Threads like this make me glad I work in Sweden and not the US.
US work culture is a disaster.
At least in the past you could argue that the way we pulverized peoples' souls made us successful. Now it's just a competition for everyone to be as unaccountable for producing as little as possible.
I'd really like to hear more, particularly from XJ. I know that much of what's written or portrayed in media about "US work culture" is not consistent with my experience, so I'm always interested to hear what people think.
I know I'm seeing a backlash, and what I would consider a dumbing down. The two points you raise, Reapsta, are in my view connected. Not that every job has to be soul-pulverizing, that's an extreme, but I think the production, accountability, and culture are indelibly intertwined. Through my career, I have enjoyed my work, and (largely) the people I worked with, but unquestionably, it's taken effort, sacrifice, and hasn't been easy. Most of the tropes we read about - "find your passion!" and "work to live, don't live to work!" - really just the other side of the "Excuses" coin. My kid's passion is cars; he got a job with his favorite car company... and after 18 months of doing oil changes over and over for $16/hr for customers that didn't know a transmission from a transaxle, and he upped and joined the fucking Army. So much for "passion". For every Paul Stanley, or Kandy Kardashian, there are a 1,000 "my sons". I had a call Saturday afternoon with my legal team, in preparation for a trial we're going to start shortly. There wasn't really a choice; we had three depositions starting 9 am Monday, separately, and had to have everyone on the same page, at least with recollections and available information. There was no choice. One person decided to blow it off, because Saturday was "his day". So how do I keep the other four people, who were on at 7 pm on a Saturday at one point - engaged and feeling like they aren't being taken advantage of? No, the world won't end if that person doesn't join - the depos went on as planned - but conversely, the world isn't going to end if you lose one of your precious Saturday's and you support your team. But those people in the deposition room could have benefited from your insight and your participation. I ended up calling each of them Monday morning and giving a sort of "we're with you, you can do this, just remember our practice session" pep talk, and that WILL at some point come back to bite that person. I can't in good conscience say they gave all they had in a professional review when they made that decision.
- My personal work experience is in tech support and analytics. I know other people who work reasonably high-pressure corporate jobs and I know people who are in blue collar
- I agree in theory that a job where you're supposed to be productive and accountable is a job where you are happier. What I have seen in practice is the people who actually do the work being held very accountable and the people in charge not being held accountable. Because no one wants to lose their job, they have to go along with every little stupid thing. The cocktail of infantilization at the workplace, America's culture of slaving away, and cowardice at all levels produces this weird situation where everyone's walking the line of how many checks they can write that their asses can't catch. Big talk from management that is not followed-up on. Workers either slaving away under fear or knowing how to get away with the bare minimum. And this broad template seems to apply to every situation I hear about. Occasionally you see people who actually just go in and put in an honest day's work like a normal person, but that feels few and far between
- Agree that a real career requires sacrifice and that the various find your passion slogans are cope
- Your story I think reveals a major part of this whole discussion, which is the scope of your job and responsibilities. In your case, I completely agree with you and would have made time to be on that call. In my tech support days, I got to the point where I was one of the people that was called when things *seriously* went wrong. I know there are people who have worked longer/harder/more often on these situations than me, but I've had to do weekend/overnight work because certain systems were completely down. Never missed or refused a call
But even within that scope, there were problems. Because the other qualified people were laid off, I was in situations where I was fielding calls for issues that the average representative should have been able to handle. I took all those calls when they came, but afterwards there were repeated, unhappy discussions. I suppose this makes me not the best employee. I'm sure this happens in other first world countries, but my feeling is there's something about American work culture in particular where you throw on-call work to employees that's not really appropriate and there's no incentive for you to do anything better.
But still, frivolous calls aside, when you're in a role like that you have to be available at all times because whatever's going on is important and cannot wait.
But not every job is like this. In the analytics role I'm in now, we had some higher ups who would email on weekends/Holidays requesting stuff be looked at. I had left tech support for a reason and did not make myself available for these requests. There were other Analysts that did. They all got burnt out and quit. We do not get weekend/Holiday requests anymore. I see nothing about this that is objectionable. If you need a piece of data for a presentation on Monday, you should be responsible enough to ask for it beforehand. This is not an endorsement of clock watching. If you know something needs to be done for Thursday, you don't quit on Wednesday at five if it's not done. If someone's booked for meetings all day, you can do a call at 5:30 when they're actually available. But when you send me something on Friday at 2pm that requires me to work until 10pm, and it's for a presentation you knew you had to do for two weeks, it's disrespectful to me.
And this I think is the fundamental tension. Most people do not work jobs where they actually need to be available 24/7 or work 60 hours a week, but have to deal with and be judged by workaholics.
- Your comments about LinkedIn are all too true. For a professional networking site, it has the most pathetic and histrionic posts. Part of me thinks it's the hive mind of the American workforce collectively negotiating against corporate America by indirectly asking to be coddled more. Part of me thinks that corporate America did this to themselves by trying to brainwash people into thinking work is family instead of cultivating an intelligent and hardworking employee base.
- I think in terms of your comments on not letting your work be affected by your outside life, I just wish there was more of a line. There was one time where I needed to be able to drop everything at work and leave immediately to fill out a rental application (in demand complex for good reason). I told my manager about this ahead of time. Call came and I left. But I brought my laptop home with me to work afterward so it wasn't like "lol I'll just take a random half day here then."
Another way of looking at it is - There was a time where I viewed my job as the most important thing I did, and now I do not, and that drastically shifts your thinking toward everything you do at work. Having had conversations on both sides of that equation, I now know how annoying me now would probably find me from a couple years ago. That said, I still try to be reasonably professional.
Me as well; I embraced the GE mentality full on (and still do to a degree; it was harsh in some ways, but it was reality, as much as we want to deny it).
GE mentality?
Some of my views here still reflect that. It's interesting, because I've watched my boss grow (he's younger than me by about 10 years). He came from a BIG law firm (most of you know them even if you don't know them) and had that "you're MINE!" mentality. I've seen it soften over the 5 years I've worked for him. Kids and a health scare will do that to you. He's a lot closer to balance now and it so happens that we're on the same page more or less.
I think a lot of people either don't have these experiences or just disregard them and go into workaholic mode anyway.
You did it right, IMO. Do your thing but don't take advantage. I love that you didn't (seem to) feel "entitled" to take off because "insert lame-o reason". I've argued with my wife about this a bit; she comes from a blue collar family - nothing wrong with that, so did I - but it's easier to put the phone down when you're off when you're an electrician or mechanic. No car, there's nothing to work on. No electrical panel, there's nothing to work on. Mine is a profession of ideas, more or less, and I can - and have, by the way, more or less - bring value on a phone call while I'm riding the Dr. Seuss rides at Universal. If they don't get the answer from me, they WILL get it from somewhere.
I have been here before and ultimately did not find being in this position rewarding. Perhaps if it were a different job/line of work.
I'm watching this with my kids now. My oldest daughter got her first job and showed up five minutes late to a reaming from her boss (also the owner). She was all "fucking bitch, it was five minutes, get off my back". Now she's at a place in NC where she's not an owner, but they share revenue, and she's learning what it means to have expenses and have revenue, and she's all "I'm there 15 minutes before my shift, because I am not earning when I'm prepping my equipment, and those other ho's better be ready to work as well". Okay, my words, but still, the idea is there.
Yup.
My other daughter works at a Mexican chain restaurant that isn't Moe's or Taco Bell, and she's learned the hard way that people that wake up hungover and call in at the last minute impact everyone else.
Regardless of whatever else I think this kind of stuff is unacceptable.
Her tips go down when the line is short one worker. She's also recognized that if she leaves some time open, she can pick up extra shifts being the person that will come in at short notice when someone else calls out. As a result, while the region policy is if you don't work for three months you are purged from the system (essentially let go), she's been told "as long as you want to work here, you've got a job, we'll figure it out". It's not rocket science: work is not an entitlement.
Agreed and good on her.
- I sympathize with some of the people who don't want to turn in a two week's notice in person. It's a hard conversation, but that conversation turns into your manager trying to strategize how to handle your departure. It's not done just to put you through social pressure.
I never said I don't sympathize; this is a guy that, back in college, wouldn't walk into a classroom if the class already started, because I was so embarrassed. For me, the two hardest things in the world to do are to resign a job and break up with a girlfriend. I wouldn't break up with a girlfriend by email either. No one said it was easy; my point is only to say that we shouldn't expect the world to revolve around what we feel is "easy".
I think we agree on this.
But then to look at it the other way, the fact employees are expected to give two weeks and an employer can fire you instantly is wrong. I can see why you wouldn't want to keep a disgruntled employee around (have seen this play out due to a layoff), but then you should have to compensate them somehow (not everyone gets a severance). So maybe people not giving two weeks/resigning over email is a justified response to American business only expecting courtesy in firing/quitting to go one way.
In concept, I agree, but this is a case where the general and the specific don't line up. Because the system might be skewed in certain circumstances doesn't make any one individual case justified. That the State of California fucked up the evidence in the OJ case doesn't mean I can destroy evidence in MY case. We're also talking about the interface of the individual to the collective; the company is NOT a person in this context, and it's not as if there aren't other repercussions to the company. The fired employee can always raise awareness about how a company handles it's employment practices. How many people to this day know the name "Neutron Jack"? And finally, how the company handles other severances isn't my business; I'm not privy to all the facts necessary to make that determination fairly, so I can only go on what I know. FOR ME, I have hard evidence that how one does things matters, and that the easy way isn't always the best way. There are no laws; if you give two weeks, two days, or two minutes notice, it's on you as long as you can bear the consequences.
I have never quite a job without notice and would not do so. I find providing professional courtesy to be important. But if everyone thinks and acts as I do, then how does anything change?
Topic: Is there a proper way to quit a job? (Read 7064 times)
