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Throughout my years of working, along with reading and hearing about the experiences of others, I recognize a recurring theme. The workplace isn't an environment where we go to exchange our services/ability to produce goods anymore. Instead, it's now a place where people go to fulfill their social, personal, and emotional needs. I think this is a huge mistake we're all paying dearly for now.
I understand a lot of business processes went through which happened well before I was even born and some may have happened while I was very young. I'm not aware of it all, but I can recognize their role in the formation, structure, and function of a business. To me, it's not something we can readily change. A few posters have talked about how the consolidation of businesses in the 80's was a major contribution to these changes.
However, I think one of the mistakes people make about the work environment is thinking they can derive fulfillment. I'm not talking career aspirations, but the need to feel acknowledged as a person and have something of value. A lot of people end up placing other aspects of their life on hold to get to the top and prove themselves at work. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying giving your best at your job isn't good. What I'm saying is perhaps people are giving their workplace too much, or are expecting too much.
The workplace seems to be a place where people are expected to participate more on a social level than of practicality, production, and professionalism. IMO, this is a mistake as it's caused people to alter their behavior causing them to seek out the workplace to meet their needs, instead of relying on community, family, romantic relationships, personal development, etc. When people limit themselves to the expectation one place can meet their needs, they're more willing to do more to get what they want or need at the expense of others.
Now that it's become more of a social scene, it's allowed people to approach working together very differently. Just reading this thread, I can count how many people report supervisors who seem to have a personal vendetta against them, are bullies, reward those who behavior poorly, get away with poor decisions, etc. There are coworkers who know they can retain their position even though their performance is poor and they are inept because someone likes them and grants them a special favor. Even networking has superseded the old-fashioned application, presenting your work experience, and getting the job on merit. This is the type of behavior you expect from the schoolyard and not grown adults. If the workplace was more about cultivating professionalism and being relational on that level, I think a lot of the problems people report today would significantly decrease. I'm not expecting everyone to like each other but IMO part of being professional means putting the effort to work together and keep your attitude in check. With the current economic environment, this isn't possible because there's more of am emphasis on fitting in, liking each other, and engaging in friendliness and socialization.
There were so many truths in your observations that I almost fell out of my chair. Complicate what you said with the fact that at the same exact time, HR and others create the oxymoron in the workplace; that co-workers interacting in some ways that we all know are normal & can be perfectly harmless- is absolutely forbidden and looked upon almost as a crime of shame (or worse).
I'm all for a relaxed work environment to bolster morale but I don't like work to feel like a high school pep club nor do I like being pressured to hang out with colleagues outside of work or needing to do unpaid team building or happy hour activities or fear missing out on some sort of "bonding" and opportunities for advancement.
I had a manager once who lacked a social life or decent family relationships so she literally tried to force the subordinates into keeping her company via random working lunches and odd ball activities.
Last edited by UNITYinternational; 02-07-2014 at 01:06 AM..
I believe it's possible to have a relatively casual workplace environment where people get their work done and don't resort to social mores to do their work for them.
What I'm frustrated a lot about this is how hard working people who can throw down at the workplace are punished and fired for not fitting in with silly social rules. You don't have to be in the workplace to realize a bad attitude won't get you anywhere, yet no one should believe their job is under fire for refusing to have a beer distributed during work, go to happy hour, or socialize at some Vegas trip.
I realize I do have a tendency to stress productivity and professionalism and to some people that might be the reason why they think more of a social scene needs to be present at the workplace. I stress those traits for a reason, though. Allowing the workplace to be a social setting, rather than a professional one has created an environment where people don't think they need to deliver good customer service and even worse, most customers MUST be stupid. A very "us vs. them" mentality. It's created an environment where communication gets lost in translation across levels and departments, because the social scene has created a more compartmentalized environment.
IMO, working from home cuts out all the superfluous socializing/time wasting and allows the employee to focus on the work instead of chit-chatting with other employees in the office.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I suppose there is a lot of this, but not where I work. Any kind of social activities are few, strictly voluntary and people who don't participate are not punished in any way. Teamwork or collaboration is important but is limited to actual work.
We do have some people working from home regularly, others on an "as needed" basis.
Throughout my years of working, along with reading and hearing about the experiences of others, I recognize a recurring theme. The workplace isn't an environment where we go to exchange our services/ability to produce goods anymore. Instead, it's now a place where people go to fulfill their social, personal, and emotional needs. I think this is a huge mistake we're all paying dearly for now.
I'm not paying for it. I've never worked anywhere like that. First and foremost has always been exchanging services for compensation.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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I don't think there is anything at all wrong with wanting to, and indeed expecting to, receive fulfillment, emotionally, professionally, and even intellectually, from something we do for the majority of our waking ours over 40-45 years.
I also think some of the post is over idealizing the yesteryear. Networking has always been key in securing positions. Maybe even moreso. There can and often is good reason for this as the submit cover letter/resume and doing 2-3 rounds of hour long or more interviews isn't a great way to determine either competence or cultural fit (and yes, fit is extremely important). The last place I worked at we used both routes: posting senior positions, and filling them through using word of mouth and networking, and the latter was far more effective not only time and money wise, but we got a significantly better candidate pool using the networking approach, and I would argue, better fits for the organization.
Last edited by timberline742; 02-07-2014 at 06:31 AM..
How much professional experience do you have again? Or all of this is how you feel after reading forum posts.
FYI the rest of the world doesnt visit the Relationship forum ya know
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