Friday, September 16, 2016

Are you sure it's your job that you hate

It is important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem
Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy, the movie

Years of employment kind of proved that one's attitude to their job is not necessarily connected with an objective quality of that job. After working for many years as an employee myself, and after talking to the other employees, I was surprised to discover that the job is almost never an evil in itself, but is often treated as an underdog that can't say anything in it's defense

Probably it is so because its advocates are managers, and who trusts managers? Right. Even managers don't trust managers. (Seriousely though, managers are not bad because they are managers, this problem of trust comes from the difference of understanding and a long history of miscommunication that exists between different social groups).

This is not an article on phychology (and I'm not a professional psychologist), but being familiar with such notions as psychological defences and rationalization as a special case of it may be of help. To say it plainly, these defences came to life with the best of intentions, and as many other originally good things got a bit rogue in a course of time. And, in attempt to keep you safe, integral and unfamiliar with pain, they may slightly distort your view of yourself, your priorities and your life. Thus preventing you from being able to get to the root cause and fix it, and hurting you on the way.

So here are some of my favorite job-related biases and the reasons behind them as I see it.