked each of his servants who had said thank you to them, and who hadn't. Hitchcock did not invite back anyone who didn't say thank you to his servants.

Emily Post, in her 1940 edition of Etiquette, remarked that a woman whose family had lived on the same estate since before the American revolution always said hello to her friends' servants--and so did nobility. People who treat those below them as inferiors are climbers.

 

[RetroBabydoll]

Their behavior is a reflection on them, not on you.

I was just talking to my aunt in California last night, and she told me this story related to her by a Miss Williams, who spent her entire career in domestic service for Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock threw a big dinner for several Hollywood stars, and afterward asked each of his servants who had said thank you to them, and who hadn't. Hitchcock did not invite back anyone who didn't say thank you to his servants.

Emily Post, in her 1940 edition of Etiquette, remarked that a woman whose family had lived on the same estate since before the American revolution always said hello to her friends' servants--and so did nobility. People who treat those below them as inferiors are climbers.

I never knew that about Hitchcock. He was an amazing person and that just shows he has great manners and valued it. I only wish people of today had manners and care for others. Makes me wish I was back in 1940.

 

[Lincsong]

I notice so many problems at my job. I'm a receptionist and ever since I started more than half the people have quit. There is such a big turn around. I would leave if I could, but I need the job until I graduate beauty school. The closer to the top they get the more they look down on the other workers. There's so many people that go in and out of the office that pass by me and don't even glance over or say hi. I'm completely ignored and they don't realize how they are making me feel......like I'm nothing to them. If bosses are nice then the workers tend to be nice. I haven't been happy at any job I've been at because of the management and that's sad. I will still stick with a job for at least two years, but I dread every day I have to go.

Thank you for letting me rant.

Is this a job site for the blind???? I would have assumed that you would be tired of so many guys talking to you and flirting all day. [huh] What's up with that???

 

[Twitch]

Ah, the workplace. In general it sucks and in specific cases it is a tragedy in that it dehumanizes the participants. Almost every job/employer I've had has either ended in the company going out of business, chapter something, being bought by another outfit, revamping or attempting to reinvent my job.

I've got going on jobs and say 2 years later it is 180 degrees different than what it was when I began. Adios. If you every hear your company is going chapter 11 or something but will reorganize and come back, bla-bla-bla, run like hell because they never come back and simply circle the drain as all involved become thrashed, cast aside and demoralized as they attempt the impossible.

Usually if your company is bought by another it's never good. The company will ultimately cease to exist with it's own identity and you'll be in alien surroundings or the new owner will atttempt to gain back his purchase outlay by increasing prices to the public while slashing payrolls and manpower.

Numerous times I've built up multi-million dollar sales in companies that couldn't ultimately handle the additional business leaving my customers in the lurch. And yes, I've specifically emphasized that before I get going the company could handle it. They all want business but so many just can't handle it. I've found many, in fact most, companies do business by accident. They are hapily in some default postition that guarantees them a share of whatever market they're in. They haven't arrived by skill and shrewd business ethics but by serendipity. A few places I've worked for still owe me money but that's dribble down the wall.

I've seen incompetence but more so I've seen criminal and immoral activities. Too many people are promoted far beyond their scant capabilities ending up the bosses of far more competent people. There are too many management game players who seek to control employees by virtue of the latest management style book making the rounds. And employees that push decent employers past the limits of tolerablability with sick Monday and Friday perpetually, come in late leave early and always some catastrophy in their lives that requires the other employees and the company to compensate for them by doing 120% effort.

Strip away the BS on both side and lets just work straight and honest.

I've actually seen employers that expected their employees to supply their own office supplies. Then there's employers that keep you on a string after you've built up their businesses literally to where they're buying Mercedes and larhe homes with statements like, "we're this close to success" meaning an increase for you. This often folowing the fact that you'd worked for nothing to jump start things and prove your abilities.

There are companies that are awash in paperwork which for the many bureaucratic types that revel in this atmosphere because they always have a written and tangible defence for doing nothing as they wave a sheaf of papers lamenting with Emmy grade acting, "look at all this I have to do."

And there's the antithesis company that has almost nothing in writing or document form, where everyone wings it and recalls verbal orders as they desire to have heard them.

You have companies with high turn over- a sign of deep problems. Or you have companies with long time employees. This doesn't mean all is hunky dory either. Some companies don't trim deadwood they just cruise on with zombie-like employees doing minimal amounts to get things done. But when the owner is a goof off too, well, there you go, he surrounds himself with the same living dead for years.

With my medical problems I haven't been able to work for the past 3 years, and the way it looks, for that many more till I'm nearly at retirement age. But I don't miss any of the horsecrap from work stress and game playing. For me work has sucked almost all the time.

I feel sorry for those of you who will have to labor for a-holes and goof ups for the next 40 years. It's like a prison sentence.