The inconvenient truth behind the Great Resignation: Modern day slavery

Are you ready to hear it?

Modern day slavery is not about the enslavement of the physical body but about the enslavement of the mind, or of thought to be more precise. Organizations tend to recruit us for critical thinking skills. But when we become part of the organizations, we are suddenly required to dismiss our heard-earned skills of critical thinking and critical inquiry. We’re required to become “yes” people who say “amazing!” to everything the management and leadership comes up with, whether we like it or not, or whether it makes sense or not. The moment you question things, you are considered to not be a team player.

When I moved to the US in the year 2000 as an international student from post-soviet Poland to pursue my graduate degree in business administration at the University of Central Florida, one of the most inspiring aspects of my US education was how it was based in critical thinking, not memorization like in my old country. Working with Harvard Business Review cases was extremely challenging for me because I was taught there were no right or wrong answers, but there were better or worse ones. I was pushed way out of my comfort zone to think as a potential future business analyst that I wasn’t yet.

This way of learning was completely new to me, and it was probably one of my most formative experiences of my adult life. I failed my first few exams because I wasn’t used to thinking critically in my previous education in Poland. I didn’t know how to go about case analyses. I didn’t know how to think for myself without blindly following my professors’ authority. But with the patient guidance of some of my most amazing professors, I eventually mastered the skills of critical thinking and critical inquiry. When I graduated with MBA degree (with 3.86 GPA despite poor English), I felt I was ready to conquer, and hopefully influence, the world of business and work.

How surprised I was in my first job after graduation when during one team meeting, I questioned some of the processes that were proposed by the leadership. To my total astonishment, after the meeting, I was called into my supervisor’s office and confronted for not being a team player and “enthusiastic supporter” of the organization’s vision and mission. I was stunned. I tried to explain that my inquiry was meant for us to see the potential blind spots and pitfalls of the proposed solution. But I was abruptly shut off by a comment that if I didn’t like how things were done, I could leave. Sounds familiar to any of you?

After that, I had countless such situations. Eventually, and over time, I learned to tone down my critical inquiry or keep it to myself or for off-the-record one-on-one meetings with a few close and trusted coworkers. But I never really came to terms with the fact that as a highly educated and experienced employee I’m required to give in (or else). And this one fact has always been my major source of burnout in each job. I can work hard, very hard; in the end, I’m a career-identified workaholic. But I can’t have my brain turned into a marshmallow only because leadership is unable to handle critical thinking. So what was the point of my MBA education then? Was it just a wasted time?

Thomas Merton, the famous Trappist monk, ingenious philosopher, and prolific writer, once wrote:

“Business are, in reality, quasi-religious sects. When you go to work in one, you embrace a new faith. And if they are really big businesses, you progress from faith to a kind of mystique. Belief in the product, preaching the product, in the end the product becomes the focus of a transcendental experience. Through the “product,” one communes with the vast forces of life, nature, and history that are expressed through business. Why not face it? Advertising treats all products with the reverence and the seriousness due to sacraments.”

In essence, all organizations and businesses are forms of cults, where unconditional loyalty, suspension of critical thinking, and reverence for leaders are required attitudes to be accepted and retained within the group. If you don’t buy into those attitudes, you’re ostracized by either being let go of, pushed over, or abused (overtly or covertly). And that’s exactly what cults or sects do to their members. The underlined messages is: you’re either with us or against us.

But groups and societies go through the same developmental stages as individuals. We mature and reach moments of awakening or enlightenment similarly. And what the Great Resignation is showing us is that people all over the world are waking up to the reality that they have been working for quasi-religious sects and they have been treated like cult members, not fully-developed and critically-thinking adults. And people have had enough of pretending, saying “yes” even when they disagree, smiling and nodding even if their stomachs churn from the foolishness they see or hear, and revering managers who lack leadership skills.

We have had enough, and that’s why we’re quitting in large numbers, including me. Media organizations have been conducting “studies” as to why people are quitting. They come up with several hypotheses that, even though contain a grain of truth, are incomplete in their depth of analysis simply because of how the surveys are structured (testing error). They suggest that people leave because they don’t want to go back to the office, which is partially true and the proof of my point. If leaders were open-minded, listened to their employees, and paid attention to the trends, this would not have been an issue. We proved for the last two years that we can work from home and it’s much cheaper anyway.

Some other studies suggest that people leave because they decided to use their tech stock market investment savings to take a break. I’m sorry but I don’t know many people in the so-called middle class who have that kind of disposable income or savings. If they do have any investments in the stock market, they keep them for their uncertain retirement. So that theory is a myth unless we are looking at the top of the food chain. In any case, this is not representative of the majority of working-class people.

Another theory is that mothers have hart time going back to work after the pandemic. Precisely my point: if leadership paid attention to the needs of their employees beyond just the needs of their business, they’ll invest in systems that would allow parents and caretakers to have better work-life balance. They would treat their employees like humans with unique needs and full lives beyond work, not like cult members required to slave away for the benefit of the business. Happy people bring better results, but that fact has consistently been overlooked in businesses. It’s the inconvenient truth.

My experience lately was that during the pandemic, when we were all stretched thin psychologically, mentally and spiritually, when we all felt like we could not go on, my company for example decided to change ALL its processes. Right there and then and in a hysterical and frantic manner. So when people were barely able to cope, now they were given extra (poorly-thought-out) projects to complete in unreasonable time frames, whether they were moms of three small children being homeschooled or whether they were coping with the long-term effects of Covid illness. But hey, they sent us boxes of individually-plastic-wrapped highly-processed and toxic food-colored snacks as a consolation price because my manger thought it was a brilliant idea. And the worst part was that we were REQUIRED to send a thank-you notes to the top leader for it. Try to say YES to that without having your brain twisted in a pretzel.

So what’s the solution? I think the only viable answer is entrepreneurship and going solo. In the past, entrepreneurship was a way to build a new country or economy. This time, entrepreneurship is a response to the abuse companies inflict on their employees. It’s a REVOLUTION. Besides entrepreneurship, people are willing to work for less to have more freedom, or do gig or part-time jobs like me, or work on assignment-based type contracts, which I’ll be undertaking soon.

We no longer want to be enslaved by employers who think they are all-powerful only because they pay us salary and some benefits. Employers who think they own us (our minds). People are saying “enough!” just like they said during the French Revolution. I think a new form of democracy and economy is about to emerge. And we Great Resigners are the culprit of that change. So, if you’re one of us, I’m prod of you! The world needs you.