A big part of why office work is so soul-sucking is because of the internal sacrifice you have to make to your individual personality.
Basically, you have to compromise who you are as a person to fit the benign, false-friendly unoffensive neutrality of the company's branding.
Since clearly the company's "personality" is just carefully curated marketing optics, it comes off as disingenuous and inauthentic. Then people sort of have to fit in those unnatural molds in exchange for the stability of working there.
Working in general sure might suck, but these structures aren't conducive either to making it suck less.
I know the feeling of being shackled to your chair as described-- either emotionally drained from mental energy needed to work or passive dread for not working enough. And even sitting for prolonged periods takes a toll of physical health too.
But many of these structures do little to change the environments, like offering employees autonomy or increased ownership over their roles. That in itself could certainly make menial or repetitive work feel less terrible.
And we saw during the pandemic just how unimportant 90% of the jobs out there are. They only exist like spinning plates to keep people busy and prop up the illusion of productivity in an economy that doesn't produce any actual commodities besides entertainment & fast casual food concepts. Labor could be free to be redirected into more worthwhile tasks, especially those that involve helping people.
In this economy, jobs like teachers or social workers are grossly underpaid and overworked, but rest on the "reward" of altruism. You'll get paid better without the reward of helping others but again at the expense of your "work" being isolating, unimportant, and a waste of time & resources for both you and everyone else.
This isn't a problem just in office work, but it's certainly a giant connutate where you can see the results pretty clearly. The looming existential worry manifests as helplessness against institutional machines that only exist to extract wealth through the most efficient ways possible.
I think it mostly has to do with the abstract alienated labor that often creates no socially necessary value, the grey cubicles & the forced 8-5 schedule
Office work would be much better if it was non-bullshit jobs and the workers were less alienated
A big part of why office work is so soul-sucking is because of the internal sacrifice you have to make to your individual personality.
Basically, you have to compromise who you are as a person to fit the benign, false-friendly unoffensive neutrality of the company's branding.
Since clearly the company's "personality" is just carefully curated marketing optics, it comes off as disingenuous and inauthentic. Then people sort of have to fit in those unnatural molds in exchange for the stability of working there.
deleted by creator
This is exactly where I'm at right now :agony-soviet:
Working in general sure might suck, but these structures aren't conducive either to making it suck less.
I know the feeling of being shackled to your chair as described-- either emotionally drained from mental energy needed to work or passive dread for not working enough. And even sitting for prolonged periods takes a toll of physical health too.
But many of these structures do little to change the environments, like offering employees autonomy or increased ownership over their roles. That in itself could certainly make menial or repetitive work feel less terrible.
And we saw during the pandemic just how unimportant 90% of the jobs out there are. They only exist like spinning plates to keep people busy and prop up the illusion of productivity in an economy that doesn't produce any actual commodities besides entertainment & fast casual food concepts. Labor could be free to be redirected into more worthwhile tasks, especially those that involve helping people.
In this economy, jobs like teachers or social workers are grossly underpaid and overworked, but rest on the "reward" of altruism. You'll get paid better without the reward of helping others but again at the expense of your "work" being isolating, unimportant, and a waste of time & resources for both you and everyone else.
This isn't a problem just in office work, but it's certainly a giant connutate where you can see the results pretty clearly. The looming existential worry manifests as helplessness against institutional machines that only exist to extract wealth through the most efficient ways possible.
deleted by creator
that and managers love to make people do pointless boring crap for no reason
deleted by creator
I think it mostly has to do with the abstract alienated labor that often creates no socially necessary value, the grey cubicles & the forced 8-5 schedule
Office work would be much better if it was non-bullshit jobs and the workers were less alienated
Well said