Tell me, do you hate it when you're prevented from doing your job “properly”? Are the thinkers of suffering at work right?
Let’s analyze all of that very briefly, for a change.
This idea is deeply rooted in psychosocial risks, psychological discourse, and prevention frameworks.
Why?
Because we are supposedly suffering because we want to do quality work, but the system, the processes, or the boss prevent us from doing so.
Give it a little more time, and burnout is lurking around the corner.
It is a very beautiful theory.
It just has one small flaw: it assumes that human beings naturally like to work, whatever the actual object of the work may be.
It also assumes that you chose the TASK you are now expected to perfect.
And, incidentally, that you consciously chose your profession and your current position.
It also assumes that you would not rather be doing something else.
And as a result, it renders invisible all the identity-based levers of orchestrated engagement driven by competition and social or systemic visibility, all designed to push us to work hard, build a great career, and become top-tier little achievers.
If we accept that such levers exist, then suffering no longer comes only from prevented work.
It comes from everything that keeps you going inside what is fundamentally unsustainable, including choices that were never really yours.
This theory does not think upstream.
It does not think about educational guidance, blocked life choices, and two hundred other things that should be taken into account, all of which explain how people end up in positions they force themselves to like even though they never originally meant to sign up for that.
How can people claim, and convince themselves, that they are thinking about reality while missing something this massive?
Apparently, we would all love to jump out of bed at 7 a.m., bursting with life force, eager to go do amazing work.
From the moment we wake up, our vital breath would guide us: we check our emails, shove down a slice of toast, rush into the subway, and head off to fill in Excel spreadsheets or optimize logistics flows out of pure creative impulse.
Prevented work for the employee?
Gen Z is increasingly turning to “boring jobs” just to make a living.
Proof from reality that the concept of prevented work does not begin at the root of the problem.
I’ll break that down in my next post.
When even science and its thinkers start dreaming reality instead of describing it, that goes a long way toward explaining the current drift.
And what about prevention, with its ready-made anti-burnout tests slapped onto everything?
Even Maslach, the high priestess who worked on the subject for forty years at Berkeley and built the MBI, ended up admitting failure in both conceptualization and prevention.
If she didn’t come up with a real solution, then what exactly should we make of the rest?
If I can find one freely accessible, I think my next post will be a thorough critique of it.
Think about it...
This idea is deeply rooted in psychosocial risks, psychological discourse, and prevention frameworks.
Why?
Because we are supposedly suffering because we want to do quality work, but the system, the processes, or the boss prevent us from doing so.
Give it a little more time, and burnout is lurking around the corner.
It is a very beautiful theory.
It just has one small flaw: it assumes that human beings naturally like to work, whatever the actual object of the work may be.
It also assumes that you chose the TASK you are now expected to perfect.
And, incidentally, that you consciously chose your profession and your current position.
It also assumes that you would not rather be doing something else.
And as a result, it renders invisible all the identity-based levers of orchestrated engagement driven by competition and social or systemic visibility, all designed to push us to work hard, build a great career, and become top-tier little achievers.
If we accept that such levers exist, then suffering no longer comes only from prevented work.
It comes from everything that keeps you going inside what is fundamentally unsustainable, including choices that were never really yours.
This theory does not think upstream.
It does not think about educational guidance, blocked life choices, and two hundred other things that should be taken into account, all of which explain how people end up in positions they force themselves to like even though they never originally meant to sign up for that.
How can people claim, and convince themselves, that they are thinking about reality while missing something this massive?
Apparently, we would all love to jump out of bed at 7 a.m., bursting with life force, eager to go do amazing work.
From the moment we wake up, our vital breath would guide us: we check our emails, shove down a slice of toast, rush into the subway, and head off to fill in Excel spreadsheets or optimize logistics flows out of pure creative impulse.
Prevented work for the employee?
Gen Z is increasingly turning to “boring jobs” just to make a living.
Proof from reality that the concept of prevented work does not begin at the root of the problem.
I’ll break that down in my next post.
When even science and its thinkers start dreaming reality instead of describing it, that goes a long way toward explaining the current drift.
And what about prevention, with its ready-made anti-burnout tests slapped onto everything?
Even Maslach, the high priestess who worked on the subject for forty years at Berkeley and built the MBI, ended up admitting failure in both conceptualization and prevention.
If she didn’t come up with a real solution, then what exactly should we make of the rest?
If I can find one freely accessible, I think my next post will be a thorough critique of it.
Think about it...
