I read an article that disenchantment is growing at work. "Suicide", proclaimed Albert Camus, is the only serious philosophical problem." How frighteningly true.
And is there more disenchantment? Of course, there must be. People are being asked to do more than they once did, and work usually sucks. We were fed a lie that our work is our life and our work shows our merit, and all the school time stuff. Most work is demeaning, degrading, filled with dread, and 80% of the bosses are arrogant and behind their own value.
The reality is that work has become a different type of work than we knew.
We're beyond coal companies. Or the early auto industry.
Now we have an epidemic of unhappiness. Europe forces 4 week vacations, and proves some value psychologically and in work output in empirical evidence, but the U.S. is in the stages of offering 30 hour weeks, so they don't have to pay benefits. That's the modern employer. Or outsourcing.
People want to stay home more, work less. There is a fundamental change in thinking, yet fear is rampant as there are less jobs, and there may be less jobs for some time, unless jobs are CREATED.
The companies I consult with have all downsized by 25% and have a goal to "stay open" or "eke a profit". Typically these are 4 to 12 million a year privately held family businesses, and I rarely hear "love my job", but can read "have a job", or " am at wits end, but need job".
Is disenchantment growing? As the credit card companies reel in the debt by raising interest rates those that borrow suddenly have less, including small businesses. What do people do? How do they stop spending? How does a small business?
Decisions are being made.
What I read in the euphoria of our rising stock market when I am out traveling the country is truly a nation led by newsbites, caught in silly arguments and presentations, while often being miserable at their jobs, and worry about their 401K,, and for the lucky few with pensions, hoping they stay solvent.
