The introduction to Ben Carlson’s article “Why Are People Miserable At Work” is the perfect illustration in our times for how and why work is examined with religious devotion. Even the language that generally accompanies the inquiry, “What do you do for work?”, is optimistically suggestive, “what’s your passion”, “your drive”, “accomplishments”, “what do you earn“. There is so much we assume about vocations and the efforts we engage them with, our language seems to assume less about a person’s efforts without.

The question, “So, what do you do for work?”, is a sensible question we ask each other everyday. Reality for most of us in this age, means directing our awesome sensory probing vessels, which are all capable of abstract thought and tireless innovation, towards a stationary desk where we spend several hours of our day doing something that most of us are not excited about or challenged by. Something that for a lot of us, doesn’t really feel like work at all.

Regardless of our opinions of our vocations presently (different from work), positive or negative, it is quite fascinating that the edifice of capitalism has engaged the world so thoroughly. Within the scope of the above question, “What do you do for work?”, most of us exist between 8am and 5pm. When we answer “What do you do for a living?” most of us would detail our existence between 8am and 5pm. We detail this span of time, but for most of us, we know that time-span isn’t representative of our life or how we live.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

– Oscar Wilde

To exist is not to live, and articles like Carlson’s, Derek Thomson’s, and Epsilon Theory have pointed out the deficits and shortcomings of existing. Dissatisfaction with the mundane, unimportant yet essential tasks reflect how these same disaffected staff fear to view themselves, as mundane, unimportant and yet, essential. However, notwithstanding the mundane, being essential implies a mutual arrangement, right? Mutual would imply that each party would experience a loss by severing the relationship. As Nassim Taleb points out in his latest book, this arrangement from a loss perspective is not equivalent in most employee employer relationshits. Unless you’re a wolf in this environment of dogs:

“In the famous tale by Ahiqar, later picked up by Aesop (then again by La Fontaine), the dog boasts to the wolf all the contraptions of comfort and luxury he has, almost prompting the wolf to enlist. Until the wolf asks the dog about his collar and is terrified when he understands its use. “Of all your meals, I want nothing.” He ran away and is still running.

The question is: what would you like to be, a dog or a wolf?

The original Aramaic version had a wild ass, instead of a wolf, showing off his freedom. But the wild ass ends up eaten by the lion. Freedom entails risks-real skin in the game. Freedom is never free.”

– Skin in the Game, N. Taleb

Being a wolf means having the freedom to take or leave a job, it means less loss aversion on the side of the employee than the employer. In the example of the wild ass we learn that nature is scary. We learn that without servitude we could bring about our own destruction. And lets not forget as the dog explains, despite the collar, servitude has its perks.

Taleb brought to mind my own past conversations with colleagues regarding what they liked or disliked about their jobs, the results I received confirmed both the headliner and the tail-end of The Conference Board’s August 2018 survey results:

• The Conference Board is a non-advocacy, not-for-profit entity holding 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt status in the United States. www.conference-board.org

Conspicuously, pecuniary issues and a lack of professional development are paramount issues in employee dissatisfaction. Naturally, you cannot be paid more without professional development (presuming professional development results in skill sets that distinguish you from your colleagues). The survey also reveals the majority of workers satisfied with the people they work alongside. Having a vibrant social atmosphere are the seeds of possibility looking for soil to germinate, a contingent of workers ready and willing to communicate and collaborate towards simple solutions to difficult problems, to optimize, and to refine processes. Not taking advantage of this positive trend is a failure in corporate leadership. Paul Collier in his recent book The Future of Capitalism describes a possible end result of allowing the seeds of worker esteem and self-determination to sprout:

“The most respected company in Britain is no longer ICI; it is the John Lewis Partnership. This enduring and hugely successful firm has a highly unusual power structure. It is owned by a trust run in the interests of its workforce. Reflecting this, workers receive a substantial share of profits as an annual bonus. Moreover, what is sauce for the CEO goose is seen to be sauce for the shop assistant: the same percentage is paid to a shop-floor worker as to the CEO. All workers have a say in how the company is run through a series of local, regional and national councils, electing 80 per cent of the company’s governing council. John Lewis is an example of a mutual company, owned collectively by people with a direct interest in it, such as workers or customers, as opposed to shareholders.”

– The Future of Capitalism, Paul Collier

Consider this: A colleague approaches you bemoaning a conversation they had with a superior. It’s a conversation that I think has happened thousands of times between a skilled and ambitious employee and an unimaginative powerless middle-manager. The colleague details a conversation wherein they are reprimanded for a lack of enthusiasm in their role. The employee complains that they are not challenged in the role and they desire to learn more and make more of an impact. The manager replies that while the employee fulfills their duties, there is not enough money in the budget for a raise and they need to be more patient. The colleague then admits to the manager that due to the lack of opportunity, challenge, or potential for future growth, they are actively searching for a different role. The manager then responds, “Your generation just doesn’t understand loyalty and hard work. That’s the real problem.”

The conversation (particularly the concluding trope), even in its redundancy, is a remarkable setting of missed opportunity and condescending assumption. Collier points out in his short, yet topically vast book, the duty – if not for the very self-interest – of companies to foster an environment that permits and endorses employees to develop professionally everywhere they possibly can, and why not – the company would benefit. Additionally, a culture of ownership or self-determination has proven essential for staff esteem. Esteem is the revelation that what you do makes a difference, this realization is 90% of the battle in worker satisfaction, to understand they are appreciated for what they do, and understanding that what they do truly does mean something. Tapping into this understanding of the employee is the closest companies will ever get to having workers approach their occupation with the religious devotion that they pine for.

I’m not suggesting that this manager is representative of most managers, or that this employee is representative of most employees (willing to work hard and learn skills). I am saying dynamic companies that dominate market share and disrupt services with innovative solutions do not staff unimaginative managers or employees motivated purely by money. They also don’t have a culture of complacency with regards to their procedures. The world is lively, it’s exotic, it’s surprising and nimble, successful companies tend towards the same. When they don’t, they atrophy. Additionally, it is not surprising that without an opportunity for growth or new skills, employees will be looking externally when internal departments have abjectly failed at retention. Studies show that higher wages (or wage inflation) are not obtained by being more patient. Being that this is the reality of the markets (rewarding (millennial) employees for seeking higher pay with different employers), disenchanted middle-managers and companies complaining about the lack of loyalty in present day workers need to understand that loyalty is earned and they should consider how they go about earning said loyalty.

The era of the time card has many successes and failures. The successes tend to reveal more about the human condition than the failures, particularly because the successes are so few. Startup companies have tried to emulate these successes with beanbag chairs, table tennis breaks, flat screens televisions broadcasting at analyst desks and cafeterias with tubes dispensing cereals wrenched straight out of our nostalgia banks. But they are missing the point. People don’t want to be owned, comforted or entertained by their occupation, they want to own and be owned by their passions. Their time is sacred, no amount of entertainment or comfort in servitude can overcome that. Beanbag chairs and Birkenstocks wear is not the endgame, it’s not even in the ballpark.

Epsilon Theory explored the idea of work, fulfilling work, as opposed to occupational work. Some people are fortunate to do what they love, and money is never a primary motivation, in fact, they do what they love despite the impact it has on their funds. This kind of work is liberating, this kind of work is the only work that can provide true work-life balance, because it is life, and it just happens to be work to others too. Epsilon Theory describes this work as sacred, it might just be my Catholic upbringing, but I’m inclined to agree that it is, because it makes the time input worthwhile. 

Most of us may never be fortunate enough to really find the work/passion that excites, challenges and fulfills us. Those of us that do might not be bold enough to drop everything and attempt making a living at it.

Looking around the markets, at my colleagues, at the redundant complaints of the worker and middle manager, and the veteran workers worn down by years laboring in an unchanging environment,… I must insist that if you know what your passion is, I would try everything you can to attach a sacred portion of your everyday to it. Your time is ephemeral, it shouldn’t be spent doing something that you aren’t driven to do, that you don’t have a passion for, that you can’t measure as being gainful or an accomplishment on a private or public (if you prefer) level.

The religious devotion one fastens to their work and the output it produces are the stuff of museums and the accompanying wonder of pious witnesses. The secret satisfaction by the practitioner is not put on display, but it is present all the same. With all that said I pray that we all have a portion of our lives spent really working, that we can look back (or presently) and see the times we spent in this manner with pure satisfaction and without regret.