Does the vocation have a dark side?
The cult of overwork is a reality, and work-related mental disorders are increasing.
What’s going on?
The vocation is being exploited by some sectors, managements and bosses, to use it as a tool of emotional blackmail and pressure.
As?
Resorting to emotional involvement beyond what is reasonable. For example, in public health work, when faced with our “we can’t take it anymore,” they respond that you must do it because it is your vocation and lives are at stake.
Many attribute this excess work to poor personal management.
We tend to identify with our work, we believe that we are the work we do; That is reductionist and unfair, and cynical, because the problem is overload.
We want to offer the best of ourselves.
The problem is when asymmetric situations are created in which an employer has the wild card of saying that he wants more and the only response left for the employee is to get involved and give more or be marginalized.
Are there studies?
Yes, and they say that they give us more and more tasks to integrate and less time to do them. Continued pressure only leads to exhaustion so profound that we experience a pressure hangover that can shut down our creativity for two days.
High price.
Social networks are exploited to become cracks through which work enters our homes, a reality that did not exist before. We are hyperconnected with work life, taking away time for rest and disconnection.
How does that pressure affect us?
Work stress causes us to be in a state of hyperalertness, a brain discharge of neurotransmitters and hormones that create inflammatory cascades that remain active even in processes such as sleep.
Has doing and performing also invaded our leisure?
We feel guilty when we rest and we tend to make our leisure profitable, sometimes even showing off on social networks activities that we cannot afford but that have become a mark of status.
What are today’s resumes like?
Hypermuscled, because there is little supply and a lot of demand and more conditions are requested. And there is classism, because not everyone can afford to access depending on what type of training.
Soft skills: rising value.
It is another very interesting concept, it comes from the American army, when what they were looking for were manageable soldiers who could easily enter into the dynamics of discipline.
What to think about.
The perfect worker is the one who responds like a military model, aspiring to one day be promoted or receive a professional compliment that gives him a dopamine rush but doesn’t pay his rent.
Today we fulfill ourselves through work.
The cult of work is the new religion, the new saints are the successful entrepreneurs, the prophets are the people who tell us how to achieve success and the martyrs are those people who have to sacrifice themselves in professional sectors that work precariously.
Will we stop immolating ourselves for work?
Yes, apart from the Great Resignation that shook the labor market in 2021, the most eloquent data is that, after the pandemic crisis, a good part of the workers have migrated to occupations with less workload.
How are young people reacting?
The new generations have already begun to stop immolating themselves, because the idea of ??sacrificing themselves to achieve a better future is no longer in their heads, among other things because they are not at all clear that such a future exists.
I understand.
They want to get involved, but they want to work for something that has meaning and meaning, not so that certain entrepreneurs can achieve a higher percentage of profits each year. They want a better world.
Well, that’s what we all want.
We would have to define what exactly it is that we are striving to pursue, because we get carried away a lot by what others do when it comes to stipulating what has value and what does not. In psychology it is called goal contagion.
Should we stop considering work the way to get it done?
Yes, and start saying enough to the abuses, like when someone asks us to work in exchange for reputation and not for a decent salary.
You will have to earn a living.
Yes, and place the work in what it is: a worthy, even enriching, means, but not an end.
