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.
Bad associations
You despise this activity, but it is the only thing that brings you money. If you never invested much into it, you may do good by quitting it. But maybe it is something you spent a lot of your time to get, and now your today's significant other told you it's nothing. Think of this tiny little thing. Suppose you achieve that new (approved) goal, and even start to enjoy the results and then your tomorrow's sighificant other will say something disappointing. Do you think there is enough ground to revise your values and achievements?
Sometimes people do perfectly well without any help from significal others when it comes to forming a bad opinion. Your understading of what is good or bad, pleasant and unpleasant, prestigious and humiliating, -- all that will influence how you feel at work. If your job is no up to your expectations, you are likely to be unhappy.
So, it may be neither you, not your job, but mismatch between your expectations, how realistic they are and what is available for you that causes those bad feelings.
Anxiety and underperfomance
The world is chaotic so how should one survive in an environment like this? This question comes only too close to the issue of calling and the meaning of life, because anxiety works a lot like a performance issue. To put it simply when your operating system overconsumes some resource, it is not bad in itself, it's just anxious.
When you are anxious you lose disproportionaly big amount of your personal resource. This, in turn, makes you get quickly tired, underperform, have no time for pleasurable activities, unable to concentrate or unable to do things with an enjoyably proper quality. This may turn your job into an irksome waste of time.
So, it may be not your personal weakness or your job being wrong for you. It's likely that the mechanics of your brain is a bit off at the moment (which by the way can be fixed).
The need for acceptance and threats to one's self-esteem
While any 'yes' gives you that warm feeling inside, every 'no' feels not that pleasant. Life proves and psychology explains that it is a natural human self-protective reaction (which is a scientific way to say that we in our air-conditioned offices didn't get too far from a cavemen's cave). Question is how much importance every little 'no' deserves and if there are ways to deal with it.
In my experience lots of disputable decisions are made just because threats to self-esteem outweigh other considerations. And in the context of a job you may be dissatisfied with your job not because the profession is wrong, but because what you are doing is not properly appreciated (or for some reasons you feel it that way). Or maybe your collegues challenge your self-worth this way or another. I don't want to sound too optimistic but if nothing helps chances are there is a better option somewhere else.
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.
Bad associations
You despise this activity, but it is the only thing that brings you money. If you never invested much into it, you may do good by quitting it. But maybe it is something you spent a lot of your time to get, and now your today's significant other told you it's nothing. Think of this tiny little thing. Suppose you achieve that new (approved) goal, and even start to enjoy the results and then your tomorrow's sighificant other will say something disappointing. Do you think there is enough ground to revise your values and achievements?
Sometimes people do perfectly well without any help from significal others when it comes to forming a bad opinion. Your understading of what is good or bad, pleasant and unpleasant, prestigious and humiliating, -- all that will influence how you feel at work. If your job is no up to your expectations, you are likely to be unhappy.
So, it may be neither you, not your job, but mismatch between your expectations, how realistic they are and what is available for you that causes those bad feelings.
Anxiety and underperfomance
The world is chaotic so how should one survive in an environment like this? This question comes only too close to the issue of calling and the meaning of life, because anxiety works a lot like a performance issue. To put it simply when your operating system overconsumes some resource, it is not bad in itself, it's just anxious.
When you are anxious you lose disproportionaly big amount of your personal resource. This, in turn, makes you get quickly tired, underperform, have no time for pleasurable activities, unable to concentrate or unable to do things with an enjoyably proper quality. This may turn your job into an irksome waste of time.
So, it may be not your personal weakness or your job being wrong for you. It's likely that the mechanics of your brain is a bit off at the moment (which by the way can be fixed).
The need for acceptance and threats to one's self-esteem
While any 'yes' gives you that warm feeling inside, every 'no' feels not that pleasant. Life proves and psychology explains that it is a natural human self-protective reaction (which is a scientific way to say that we in our air-conditioned offices didn't get too far from a cavemen's cave). Question is how much importance every little 'no' deserves and if there are ways to deal with it.
In my experience lots of disputable decisions are made just because threats to self-esteem outweigh other considerations. And in the context of a job you may be dissatisfied with your job not because the profession is wrong, but because what you are doing is not properly appreciated (or for some reasons you feel it that way). Or maybe your collegues challenge your self-worth this way or another. I don't want to sound too optimistic but if nothing helps chances are there is a better option somewhere else.
So, maybe it's not about wrong profession, but wrong employer. Just look for a better match.
Conflicts and the issue of self-worth
There is a multitude of articles and books urging us to face the fact that it all boils down to a lack of love (or to say it in a non-pathetic way warmth, acceptance and safety). While 'yes' adds to love, 'no' subtracts from it. When your personal love balance gets negative you go broke(n). Contemporary psychology in all its cynicism says this area is managed by the 'ancient brain' and that's why in certain circumstances 'no' may be treated as a special case of a life-threat.
If you feel unsafe at your job it may be not your job but something associated with it (or the way you see it). However it may also be important to remember that certain level of conflict may be toxic (and it is also up to you to define what's toxic) in which case I guess it is better to quit and not to let your job ruin you.
Influence of an extended family and a nuclear family
This one is my favorite and it probably deserves a separate post. Approach known as 'life-work balancing' (or 'home-work balancing') highlights a conflict between something you have to do and something you want to do (while any or both ideas may be skewed this way or another). To simlify this text I will not question the opposition between life and work but will concentrate on what we call life instead.
Life is non-work. Relaxation, fun, sleep, personal projects as a chance at soothing your creative urge, friends, family, you name it -- all these things traditionally are in opposition to the job. Again, in my opinion there is something fundamentally wrong about this opposition but the view is quite wide spread and popular. So, out of the long list I would like to pick the following two:
-- friends (aka your social network or your extended family) and
-- your family (aka nuclear family, your spouse and children or your parents in case you have no family of your own).
These people are usually of the top importance to a person even if that person doesn't fully realize that. And if these people cause you pain (or just make you uncomfortable too often) sometimes it is more convenient to blame something else than to disagree with your close connections. Sometimes (and I suspect 'sometimes' really stands for 'quite often') general unsatisfaction with life is rationalized as having a bad job. With time this may result in a loss of productivity, low incomes and becoming unhappy or even toxic personality.
But why suffer if the real reason lies somewhere else?
Psychological complications
Psychology has a lot to say on the subject of human behaviour and I will not repeat it. I will just say that if nothing works maybe it's time to seek professional help.
Conclusions
Of course there is such a thing as a bad job (meaning a job that is bad for you). You might have made a mistake choosing it or you might have been deceived by not so ethical people. After all, lack of trust in managers may not be such a bad thing after all (I must say it is kind of grounded). But to make a right decision it is important to realize how you stand and what your reality is, because your reality strongly depends on your perception of it.
And probably it is not that wise to separate your job from life after all. Job is an important part of a person's life and making it an enemy causes more problems that it solves. Unless of course you are rich or wise or can be happy no matter what goes on around you.
But it deserves yet another post.
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