We have innocently viewed a range of anxieties and fears as incidental and solvable, when they are in fact basic necessities for the correct functioning of enterprise. The first and largest of these is the fear of dismissal. A capitalist economy could not work well without it. It is a precondition of efficient business both that existing labour can be removed swiftly and cheaply and that there should be a ready supply of cooperative replacements. Unemployment is not a tragedy for business; it contributes to a willing pool of talent with low bargaining power.
Even the collapse and shuttering of whole firms is not to be lamented overall. Inefficient players who have failed to read market signals have to close, and their capital has to be deployed elsewhere. There is nothing less healthy for capitalism than an economy in which venerable firms, some perhaps very long established and with thousands of loyal workers within them, can’t regularly and cleanly go bust.
The relationship we form with a company may last as long as a marriage, and we may give it as much time and devotion as we would give to a partner. But this is a relationship that should, for capitalism to flourish, be close to abusive, because our ‘spouse’ must at any point be allowed, on the grounds that they could save themselves 3% a year, fire us and take up with a more cooperative and flexible rival in Vietnam or Bolivia.
We have taken care to construct a world where, in many areas, there is an extreme sensitivity to upset and distress. We have rigorous health and safety requirements to ensure that people don’t fall off ladders or strain their backs when moving heavy boxes. We make sure that words aren’t used to demean or prejudice minorities. Kindergartens present a moving picture of our care for the next generation. Yet in the core area of our work, we operate in a system that is – from an emotional point of view – nothing short of inhuman. But through more sober economic lenses, it isn’t anything as alarming: it is merely admirably competitive.
A second fear that prevails is that of not having done enough. We lie awake at night worrying about certain tasks we failed to perform. We cannot stop thinking about what certain competitors may be up to. We panic about the upcoming financial results. We don’t sleep very well any more.
This too makes sense. It used to be far tougher on capitalists. Regular breaks used to be mandated. Religion was responsible for many of them; it told people that they should down tools and honour something far more important than their work, like the majesty of the creator of the whole world. This glance upwards to the heavens relativised and calmed the workforce; it put things in perspective and lent a relieving sense that those packages in the warehouse could probably be sent next week after all. On a bad day, there might even be a sermon reminding people to treat workers like God’s children and to respect the holiness of every individual, however lowly.
In certain countries, labour organised itself and demanded that everyone in the company had to be given decent conditions and the odd holiday, or else the staff would walk out on strike. There were angry marches and some insane demands to restrict who could be fired and when.
There were some very frustrating limits to technology as well. There was the post, but it took an age. You might have to wait two weeks for a letter and there might be little to do in that time other than check up on the garden, go for long walks, read three Russian novels and talk to the children. Travel for work took an equal eternity. You might be sent to Hamburg by the firm, which could take four whole days, three of them at sea, some of them spent slowly eating kartoffelsalat and schnitzel, chatting to fellow passengers and staring out from the ship’s window at the wheat fields near Neuharlingersiel.
It has been a miracle and an unbounded relief for capitalism that this painful age has at last passed. Religion now seldom gets in the way. Its irritating, calming pieties have been replaced by far more robust and motivating narratives drawn from social Darwinism. The labour movement has been effectively pulverised by flattering ambitious workers into believing that they would gain far more by ditching their fellow Indians and aiming to become chiefs themselves. Technology has at last made it possible for the line between leisure and work to be erased. We’ve been able to give people phones to make sure they are findable at all times and incentivised them to regard these devices as toys for their benefit rather than glorified tracking bracelets for their firms. Travel has been hugely speeded up too, so it is now possible to squeeze in meetings on a couple of continents in just a single day. There is blessedly little time left that a worker can call their own.
The consequence is that we now have almost no energy left to invest in our personal lives. We constantly search for that elusive holy grail quaintly described by magazines as ‘work/life balance’. But anyone who sincerely believes that such an equilibrium might be possible has not begun to understand the logic of capitalism.
Work and love are our two greatest idols. But they are also locked in mortal combat. Work tends to win. The complaints against work from within love are notorious: we are never around, we are always tired, we never give our partner our wholehearted attention, we are obsessive about the office. It is helpful to recognise that modern ideas of love were invented in the late 18th century by artistic people who didn’t have real jobs and therefore made great play of the importance of spending time with a lover explaining and sharing feelings and recounting the movements of one’s heart. Unfortunately, combining Romanticism and modern capitalism, as we are expected to do, is a near-impossible task. The impressive philosophy of Romantic love – with its emphasis on intimacy and openness – sits very badly alongside the requirements of working routines that fill our heads with complex demands, keep us away from home for long stretches and render us insecure about our positions in a competitive environment.
According to the Romantic ideal, a lover can be kind and good only when they readily communicate their feelings. But the level of openness this assumes is wholly at odds with the realities of work. After a tricky day (or week), our mind’s are likely to be numb with worries and duties. We may not feel like doing much besides sitting in silence, staring at the kitchen appliances, running through a series of dramas and crises. Such preoccupation is not pleasant to witness: it risks expressing itself in a range of not very endearing symptoms: grunting, sighing, brooding silence and a short-fused temper. The most innocuous-sounding question about how the day might have gone can elicit a growl – then, if it is repeated, an explosion.
If there is consolation to be found, it lies in knowing enough history to realise that failure isn’t personal. It isn’t one’s own incompetence or lack of drive that has set one’s work and private life at loggerheads. We just happen to be living at a point in time when two big, opposed themes are at war, when we have demanding ideas about the needs of families and relationships and equally demanding ideas about work, efficiency, profit and competition. Both are founded on crucial insights; both aim to monopolise our lives. We deserve a high dose of sympathy for the situation we find ourselves in.
VII
Collaboration
One of the most frightening aspects of working life is that we will, unless we are the beneficiaries of extreme good fortune, be required to have colleagues. The colleague is a creature who, endured over any length of time in situations of high stress and procedural complexity, presents one of the greatest threats to calm, composure and soundness of mind.
It is noteworthy that, in the 19th century, one specific working environment developed into a hugely popular subject for painters: the artist’s studio. Archetypal paintings of studios showed high-ceilinged rooms with large windows, views over neighbouring rooftops, sparse furniture, messy tables covered in tubes of paint, and half-finished masterpieces propped up against the walls. There was one additional factor that particularly enticed the collective imagination: there was no one in the studio apart from the artist. At exactly the time when more and more people were being gathered into ever-larger offices and experiencing for the first time all the attendant compromises and constrictions, there grew a
craving for paintings of an alternative utopia; a place of work consolingly free of the damnable presence of the colleague.
We have ended up in offices not by bad luck, but by the unavoidable fact that the mighty tasks of modern capitalism simply cannot be undertaken on one’s own. It remains (sadly) impossible to run an airline or to manage a bank solo.
The problem with colleagues begins with the fundamental challenge associated with trying to communicate the contents of one’s mind to another person. When we are doing things by ourselves, the flow of information is immediate and friction-free. If we could listen in to our inner monologues, they would be made up of a speedy and baffling series of assertions and jumbled words: ‘narr, yes. Come on! Do it till then, after no more. Ah, nearly, no, no, no, no, back . . . OK, got it, got it . . . No! Yes. That’s fine. So.’
But when we collaborate, we must laboriously turn the stream of consciousness that only we can follow into unwieldy, externally comprehensible messages. We have to translate feelings into language, temper our wilder impulses and affix paragraphs to intuitions in order to generate prompts and suggestions that have a chance of being effective in the minds of other people.
By a painful quirk of psychology, others can’t by instinct alone understand what we need and want – although it can seem as though they surely must. The realisation that other people are not like us and can’t guess what we want takes a long time to sink in – and the idea perhaps always remains a bit foreign and unjust. In their earliest days, babies simply don’t realise that their mothers are separate beings, and so get frustrated when these reluctant appendages don’t by magic obey their unstated wishes. Only after a long and difficult process of development (if ever) can a child realise that their parent is truly a distinct individual, and that, in order to make themselves understood by them, they will have to do more than grunt and imagine solutions in their heads. It can be the work of a lifetime, in which the office occupies a particularly painful passage, to gradually accept the impossibility of mutual mind reading.
If this were not bad enough, many colleagues are at risk of not sharing our underlying vision of what should be done. They have contrary opinions, their own quirks, pet peeves and obsessive interests. To get our point across and assuage their resistance requires us to deploy a battery of diplomatic skills. At the very moment when, agitated and overwhelmed, we would like simply to shout or bark, we have no option but to charm. This is because the colleague is, on top of it all, extremely sensitive. Unless they are spoken to correctly, they will become offended, develop grudges, start to cry or report us to a superior.
The imperative to be pleasant at work is a novel one that we are still getting used to. In the olden days, brusqueness used to be the norm: it was a good way to get people to turn a boat swiftly starboard, push coal trolleys faster, or increase the rate of production at the blast furnace in a steel mill. When most work was physical, management could be abrupt; workers could feel underappreciated or bullied and nevertheless perform their required tasks to perfection. Emotional distress didn’t hold things up. You could still operate the brick-making machine at maximum speed, even if you hated the manager, or clean out the stables thoroughly even if you felt the foreman hadn’t enquired deeply enough into the nature of your weekend.
But nowadays, most jobs require a high degree of psychological well-being in order to be performed adequately. A wounding comment can destroy a person’s productivity for a whole day. Without ample respect, recognition and encouragement, huge sums of money will be wasted in silently resentful moods. If we have any concern for the bottom line, we have no alternative but to try to be a little bit nice.
At the same time, the inability to speak frankly has its own enormous cost. A huge amount of valuable information that should make its way around a company is held back by the imperative not to cause offence. We hold our tongues because we are scared to upset juniors, to alienate colleagues and to ruin our relationships with superiors – and, in the process, insights that might help an organisation to thrive stay locked in individual hearts.
Work relationships are no less tricky than romantic ones, but at least in the latter we have a basic sense of security that enables us to speak our minds and make the necessary cathartic moves – to call the other person a fuckwit and compress a range of ideas into the occasional expletive-loaded outburst. The office environment misses out on the cleansing frankness seemingly possible only when two people know they will have the option of having sex together after a bust-up.
At the heart of our office agonies is the complaint that we seldom like our colleagues as people. In a better world, we would be unlikely ever to want to spend any time with such disturbing, and often unlikely, figures. We shouldn’t be surprised by our daily discomfort, given that these people were never picked out on the basis of psychological compatibility. We were formed into a unit because they had a range of technical and commercial competences necessary for a task, not because they were fun lunch companions or were graced with a pleasing manner. We are like the unfortunate bride in a power-marriage in the Middle Ages. A princess would be obliged to marry a certain prince because he owned an important lead mine or because the archers in his country were especially proficient. It would have been nice if the two liked each other as well, but the stakes were generally too high for this to be a relevant factor. The success of the realm depended on such matters as access to raw materials and military strength, not on whether one partner had a maddening giggle or a daunting overbite.
There is yet another challenge posed by colleagues. Corporations and businesses are fundamentally hierarchical, with an ever-smaller number of desirable, better-rewarded places at the pinnacle. A naive outsider might imagine that career progression would be determined by clear, precise and public determinants of merit, probably of a technical or financial sort, akin to the straightforward nature of the examination results we all grew up with. But the reality is that, in many occupations, no verifiable measure of performance is available. Factors of success are numerous, opaque and shifting. What decides who is promoted is not talent per se, but success at a range of dark psychological arts best summed up by the term ‘politics’.
Political skill has woefully little in common with the reasons we were trained and hired to do our jobs in the first place. We may, as part of a good business education, have spent years studying how to navigate a balance sheet, analyse competitors, negotiate contracts, and administer a logistics chain. But when we reach the office, we will be confronted by other, less familiar, kinds of challenges: the person at the desk opposite us with the charming manner who enthusiastically agrees with whomever they’re speaking to, yet harbours a range of toxic reservations and privately pursues their own undeclared agenda; the person who responds to polite criticism or well-meaning feedback with hurt and fury; the person who pretends to be our friend, but takes the credit for our best efforts.
In such situations, the most unlovely qualities may turn out to be the most necessary ones: the capacity to quietly accept glory for things that were not truly our doing; to distance ourselves from errors in which we were heavily implicated; to subtly foreground the failings of otherwise quite able colleagues; to turn cold at key moments towards emotionally vulnerable superiors; to flatter while not appearing to do so; to mould our views to suit the currently ascendant attitudes.
Such grey, underhand strategies are not easy to pick up, and they may feel impossible for us to practise if we pride ourselves on being straightforward, direct or even just somewhat ethical. Yet we can be certain that every high-minded refusal of duplicity will carry a heavy, perhaps career-damaging, cost.
Our problems with the collegial nature of work are compounded by the implication that matters should be straightforward. Our inevitable difficulties are aggravated by notions that offices are at heart giant families; that colleagues can be friends; that honesty is rewarded, and that talent will win out. Kindly sentimentality is, in the end, just a disguised version of
cruelty. It might be simpler if, in dark moments, we could simply admit to what we know in our hearts: that it would obviously be better if we could be shot of the whole business of colleagues and spend our days, as we used to so well, sitting comfortably on the floor in our room assembling cargo planes, city car parks and bear picnics on our own.
VIII
Equal
Opportunity
The modern world was founded upon, and continues to be enthused by, the promise of equal opportunity – and infinite possibility – for all. Each of us grows up with a sense that a great deal could be possible. Adults listen respectfully when small children suggest they might travel to the Space Station, run the country or play for a winning team. Such feats aren’t wholly fanciful, particularly when considered through parental eyes. Similarly transformative journeys are everywhere to behold. It would be churlish to ignore that extraordinary destinies are a regular feature of modern life.
The idea of equal opportunity springs from the most generous side of our nature and has been responsible for inspiring the most indispensable achievements. But it has also, unwittingly and far more quietly, been the source of unending sorrow. American psychologist William James (1842–1910) recognised the anxiety created by societies that promise their inhabitants infinite opportunities for social transformation and career success – and then can’t always deliver. For James, satisfaction with ourselves does not require us to succeed in every area. We are not always humiliated by failing at things; we are humiliated only if we first invested our pride and sense of worth in a given achievement and then did not reach it. Our ambitions determine what we will interpret as a triumph and what must count as a failure. ‘With no attempt there can be no failure; with no failure no humiliation. So our self-esteem in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do,’ wrote James. ‘It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities’. Thus:
The Sorrows of Work Page 3