Honestly, after getting harangued for the 9th time this six month stretch about not having a Facebook that details my personal details, my job details, photos of myself wearing degrading cleanroom suits that is entirely unflattering to everyone but are kind of necessary in sterile lab enviroments, makes me contactable, and just gives me a public avenue for really transphobic family members to be publicly transphobic and have to deal with that at work and in my private life... can anybody else see why this is a problem?
When the hell did things get this way for once really private careers?
See, nobody likes their job and hasn't since Reagan. Even if you do like your job, you're probably competing with people who would also like your job and would likely do so for less money than you're comfortable already earning so you had best always seem happy at your job. But I don't want to go into a gigantic spiel about why capitalism is bad. Rather, why the fuck is post-millenial capitalism is so fucking tragic?
See, I spent my formative years in the 90s... basically becoming an adult at the turn of this new century. So I grew up with that 90s apathy that basically celebrated the fact that, yes--99% of us have a job we don't like--but at least you can publicly hate your job and nobody should take that right away from you.
I can basically count on one hand the jobs I like that I've had since I was 11. And my resume is pretty long. Stablehand, horse trainer, waitperson, soldier, postal worker (both postie and nightsorter while studying), complaints 'mediator' (for about three days), nightclub manager, highschool teacher, and more... And that's just the first 2 and a half decades of my life.
Now the university is on my case of being 'always accessible', and 'being public and creating a friendly workplace'... literally demanding I be publicly happy at work, despite public relations being nowhere near my job description and the only reason I work is because I'm bored. It sure as shit isn't the pay cheque.
I don't even have it that bad. The increase of the 'commercial teambuilding seminar and training' sector for lack of a better word I don't have has been a growth sector for the last two decades.
The thing is I don't remember the 90s and early naughties being like this.
At Australia Post the closest thing we came to 'mandatory fun' as a corporate policy was the company giving us a Christmas present. That was it. With teaching the closest thing to teambuilding was offering to cover a class on an off-period, or gathering for a rundown of the latest DEC guidelines or talk about a curriculum. You were allowed to not like your job. Nobody expected you to be a radiant beacon of sunshine at staff dev meetings. Basically you turned up if you didn't have a decent excuse to be elsewhere.
That was basically the bread and butter of television shows and movies of the 90s. That's the culture my entire generation grew up with; "Your job sucks, but at least no one cares if you seem unhappy and you get to die at 70-85."
It was the peak age of the cubicle where office work was considered a death sentence, but nowadays are pretty coveted employment. Only now they've taken away your fucking cubicle, so you've got nowhere to privately eat your canned minestrone in peace and quiet. And I've actually been in a staff room while this was debated/enforced... "If we pull down the dividers of our desks and push the desks together we can have a more direct relatioship with our colleagues, and an open, more personable work environment."
Like, fuck off? No air conditioning, the ceiling fan is garbage, the standing fans will waft ten different odours on our lunchbreak... and why the hell do we want to watch eachother mark student papers and write reports? Being a teacher is messy... mess doesn't improve by simply bringing it out in the open. Teachers have books, millions of photocopied sheets, class study plans, notes, and private student information that will occasionally be lying out in the open rather than in our drawers.
It's a veritable whirlwind of paper. Plus the dividers are useful for sticky notes and calendar schedules. That and students visit the staff rooms. Having dividers is good for containing the chaos of information that perpetually surrounds teachers.
It was like an unspoken contract... We were allowed to be reclusive and unhappy at work in traditionally non-community interaction jobs. Hell, even with community engagement jobs you were still allowed to be somewhat apathetic. Now I'm a fairly extroverted person, but work energy is different from non-work vibes... I want to compartmentalize my professional and private life. But it seems like that's getting harder and harder to do.
So anybody else feel this way, or have any shock and horror stories of corporate-mandated fun/publicness at work?
When the hell did things get this way for once really private careers?
See, nobody likes their job and hasn't since Reagan. Even if you do like your job, you're probably competing with people who would also like your job and would likely do so for less money than you're comfortable already earning so you had best always seem happy at your job. But I don't want to go into a gigantic spiel about why capitalism is bad. Rather, why the fuck is post-millenial capitalism is so fucking tragic?
See, I spent my formative years in the 90s... basically becoming an adult at the turn of this new century. So I grew up with that 90s apathy that basically celebrated the fact that, yes--99% of us have a job we don't like--but at least you can publicly hate your job and nobody should take that right away from you.
I can basically count on one hand the jobs I like that I've had since I was 11. And my resume is pretty long. Stablehand, horse trainer, waitperson, soldier, postal worker (both postie and nightsorter while studying), complaints 'mediator' (for about three days), nightclub manager, highschool teacher, and more... And that's just the first 2 and a half decades of my life.
Now the university is on my case of being 'always accessible', and 'being public and creating a friendly workplace'... literally demanding I be publicly happy at work, despite public relations being nowhere near my job description and the only reason I work is because I'm bored. It sure as shit isn't the pay cheque.
I don't even have it that bad. The increase of the 'commercial teambuilding seminar and training' sector for lack of a better word I don't have has been a growth sector for the last two decades.
The thing is I don't remember the 90s and early naughties being like this.
At Australia Post the closest thing we came to 'mandatory fun' as a corporate policy was the company giving us a Christmas present. That was it. With teaching the closest thing to teambuilding was offering to cover a class on an off-period, or gathering for a rundown of the latest DEC guidelines or talk about a curriculum. You were allowed to not like your job. Nobody expected you to be a radiant beacon of sunshine at staff dev meetings. Basically you turned up if you didn't have a decent excuse to be elsewhere.
That was basically the bread and butter of television shows and movies of the 90s. That's the culture my entire generation grew up with; "Your job sucks, but at least no one cares if you seem unhappy and you get to die at 70-85."
It was the peak age of the cubicle where office work was considered a death sentence, but nowadays are pretty coveted employment. Only now they've taken away your fucking cubicle, so you've got nowhere to privately eat your canned minestrone in peace and quiet. And I've actually been in a staff room while this was debated/enforced... "If we pull down the dividers of our desks and push the desks together we can have a more direct relatioship with our colleagues, and an open, more personable work environment."
Like, fuck off? No air conditioning, the ceiling fan is garbage, the standing fans will waft ten different odours on our lunchbreak... and why the hell do we want to watch eachother mark student papers and write reports? Being a teacher is messy... mess doesn't improve by simply bringing it out in the open. Teachers have books, millions of photocopied sheets, class study plans, notes, and private student information that will occasionally be lying out in the open rather than in our drawers.
It's a veritable whirlwind of paper. Plus the dividers are useful for sticky notes and calendar schedules. That and students visit the staff rooms. Having dividers is good for containing the chaos of information that perpetually surrounds teachers.
It was like an unspoken contract... We were allowed to be reclusive and unhappy at work in traditionally non-community interaction jobs. Hell, even with community engagement jobs you were still allowed to be somewhat apathetic. Now I'm a fairly extroverted person, but work energy is different from non-work vibes... I want to compartmentalize my professional and private life. But it seems like that's getting harder and harder to do.
So anybody else feel this way, or have any shock and horror stories of corporate-mandated fun/publicness at work?