You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The modern day workplace.
Hard working men and women are quitting like under compensated rats jumping ship.
As they go, their comrades stand on deck of the sinking Titanic and wave.
“I’m trapped,” an older employee says.
His words are simple, his statement layered in complexity.
He means he is no longer a baby. He has years vested in the machine. He has skin in the game. He has a 401K and a salary and a wife and kids. The level of his income, though unacceptable to him, is probably double what a new applicant might make entering the office.
He’s not trapped, but in a way he is. He feels like his age, his tenure, his skill sets has locked him into this position for the rest of his life.
So like an indentured servant, the worker takes it. He takes the onslaught of boss demands. He accepts the long hours, the unrealistic expectations, the stress level of a cardiothoracic surgeon.
He simply says, “What can I do?”
That’s a good question. What can he do?
As he watches the old employees become new former-employees, it makes him wonder; could that be me?
The enthusiasm level of those leaving is palpable.
Months before leaving, these employees are oppressed, depressed and stressed. They are pale and thin and nervous. They are unhappy and disenchanted and generally dyspeptic.
He looks on the lunchroom wall at all the photos and he sees a smiling group of people who are drowning inside.
He says the current work place is suffocating him. The demands of an insensitive task master has made him a lab rat on too much caffeine?
The worker waving good bye from the deck of the sinking ship is conflicted, more agitated than a Baptist minister in a Vietnamese Cat House.
The going away party is festive. Everyone wishes the departing employees well. “man I wish I were you,” one man will say.
Is it really greener? Or are these ex employees just the newest disenchanted souls in their next organization?
When will their new jobs lose that new car smell, and just simply stink like most of the jobs in modern America?
Job Burn Out is real.
According to columnist, Travis Dommert, President of IRUNURUN “Burnout develops over time from accumulated stress, extended periods of overwork, or simply a general lack of effectiveness and productivity. Effort goes in, but results don’t come out.”
Dommert writes: For burnout to develop, some aspect of the results, rewards, recognition, or relief that follows the effort fails to meet expectations. As this gap continues, burnout grows. People become exhausted. Shame and doubt ensue. People become callous, and finally they begin to check out as failure and helplessness set in.
Dommert says there are several keys. Technology links us to the workplace 24/7 no matter where we are. Global competition has competing with everyone, everywhere, all the time. Workers are doing more for less.
Sounds about right doesn’t it?
The disgruntled man says “I haven’t had a raise since the Bush Administration. I asked for a raise once. You know what the boss told me. You do have a raise. We didn’t cut your salary like we cut everyone else’s.”
“We didn’t cut your salary.”
A white collar worker recently stated it costs $90,000 to replace one mid level manager in the consulting industry. When skilled workers leave a company, it costs everyone. This company realizes employees are the key to success and makes sure employees achieve a level of satisfaction from their jobs.
Not enough companies realize that the key to success is a work force that wants to work.
The new millennium mantra: Bend over. Take it. Shut up.
Goodbye American dream.
Is this all there is?
10 hours a day. 5 days a week. Always on, always connected. Expectations higher than a Sherpa on Mt. Everest?
Burnout? Apathy?
What’s the incentive? What’s the goal?
The American Dream has changed. Americans are frustrated.
The man just wants to get through the day without pulling out a scissor and cutting off his hair.
The goal? It seems to be less about productivity and more about getting to happy hour to anesthetize the angst with the other automatons of industry.
Shut Up and take it America.
Thank God It’s Friday
Life’s Crazy™