You're not supposed to take work personally. That is a lesson that I've been taught many, many, many times over the years. I've been told that within the last 24 hours.
So why is it a surprise that, when employees are not supposed to take work personally, they stop taking work personally?
I do not understand anyone's confusion about this. We are a resource to be used in companies now; replaced, shunted, and changed as they see fit. We are not an asset. Why would I give a flying fuck about my employer, other than the baseline expectation of what I was hired for?
This "Who Cares Era" sort of nonsense just absolutely reeks of the pearl clutching that occurred with "Quiet Quitting" (otherwise known as doing the expectations of your own job and no more).
> So why is it a surprise that, when employees are not supposed to take work personally, they stop taking work personally?
I'm a bit puzzled about how this reply is supposed to relate to or add to my comment. For example, I already said, "The question is, in the face of such job insecurity, why should employees care are their jobs? Their employers clearly don't care about them."
What I don't see in the reply is any kind of contextual or critical analysis. You speak as if this is simply an immutable law of nature rather than a product of our contemporary economy. "You're not supposed to take work personally." Where do you think this "principle" comes from? I agree that a lot of people say it, and indeed that it's a rational reaction to the economic circumstances. But must it be this way, and why? And if so, what do you expect to be the outcome, aside from animus and anomie? Is it a good way for us to live together, forever?
One example that comes to my mind: I had my first job in 1974. The expectation back then was that if you wanted to leave your job, you always gave at least two weeks notice.
I'm slow so it took me a very long time to realize how ridiculous this was. If the company was going to lay you off, they never gave you any notice at all. You were just told not to come to work the next day.
So this is not just about current economic circumstances. It's about an imbalance of power that has been going on a long time.
> Why would I give a flying fuck about my employer, other than the baseline expectation of what I was hired for?
You should care about the people whose lives are affected by the result of your work at the very least.
If you work in property management, for instance, you shouldn't repeatedly bill your tenants after charges are due then accuse them of late payment. Ditto for double-billing them for a month and doing the same anyway... if these bogus "late payments" end up on one's rental history then it's a lot of work to fix even for a completely honest person that's never paid a bill late in their life.
Or, if you're a doctor, you should probably read a patient's blood test results correctly so that you don't prescribe them the wrong medicine or tell them to take an incorrect supplement. If you have somebody take the wrong chemicals because you can't read a piece of paper then bad things could happen to them.
I could go on and on and on but the bottom line is that you need to give at least an iota of a shit when your fellow people are at the mercy of the quality of your work. Missing a topping on a sandwich is whatever but messing with somebody's finances, shelter, or health out of lazy defiance is outright sociopathy. The fact that you don't like your boss is your problem; stick it to your employer on your own time.
So why is it a surprise that, when employees are not supposed to take work personally, they stop taking work personally?
I do not understand anyone's confusion about this. We are a resource to be used in companies now; replaced, shunted, and changed as they see fit. We are not an asset. Why would I give a flying fuck about my employer, other than the baseline expectation of what I was hired for?
This "Who Cares Era" sort of nonsense just absolutely reeks of the pearl clutching that occurred with "Quiet Quitting" (otherwise known as doing the expectations of your own job and no more).