An in-depth Series About Misery at Work - Part 4: All Employees are a Production Cost

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Picking up from part 1 and part 2

"Lab Rats: Why Modern Work Makes People Miserable" author Daniel Lyons claimed that there are four main elements to our misery at work.

  • Low salaries
  • Constant change
  • Lack of job security
  • The dehumanization

We talked about the the first two in the previous parts of the serious, in this post it will be the latter two. Keeping up with the constant changes creates a pressure and fear as simple mistakes could get you fired. Not even mistakes, with enough changes you simply might end up being "Not suitable for the current system", this creates constant fear of losing your job or in other words:

Job Insecurity

So not only are you insecure, you also have job insecurity. In the old days, companies used to brag about the fact that employees last in them for a long time, in fact some would spend their entire life working for one place. Why would they change it after all when they are treated well and making a good living? Now employees are kept at an arm's length.

Yeah, if an employee feels safe, they wouldn't be working hard.

In one of Belgium's universities, Tinne Vander Elst studied the effect of job insecurity on employees. She discovered that when an employee doesn't have job security, their creativity levels decrease as well as their ability to do their job properly. Also, it affects their health both physically and mentally, making them more prone to depression. Also lack of job security increases cases of bullying at work. It also increases the chances for accidents and injuries. In some cases, suicide.

In 2016 in Seattle, an Amazon employee jumped off the roof of a 12 floors building after his boss put him on what is called the "Performance Improvement Plan". It is widely known within Amazon that anyone put on such a plan, will be fired. The man wasn't able to handle the pressure so he attempted suicide, thankfully he made it out alive.

That is not the only case, between 2013 to 2018, 189 calls to 911 were made, all related to suicide tendencies in 46 storage that belong to Amazon. That would 38 suicide attempt or expression of suicidal intentions. All of those are only coming from 25% of the totality of Amazon storage units.

Like I mentioned in the last part, humans can handle a lot of pressure, but only for some time. What human can't handle is mild stress but over a long period of time. So what this mild pressure does to people is similar to what the UCMS Protocol does to mice as mentioned in the last part.

Companies Nowadays Brag About Their High Turnover Rate

A turnover is the rate at which employees leave a workforce and are replaced. Companies not only brag about that high turnover rate, but also the fact that their employees work harder and over long periods of time.

Enter Stage Left: Netflix

Netflix COO Reed Hasting, along with Netflix HR Patty McCord, made a presentation made up of 128 slides that they uploaded on a site called SlidShare talking about the companies culture. The goal of the presentation was that to help many companies with their recruitment process. But what that presentation did was change the culture of many companies, or startups in Silicon Valley with their employees.

This presentation was viewed over 19 million times. Which only would make sense if they were handing out subscription coupons. Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, said about the presentation"Maybe the most important document out of the Valley". Why would she say something like that?

This influencing presentation became a sort of manifesto that they would follow, said that unlike many other companies who consider their employees extended family, it said that the Netflix culture sees their employees as just that, employees. "We are a team, not a family" Netflix COO stated. Before you apply to their jobs, Netflix wants to know that you are just an employee, if they don't like your work, they could easily fire you.

Also in her 2018 book Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, Netflix HR, Patty McCord says that companies shouldn't be responsible for the development of their employees, she sees employees as tools and if a tool is broken, you just get another one. She also encouraged her HR fellows to fire whoever they want to fire without bothering to set up a case to do so, claiming that most people "Very rarely sure". So fire away, fellow HR. That woman must be a butcher not HR.

Startups and companies considered the slides presentation and follow up book to be revolutionary as it removes the burden of ensuring the employees' happiness and well being, leaving them to focus performance. Regarding that, I would like to bring up something I wrote earlier about how such philosophy leads to decreasing abilities when it comes performance and creativity, something many studies back.

Counter Argument: Captain Glass

In his book The Captain Class: The Hidden Force that Creates the World's Greatest Teams, sports writer Sam Walker says that most successful teams in the world, their members feel that they are part of a family not just team. Their sense of closeness and connectivity to each other creates an obligation to seek success. Such feeling of belonging to a family is what led a team like Liverpool to win a major tournament like the Champions League and their recent domination performance that led them to win the Premiere League.

Unlike the image seen of millennials that they are just spoiled, entitled, and avocado addicts, millennials actually appreciate job security more than they do money itself. In a study conducted by PEW Research Center, 80% of millennials are willing to have less salary for a company that provides them with job security and stability.

Finally, the last reason according Daniel Lyons as to why there is misery in the workplace.

The Dehumanization

There are plenty of companies nowadays that when you apply for a job, your resume will be reviewed by a software, and often the interview is also conducted by a software. Hire Vue offers such services to plenty of companies, with places like the Hilton and Unilever using their service which uses A.I in their recruitment process. So your future can be determined by bits, just 0s and 1s.

Not only that, when you hopefully get the job, your performance will also be reviewed by a software. A software will decide whether you are promoted, demoted, or fired.Also if you want a colleague's help, instead of turning around to ask him, you will also be using a software. Not only that, now there are also software to check on the employees morale, software like TINYpulse, which sends in surveys and evaluates the answers. In the old days bosses needed to do that using a difficult technique of actually interaction with their employees and asking them how things are going. Nowadays, bosses are too cool for school, all you need is a software.

The reasons for softwares like this isn't completely unreasonable, I should point out. Not every boss can check with every employee, nor HR to review the applicants as some companies receive thousands of resumes. But still, the process lacks humanity. Sociologist at MIT Sherry Turkie described the way employees feel nowadays as "Alone together"

The Sane Society

Around 60 years ago, psychologist Erich Fromm warned in his book, The Sane Society, that the mix of capitalism and automation could contribute to a great harm to human mentally and could lead to depression. Saying in his book.

Education makes machines which act like men and produces men who act like machines.The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.

It is true that there are other reasons behind the misery at the workplace other than the ones Lyons suggested. There are also factors like traffic, having a worthless job, sadistic bosses, tattletale coworkers, schemers, and many more reasons. But what happened due to the internet is something, and what will happen thanks to the automation and A.I is else entirely.

Employees nowadays are considered merely spokes on wheels. Doing something small and simple over and over again, just like machines. The next step is to replace those employees entirely and replace them with machines. A company like Uber for example, their current goal is to have an army of self-driving cars as it would decrease the chances of accidents and job misconduct. At the same time, such cars won't be demanding bonuses, wage increase, days off, or insurance. And there won't be any chance of a strike.

The Greatest Danger

While machines like self-driving cars that will take our places as employees, they are not members of society who will buy/rent houses, consume goods and services, nor will it reduce unemployment. Thus an economic stagnation to be expected, one from which only the top 1% who own those companies and machines will benefit. Also, not only employees, but also people in high positions.

In 2017, billionaire and founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's greatest hedge-funds, Ray Dalio said in an interview with business insider that he is working on a software that will help him make decisions, that software should be ready this year. Also, in 2015, a group of researchers in Silicon Valley Institute for the Future announced that they are developing a software that will replace heads of companies called "iCEO".

In Summary

Nowadays, we don't even need to supervise the machines like we used to. This means that there will be a high percentage of people who are basically useless for capitalism, hundreds of millions of people will be deemed worthless under an automated capitalism system. By 2030, robots could replace 800 million jobs worldwide. In 10 years 1/5 of employees will have nothing to do. Turning the problem from being about misery at work into complete lack of work. And making us in turn switch from being people with bullshit jobs into people who are essentially in the view of society bullshit.

That was the first segment of my series, I hope you liked it. Upvote, share, and comment on this post with what you think. Also, feel free to check the sources below. The sources below were used in all first 4 parts.

Sources:

Books:
Lab Rats: Why Modern Work Makes People Miserable, Dan Lyons as well as all the ones mentioned in the last 4 parts

1- The cult of compulsory happiness is ruining our workplaces
2- An Uber employee committed suicide, and his widow is blaming Uber's work culture
3- What is the current poverty rate in the United States?
4- An Amazon employee was injured after leaping from 12-story building at the Seattle headquarters
5- AI will create 'useless class' of human, predicts bestselling historian

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