Work and What I Wish I Had Known 13 Years Ago

 I let my curiosity roam when I saw my ZDNet update showed the title 'Quiet quitting' has nothing to do with lazy employees. It's about rejecting broken work culture. The following reminded me so much of my days of practicing law when I felt like a hamster on a wheel, never getting anywhere but unable to stop going as fast as possible, which contributed to my depression which fed my self-destructive behaviors:

 Recognizing the harmful mentality behind hustle culture should be applauded. Subscribing to the idea that our commitment to work is somehow a reflection of our moral standing and self-worth is not healthy or sustainable, and will only add to the issues of burnout, stress and employee disengagement that already plague the workforce.

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Hustle culture is a relic of pre-pandemic practices, and the embodiment of much of what is wrong with today's work mentality. By implying that a rejection of hustle culture is a form of quitting, we're laying the fault at the feet of workers, rather than bad workplaces and the nature of work itself.

Employees are already dogged by burnout, stress and presenteeism, often as a consequence of our modern, always-on work culture. Technology has made our lives easier in many ways, but it's also made work more pervasive and harder to disconnect from at the end of the day. Likewise, while broadband, software and mobile devices have made us more productive and efficient as workers, few of these innovations have significantly eased our workloads -- we're simply fitting more work into the same eight-hour window, and becoming more distracted in the meantime.

I grew up thinking you are what you do, and how well you do your job determines what kind of person you are. It is easy to go very wrong with both sides of that proposition. Maybe not as wrong as I went, but also far worse. I thought the only way out was suicide.

sch 8/29/22