he faced online criticism for equating desperation with resilience—the original post has since been deleted but was retweeted by Danny Thompson, Director of Technology at This Dot Labs.
I am surprised it’s called “America’s celebrated work ethic” - from my (Dutch) perspective, it’s notoriously terribly exploitative and bordering on dystopian for many. Is it true that people celebrate American work practices?!
A lot of my fellow Americans celebrate their work ethic. You have no idea how many times people, even people on sites like this one, brag about how hard and how many hours they work. I never got it. The minute that clocked turns five, I’m out the door.
The only reason I willingly do extra hours is when I’m coding and in a flow state, but at that point time ceases to exist. I get sucked back periodically cuz tech job, but my work is really good about letting us flex our time as long as we hit 40.
“Look how hard I’m punching myself! It took me a lot of practice to punch myself this hard! Jealous?”
I’ve legit told my present supervisor that literally works 14 hour days by choice and brags about it that I pity her for it.
That’s what it feels like when they brag about it. If you want to brag about how hard you worked and how long you took building a fence around your back yard, I will be impressed. If you want to brag about how hard you worked and how long you took filling out reports or whatever, I could not care less. If anything, you have my pity for thinking that’s something to brag about.
Having lived and worked in Britain which also has the very same “work hard” fetish, I’ve always felt that was just celebrating the very opposite of efficiency:
- A person in a quarry breaking stone with a small hammer 12h a day is working hard.
- A person in a quarry breaking stone with a pneumatic drill 2h a day is working far less hard.
Guess which of the two produces more gravel at the end of each day…
In many industries “hours worked” might be vastly easier to measure for each worker than their productivity (plus under bad management highly productive workers get trottled down by the rest and things like bad project planning), but “hours worked” is in no way form or shape the desired product of employing somebody unless what we’re talking about is a Human Resources company billing those hours to a client.
I had a boss once who liked brag about never taking PTO, as if it were a positive thing. To me that just means your priorities are ass backwards.
I once got in an argument with a coworker that it is unacceptable to choose work over being a parent, in that it’s not enough to just work and bring money home, but you have to actually spend quality time with your children. She got very upset that I was critical of “hard workers” that “put food on the table.”
Like no, I’m sorry. Your family needs more than money.
Anyways, her opinion is the dominant opinion in the USA. I’m in the minority.
Is it true that people celebrate American work practices?!
Nope! Seems like a dystopian nightmare to my Swedish eyes.
In some countries they do, in others they don’t.
From my own experience in Software Development, in England they definitelly do, whilst in Portugal they kinda do mainly because management culture is so horribly, horribly bad and people do not naturally tend to be organised and properly prepare, so overruns and not taking in account risks of problems and delays in time estimates are all the norm (so overwork is not driven by a “work hard” culture like in England but by constant fuckups leading to overwork leading to even worse fuckups because tired people make even more mistakes)
(Mind you, the management culture in England is hardly good, but it’s still better than in Portugal).
On the other had, I’ve also worked in The Netherlands were I’ve only ever once seen a work culture similar to the US, in a small web-development company (and I killed that crap in the projects I was involved in, to great satisfaction of the junior devs) and as half of my career there was as a freelancer, I’ve worked there in maybe 5 or 6 different places in 8 years so I saw more work environments than normal.
One experience that stuck with me in The Netherlands was working for a bank and being still there at 6:05 PM on a Friday by my own initiative to finish something and the project manager coming over and literally telling me “Go home, you’re not supposed to be here” even against my own insistence that I just wanted to finish something. I’ve worked in or for Finance at one time or another in all those countries and what’s typical in that industry elsewhere is the exact opposite of what happened to me in The Netherlands.
I all fairness and having worked in The Netherland, Britain and Portugal, the Dutch work ethic in almost all places I worked there was miles ahead of that in the other countries and that was something which got reflected in their vastly superior productivity (at least in Software Development).
From what I’ve read and actual Americans I’ve met over the years, that work ethic is pretty much in a different universe compared to the US.
I reckon it starts with the idea in The Netherlands that a manager that has lots of people still working around after 6 PM is a bad manager (who can’t plan properly hence their time estimates or resourcing are frequently wrong hence the need for overtime) which is almost the opposite of those other countries were a manager who has lots of people still working around after 6 PM is considered a good manager because they make their employees “work hard”.
Management in The Netherlands tends to be results-driven (i.e. more results delivered), whilst in the other places it’s work-driven (i.e. more work done) which you can see illustrated pretty well in the British tendency to celebrate “working hard”, and if you think about it work-driven metrics promoted the very opposite of efficiency.
Many of us pretend to, in the hopes of advancement
Is it true that people celebrate American work practices?!
Yes. Those people are called conservatives.
Many drink the Kool-Aid in an attempt to pretend they like their exploitation, giving their mind, body, and soul to profiteers who wouldn’t spend a nickel to put you out if you were on fire.
Worse, the ones that fully accept the madness proudly, the ones that internalize the toxic your workplace productivity is your life mindset, often end up being the low level management arbiters demanding incoming hires at the very least pretend to do the same, even if they’re screaming inside, hi!
I opened this post thinking the woman in question was some high level C suite worker. Nope she was supposedly working in fast food. This is beyond dystopian. You mean to tell me this fucker walked in a fast food place saw a toddler and an infant behind the counter, recognized that the mom must have just given birth and thought “Yup this is inspiring.” I’m honestly speechless. This might be one of the few instances I’ve ever seen where everyone responding is on the same page with their reaction and rage.
Not to mention this interaction happened ON MOTHERS DAY
Christ on sale, that makes this infinitely worse.
I once went to work at a pizza place. I was the prep/opener and would be there in the morning for 2 - 3 hours before anyone else came in or their were customers. I was sick but didn’t realize it–I had been working for hours but had not yet spoken once that day. I finally opened up and tried to greet the first customer, and basically something sounding like a stepped on frog came out. This lady goes “OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO KEEP COMING BACK HERE JUST BECAUSE OF YOU!” and I’m thinking to myself that I couldn’t understand why you would want food from a sick person.
Inspirational how that worker is forced to take their infant through a hazardous kitchen and expose them to coughing wheezing members of the public.
Corporate “culture” is a plague.
Its jargon is designed to encourage self-enslavement and normalize sociopathic behavior.
Yeah, it’s sick. I’ve always been amazed by how many people actually believe the company line and feel intense loyalty.
Once worked at a place that required everyone to show up 1.5 hours early to watch a video from the CEO cheerleading about “rationalizing” plants. Rationalizing was code for layoffs. Then they gave us buttons to wear about it. I tossed the first one in the urinal, real proud that there was a pile of them at the end of the day.
I think it’s normal and human to appreciate hard work and dedication. That drive makes us survive. Then it gets used as bait, the hook goes in, and people misplace that drive onto something inhuman. I guess it’s a successful strategy if you’re a no soul snake.
Are we sure this isn’t Poe’s Law in effect? This post reads like a troll that people have taken seriously.
A tone-deaf oligarch is emotionally stirred…
It’s disturbing to hear that there are people like this CEO who think this way. But it’s important to share such news. Thank you for posting this.
I feel bad for that working mother - as I do for so many struggling people.
Yeah, dude. Send that woman home and give her parental leave! WTF!
Queue the Shrek Gingerbread Man “You’re a mmonster!”
