Introduction to The Trouble with Work

Work is dead. Long live work.

It was October 2019, and I lay on my couch in Brasilia, Brazil. My stomach twisted in knots. I hadn’t slept well in a couple of weeks. My teeth ground together. I had a phone call with my employer that I didn’t want to have.

I’d felt too ill for the previous two weeks to do any work. Since returning from Boston, I’d felt the mistake like a warm hand around my throat, choking the life out of me. I wanted to cry. I wanted to go back a few months and take back the resignation from my previous job. Could it all go back to what it was like before?

I’d ignored the signals, all the warning signs that something was wrong with this organization. My boss was a friend. Or she claimed to be someone I’d known for more than ten years, who had recruited me to take over an organization. But the organization was in shambles, and she was what one might call a terrible boss.

She hadn’t bothered to manage the organization’s financial well-being, resulting in unpaid debts and a QuickBooks disaster; she had forced out previous leaders, destroyed goodwill among potential allies, and scolded those inside the organization when they didn’t do things precisely her way.

And now, I could barely speak to her. The phone rang once, then twice. I finally picked up. There was work to discuss. We exchanged pleasantries. My friend and colleague jumped on the call. He and I were close, and he knew how much pain I felt. He’d gone through similar horrible experiences with her and had almost quit several times.

We had to prepare for the annual meeting. There were speakers to recruit and events to plan. I spoke with my eyes closed, able to get out a yes here and a no there. I don’t know what words she said. Or rather, I can’t recall them now. For the previous two weeks, I’d held everything back, kept it inside so that I wouldn’t have to face the reality that I couldn’t do this anymore; I couldn’t do this job that seemed like a dream because the truth was so awful that it was making me physically ill.

And whatever those words were, whatever she said, in that mocking tone, to put me in my place, well, that was it. I didn’t have to think; I didn’t need to consider what I was doing. I’d hit my limit.

I hung up.

For a few moments, I sat, stunned, feeling the warmth of the apartment and the sweat under my arms. Children played outside in the sun, their voices bouncing off the apartment buildings on our block. The wall I’d built, holding in all my emotions over the previous weeks, crumbled.

I had done it. I had reached my limit.

I didn’t utter the words “I quit.” But that was just the next step. I talked to my wife, told her what I would do, gave my mother a heads up, and sent an email off to my boss telling her I was quitting, effective immediately.

I’ve been suffering greatly for the last three years after leaving what I believed would be my dream job before I took it. It was painful, and the aftermath professionally and emotionally disastrous. I had everything and then lost it. I’ve had to dig my way out of a deep emotional hole. Alone with my thoughts, I questioned every decision I’d ever made, wondering what had brought me to this low point.

This is an extreme example of my labor experiences. I don’t want to suggest that after being in the working world for more than 25 years that it’s all been this awful (and I want to say here that the actual work itself sometimes needs to be separated from the organization in which one works).

But I have never outright loved any job I’ve had. I’ve had plenty of decent work, some of which made a difference in the world. But in general, I’ve found deep flaws in my work life that have left me dissatisfied.

I’m not alone. Generally, people don’t like the work they do.

The most recent Gallup collection of work data summarizes the global sentiment quite well:

Gallup finds 60% of people are emotionally detached at work and 19% are miserable.

But is that a surprise, or a statistical explanation of the obvious?

The idea that “work sucks” is everywhere. It’s been the subject of ancient philosophers, world leaders, your colleagues and even pop culture. Comedian George Carlin once quipped, “Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.

Gallup opines that perhaps the modern workplace is a hell-scape:

The pain from work has caused leaders to invent new ways to get as far from work as possible. Movements to attain “work-life balance,” implement four-day workweeks and expand remote work are now everywhere. But it’s not just the hours, imbalance or location that leave workers unhappy. It’s what’s happening at work that makes them miserable.

Employers can’t understand why the people who work for them don’t like them and don’t care about the work they’re doing.

Gallup continues:

Even if your boss can’t call or email you after 5 p.m., you probably haven’t recovered from the berating he gave you earlier in the day. It’s almost impossible to leave that kind of emotional baggage at work. In a Gallup study in Germany, 51% of actively disengaged workers said job stress caused them to behave poorly with loved ones.

So, what makes a bad job?

In one of the largest studies of burnout, Gallup found the biggest source was “unfair treatment at work.” That was followed by an unmanageable workload, unclear communication from managers, lack of manager support and unreasonable time pressure.

Those five causes have one thing in common: your boss. Get a bad one and you are almost guaranteed to hate your job.

Work is a life suck. After sleeping, it’s what we spend most of our lives doing. And yet, for most people, it holds no meaning. We detach ourselves from reality, hoping the time spent will give us the money to “live a good life” and gain respect amongst our communities.

More from Gallup:

Do employees find their work meaningful and rewarding? Do they think their lives are going well? Do they feel hopeful about the future? The short answer is that most employees around the world would answer “no” to all three questions.

I feel the results of this Gallup poll deep in my bones. Work has taken an enormous psychological toll on me and others.

I’ve asked myself many questions over the years:

Is there something wrong with me? Aren’t I supposed to have bought into our modern work world? Why have I been so dissatisfied with my professional life? Shouldn’t I have more patience in bad situations?

This publication is an exploration of the shadows of work culture and history. How did we get to be this way, and how can we improve?

I don’t promise answers. I don’t give advice. I’m not here to blame anyone. I’ve made my own choices, and I must live with them.

We can only create change in the working world if we understand what we are trying to change and what we are trying to achieve. I can’t do that alone, and neither can you. We are in this together, and it’s only with each other that we can overcome generational paradigms that stifle creativity and emotionally drain us.

I’ll start with what I know: my experiences, from the first work until the most recent. I’ll outline the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Interspersed with these experiences, I’ll try to look at work more broadly, analyzing the study of human’s relationship with work throughout the years.

But this is just a start. More than anything, I want to explore how other people experience their working lives. Whether they love what they do, hate what they do, or are mainly ambivalent, I want to understand how people view their work and its relationship to their self-image.