40 YEARS HARD LABOUR

My friend Maria recently wrote to me to express how peeved she is with her job. It’s not a unique problem... we've seen similar exaggerated scenarios illustrated in the Dilbert strips.

Dealing with a boss that a spouts a plethora of vague and at times conflicting instructions and objectives which she in turn has to execute without question, having to endure the emotional abuse of being made to feel like a reject amongst equals by her boss for not getting on with the program and also not being able to relish that feeling of satisfaction with a job well done because her boss belittles all of her achievements.

And to further complicate matters, there is this persistent screaming in her head... her inner voice... telling her that she can do so much more than this and that she should be be doing something more worthwhile with her life.

Sound familiar?

I empathize with her situation because I feel the exact same way at times. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. A friend once remarked that "work's shit these days... you either keep at it or jump ship and land straight into a new pile of familiar crap" (he is not a lot of things, my friend... but what he can do is make a bleak situation sound much worse... it's his gift).

And it was when I was taking a crap myself and thinking of what he said that I suddenly had this revelation... many of us do not realize this or we choose to ignore it but the truth is, the work environment is very similar and, at times, much more brutal than prison. Yes, prison.

You would be surprised but I'm telling you, work and prison is eerily similar.

- You are confined to a tiny space which you will inadvertently dress up with stuff from home or pictures of your wife, girlfriend, children... a valiant but misguided attempt at trying to make a cold, unfeeling environment, exude some warmth.

- You subconsciously become paranoid with the politics around you. You don't know whom you can trust. You watch your back because you never know if there's someone out there with a dagger and may want to stick it in your back

- You make sure you don't make any false step lest you end up getting your ass screwed.

Of course, in prison, the latter two scenarios get more literal... a lot more literal. But at least in prison, you'd know who'd want to screw your ass, e.g. the mean looking meathead who'd pucker his lips at you every time you walk by... no surprise since he hasn't had a conjugal visit in months. At work, it's a little more difficult to tell...

And whether you like it or not, you will have to sign on to this and work for at least 20 to 40 years (with no early release for good behaviour). I mean, unless you have a trust fund or you are, as Warren Buffet once said, part of the "Lucky Sperm Club" (i.e. people born into wealth like children of business tycoons, millionaire movie stars, sultans of oil rich countries...), by the time you finish school, you will have to work till at least you're 50 in order to pay the bills, life a decent life and be a good, contributing member of society.

And we wonder why we get so depressed with work sometimes...

Why has it become as such? Why has work become so depressing? Why are we now labelled as the poor little rich nation whose citizens can't find happiness? David Marshall, our first Chief Minister, once lamented in an interview that "The law is no longer a vocation, it is a business. Everything is geared to business!" (for the full interview, kindly go to http://thinkhappiness.blogspot.com/2006/08/meeting-david-marshall-in-1994.html)

And that is unfortunately true. Not just in law but everywhere. Irrespective of where you are working at, we sometimes no longer find happiness in what we do because what we do has no significant contribution (except that of monetary rewards) to ourselves… let alone our fellow man. We do because we are told to do it or because we have been doing it and must continue to do it or because we were given a number to hit and hit that number we must, at all cost.

Everything today is about topline, bottomline, return of investments, net profit... and you are inadvertently reduced to becoming a headcount. You're now just a number (see, the prison references just keep coming up...). You're no longer known by your name. These days, if you're lucky, you're the hard working Executive at Operations or if you're unlucky, the fourth employee in a department that can make do with three men or you're a $40,000 per annum employee that could be easily replaced by a $25,000 per annum rookie and save the department's bottomline.

Of course, not all companies are like that. But with the pressures of competing in a globalized economy, answering to shareholders, ensuring that margins grow and the books are kept in the black, many companies do, at times inadvertently, adopt a pragmatic but emotionally detached approach when dealing with the employees.

The question that begs answering now is... how can we be happy should we be trapped in such a bleak environment? I'm no psychiatrist and I have no answers. Going back to the prison reference, I guess you can always opt for… the Great Escape - leave the company and take up a new, more meaningful but less financially rewarding vocation in life or take a sabbatical to figure out your direction in life or even take the path less travelled and do things your parents would never approve of... like taking up a career as a professional tap dancer at children's birthdays or… I don’t know… train to become a professional wrestler perhaps.

Or, as my friend said, you can " jump ship and land straight into a new pile of familiar crap". Just pray that there's not as much crap to deal with in the new place... and as a precaution, just make sure there are no sex-starved meatheads lurking in the corners.