Getting depressed about work
I think most of us have, at times, felt a bit depressed about our jobs. Even a great match between you and a job can get stale or seem like it's going nowhere fast.
This depression, I would like to suggest, arises from unmet expectations coupled with outright disappointment. To put it bluntly, we of the educated populace expect too much of work.
Why work?
Current theories about finding your passion and loving your job can make us feel pressured to hold out for the perfect job, the one that will unite our deepest purpose and values with work that's socially meaningful and responsible. These theories persuade us that work can fulfill us as human beings.
Wow! Fulfillment plus money to live on. Who would argue with that?
So finding a job becomes a quest, the life-changing pursuit of the absolute ideal job that will make us happy and well-off (or at least solvent) financially.
No pressure there, folks!
Who benefits?
This is the "follow-the-money-trail" question.
When the idea of loving your work emerged in the 1980s with books like Do What You Love, the Money will Follow by Marsha Sinetar, people got excited. Work didn't have to be drudgery--you could love what you do and never work a day in your life. Who benefited? You, the employee.
But corporate America, ever eager to maximize profits, soon latched on to this idea for a more sinister purpose. As companies downsized and laid off workers,the remaining employees took on more and more of the left-over work. The reasonable thing to do would be to pay them more, but someone had a better idea--convince them that it was a privilege to work in such splendid companies! Make them love their work! Who benefited? The employer.
Love your job (and that's an order!)
Tee-shirts, corporate retreats (remember ropes courses?), Employee Assistance Programs to deal with burnout, open-door policies, Casual Fridays, donuts--all of these "perks" were ways to show the love to employees.
Underneath the bonhomie, however, was the message: if you don't love your amazing job, someone else will.
So overworked, underpaid employees had a new job: to look happy and document their relentless productivity. Work hard, smile a lot, and hope no one fires you for not loving your job enough.
The clash
Here is the heart of the problem:
When you combine the employer's choice to exploit the profit-maximizing idea of loving your job with the employee's natural desire to at least not hate working, you get a conflict that will surface as disappointment, boredom, and depression for you, the employee.
You have been advised to find a job you can love, so that every day at work is the ultimate chance to live out your innermost goals and use your talents to the fullest. As a bonus, your work will be socially responsible, challenging enough to keep you engaged, and well-paid.
Your employer is in full agreement with this advice, as happy employees don't complain, are docile and flexible, and are not likely to demand better pay or working conditions. They wear their tee-shirts with pride.
So what do you do when you find your job is not perfect? That parts of it are mind-numbingly dull, or ethically questionable, or just not worth doing?
After all, you chose this job. You did your homework to get through the interviews to get it, and you told everyone how very eager you were to do it (and how very grateful you were to get the chance to do it).
The solution
It's plain to me that we have come to expect too much from work. In the same way that romantic partners expect total bliss between two fragile humans and are disappointed when the bliss fades, hoping that your job will make you happy is asking for disappointment.
Maybe it's time to reframe our idea of work. Maybe our job is not the place to look for meaning in life. Maybe a job is primarily a way to be part of society by contributing something that is needed enough that we get paid to do it, but the job is not our end-all and be-all.
Maybe we could avoid getting depressed about work if we saw it for what it is--just one part of life, Do you really want to invest all your personal energy and talent at work? Or could you get a job to pay the bills and have a rich inner life that you express in some entirely different way? The choice is yours.
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| Contemplative squirrel |
Why work?
Current theories about finding your passion and loving your job can make us feel pressured to hold out for the perfect job, the one that will unite our deepest purpose and values with work that's socially meaningful and responsible. These theories persuade us that work can fulfill us as human beings.
Wow! Fulfillment plus money to live on. Who would argue with that?
So finding a job becomes a quest, the life-changing pursuit of the absolute ideal job that will make us happy and well-off (or at least solvent) financially.
No pressure there, folks!
Who benefits?
This is the "follow-the-money-trail" question.
When the idea of loving your work emerged in the 1980s with books like Do What You Love, the Money will Follow by Marsha Sinetar, people got excited. Work didn't have to be drudgery--you could love what you do and never work a day in your life. Who benefited? You, the employee.
But corporate America, ever eager to maximize profits, soon latched on to this idea for a more sinister purpose. As companies downsized and laid off workers,the remaining employees took on more and more of the left-over work. The reasonable thing to do would be to pay them more, but someone had a better idea--convince them that it was a privilege to work in such splendid companies! Make them love their work! Who benefited? The employer.
Love your job (and that's an order!)
Tee-shirts, corporate retreats (remember ropes courses?), Employee Assistance Programs to deal with burnout, open-door policies, Casual Fridays, donuts--all of these "perks" were ways to show the love to employees.
So overworked, underpaid employees had a new job: to look happy and document their relentless productivity. Work hard, smile a lot, and hope no one fires you for not loving your job enough.
The clash
Here is the heart of the problem:
When you combine the employer's choice to exploit the profit-maximizing idea of loving your job with the employee's natural desire to at least not hate working, you get a conflict that will surface as disappointment, boredom, and depression for you, the employee.
You have been advised to find a job you can love, so that every day at work is the ultimate chance to live out your innermost goals and use your talents to the fullest. As a bonus, your work will be socially responsible, challenging enough to keep you engaged, and well-paid.
Your employer is in full agreement with this advice, as happy employees don't complain, are docile and flexible, and are not likely to demand better pay or working conditions. They wear their tee-shirts with pride.
After all, you chose this job. You did your homework to get through the interviews to get it, and you told everyone how very eager you were to do it (and how very grateful you were to get the chance to do it).
The solution
It's plain to me that we have come to expect too much from work. In the same way that romantic partners expect total bliss between two fragile humans and are disappointed when the bliss fades, hoping that your job will make you happy is asking for disappointment.
Maybe it's time to reframe our idea of work. Maybe our job is not the place to look for meaning in life. Maybe a job is primarily a way to be part of society by contributing something that is needed enough that we get paid to do it, but the job is not our end-all and be-all.
Maybe we could avoid getting depressed about work if we saw it for what it is--just one part of life, Do you really want to invest all your personal energy and talent at work? Or could you get a job to pay the bills and have a rich inner life that you express in some entirely different way? The choice is yours.
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