Burnout – When does work start feeling pointless? | DW Documentary

Burnout – When does work start feeling pointless? | DW Documentary

if you’ve ever worked in an office
you’ll know it’s often hard to
concentrate and then there are the
endless
[Applause]
meetings did somebody mention a
paperless office
[Music]
[Applause]
and if you want a decision you’ll have
to wait for a bigger
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
meeting to raise your spirits you’ll go
to town halls and hear from motivational
speakers and you remember the time when
you had one boss but now you have two
you had three well many
sound
familiar well all of these examples are
taken from
this it’s a second world war sabotage
manual distributed to resistance
fighters in occupied Europe to
the enemy War
Machine somehow we’ve taken known
methods of sabotage and disrupt
option and turned them into an ordinary
day at the
[Music]
office how did this
[Music]
happen if we start with ke okay and and
the 15-hour work week okay so tell us so
can you tell us a little bit about what
Keen predicted and about what the hell
went wrong yes well kees wrote his thing
in the
1930s and he was trying to write
something optimistic and imagine what
the world would be
[Music]
like for the most part when people back
then imagined what the world would be
like everyone thought well
industrialization it’s miserable but
it’s going to lead us in a direction
where the technology is going to advance
so far that we’re all going to be living
lives of leisure know we’ll have robot
servants taking care of us we’ll have
automation will eliminate the drudgery
of farm work factory work eventually
service work as well that was in a way
the point of all of this honorous uh
work that people were doing in factories
was to eventually get to the point where
you don’t have to do it anymore
globally we’re getting to the point
where we could be working 15 hour weeks
um the question then is why
[Music]
aren’t so so what’s really happened is
that we’ve created these Administrative
Office jobs and these have gone from
something like 25% of employment which
they were in Kansas time to something
like
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
75% we created supervisory jobs
managerial jobs clerical
[Music]
jobs and and millions and millions and
millions of them around the
[Music]
world and and one of the things that
really struck me in a lot of the
testimonies that people sent to me about
their jobs
was just how unhappy they were and just
how confused they were over the fact
that they were unhappy
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
just
[Music]
there’s always this shame about
expressing how you feel at
work the constant charade your you’re
putting up uh that you can never really
be
honest I mean you of course you you
want we all want to be honest about our
manager or or about our director
or because but he’s in that same charate
so you only see half of
him
um so we we we we’re in this
surreality
this this
display the play is based on the
original sabotage
[Music]
manual but we’ve not just stuck to the
script we’ve added many new scenes of
our
own and like any play this too has a
cast of
characters the star of the show is a
chief executive officer who has a star
salary to
[Music]
match the CEO’s main role is to give the
big monologue we can accelerate our
current momentum and gain a stronger
Financial backing with which to be more
successful this speech is often rooted
in fantasy and has very little to do
with how the play will turn out we are
now delivering the best products we have
ever delivered but paying them more
doesn’t seem to make them any better as
all too often they are the stars of
spectacular
failures it continues to be an exciting
time for our devices and services
business we remain here to win thank you
very much
but the one cost that is never
calculated is the human cost of all
these
failures of the disruptive
reorganizations and the unhappiness that
goes
[Music]
unspoken I had finished my PhD in
experimental social psychology so I had
been trained to do research search in
the lab and I got my job uh at the
University of California Berkeley and I
was thinking maybe what I’ll do is I’ll
develop some new ideas about emotions
which I had done laboratory research on
and how people understand their feelings
how they cope with really strong
emotional arousal or threatening
challenging kind of
things and I thought well why don’t I go
out and talk to people who encounter
this sometimes in their life and I
started interviewing them
[Music]
and they got emotional doing this some
of them would get angry as they talked
about things some of them would cry some
of them would I mean this was like and
I’m thinking hm maybe there’s a story
here maybe there’s more of a phenomenon
so I would ask people at the end of the
interview things like so when you talk
about this with other people do you have
kind of a name for this I mean is there
a way you share this usually it was I
never talk about this with anybody I
don’t want anybody to
know but I haven’t got the time right
now cuz I’m right in the middle of two
other coals so I started looking at
literature and trying to come up with
Concepts that seemed like it would
capture what people were telling me and
there was dehumanization in
self-defense oh no no no no you know
it’s like too much baggage there the
dehumanization no you know you know kind
of that okay okay what about detached
concern well uh you know it’s kind of
like but it’s oil water I can’t it
doesn’t you know didn’t really do it so
I was still trying to figure out how to
talk to people or about what they were
telling me and so I would ask the next
interviews at the end you know
dehumanization self-defense detached
concern burnout yes that’s it
[Music]
burnout oh yeah the first
physical
um yeah a complete
exhaustion but this was like an
exhaustion which was totally new to me
um but it was really intense like so
intense that I could barely get out of
bed physically uh I live on the first
floor I could I could not walk up the
stair literally I had to hold myself
halfway through or stop twice even and
Catch My Breath it was just I felt like
a like a yeah like a 90-year-old in a
very bad State well I did I thought it
was a flu and at one point my GP I went
to my GP and he
really yeah put it in front of me he
said this is
the flu you have youve got all the
symptoms of burnout
and yeah
period you know I remember very well
going back to
work uh
after I think it was a good five months
of of being absent yeah and I I went
back to work took the train walked to
the
office and I really I remember very well
like going what you what happened to me
it was was really like I was confused uh
confused angry
disoriented actually what really popped
into my mind then was like where the
hell did I lose you know my exit I mean
which how how come that I continued on
this freaking highway to where I’m at
now but I should have I missed my exit
that that’s what came to my mind I
missed the freaking exit
I wanted to become an engineer because
my grandfather was an
engineer and I thought I want to be
effective and
efficient so always having that bar
super
high perfectionism in order to show that
you’re
successful worth it
and medocity is just not even an
option your body is
saying time
out had a
burnout but then then what you really
fall into this new world it’s almost
like a
a new reality my whole self and my my
compass which I was actually sailing on
my my life I realized that Compass is is
wrong because otherwise I wouldn’t have
been
here you feel like a yeah like a failure
because
[Music]
you’re yeah one of those people who who
who who
fell through the
through the gates into the the abyss of
burnout and that’s all down to
you if you think it’s only you or very
few people you know as opposed to more
then the focus automatically goes so
what’s my problem why am I not strong
enough why am I not capable enough
[Music]
and so what we saw early on was what a
phenomenon that is known as pluralistic
ignorance and what that means is that
you’re
feeling something is going
wrong not just that you’re exhausted and
got too much to do but you’re short
changing the work you’re not doing a
good job and you know it and you’re
feeling bad about yourself well you’re
not going to to go over and chat with
somebody at Coffee about how I’m feeling
no what you’re going to do is you’re
going to put a smile on your face I’m
fine I I can handle this I can do it
okay and just move along and hope nobody
notices what you don’t know is that
there are a lot of other people around
you who are doing the very same
thing so your social perception is that
everybody is smiling happy doing fine
I’m the only one who’s got a
problem when in fact the reality is
behind those masks behind that smiley
face there are a lot of other people
thinking oh my God I’m the only
one on top of the problem of not being
able to say what you really feel
half the time you don’t understand what
anybody is
saying so if you think about your
average meeting the social contract is
this you’ll sit there and speak nonsense
and I’ll sit there quietly and not
listen to you and check my emails while
you’re speaking nonsense how we can
empower the intelligent transformation
and accelerating adoption connect and
enable the new experiences make the move
to enable the application to truly gain
knowledge how to speak the language of
management so I play a character called
Charles Crone he was swept up in the
kind of new age mysticism which was
washing across the West Coast during the
60s and
70s cron gets um hired by Pacific Bell
and his job is to come in and engage in
what they call a transformational change
project Workshop participants take part
in an exercise Des designed to broaden
perception and increase sensory input
and Cron’s role was really to kind of
reprogram the
employees by uh introducing them to his
own personal uh philosophy which was
drawn from a Russian Mystic called
George GV devotees of griev would often
engage in mystical dancing reciting
mystical poetry Etc and the board
members of Pacific Bell were
particularly keen on this uh and they
thought that their employees should get
a bit of it as well
now if you look back to that language
now it sounded scandalous and strange at
the time but now that’re part of
everyday
language people need a justification for
what they’re doing they need a language
which um makes these empty tasks which
people have in companies uh it gives
them some substance or apparent
substance so there’s the sense that
croning provides a way of covering up
the gaping hole which is Corporate life
often but if you go back to the to the
to the like your the cause of the the
burnout what would you say if you had to
narrow it down to only a few few topics
what what for you guys what what would
you name as the the key the key drivers
of your uh yeah I think it’s been like
coming out like like mild symptoms but
mostly like I felt really strong was I
think back in March this year where I
kind of like found myself not being able
to do daily stuff or like running
errands or like talking to people like
where I felt like overwhelmed by doing
that like wake myself up like brush my
te kid sit on the table that was the
hardest thing to do in the morning and
that was like the prominent symptom for
me to like recognize that oh I have a
problem I it’s embarrassing to to admit
but I actually sometimes felt that it
would be easier if I would be hit by a
car in the morning on my way to work
because that would solve the problem of
not having to go there that that was
like how deep I was in my own misery
like I just like it felt so anxious and
and like impossible even sometimes to to
go to work because I knew like that what
was awaiting and I just felt like if
somebody or something outside of me
would solve the problem then I wouldn’t
have to like think about it but like
these are things that I’ve only realized
afterwards I totally refused the idea
that I wasn’t burn
out I just felt like I’m Invincible I
cannot have a burnout this cannot happen
to me
again so it was kind of hard for me to
start to realize admit accept and
process it was really long uh long
process for
me when they talk about exhaustion if
that’s all it is then why change the
name why just call it what it is which
is
exhaustion with burnout we’re talking
about more than
that the exhaustion response is what we
think think of that’s stress it is the
stress
response chronic everyday
stressors burnout is a signal it’s a red
flag it’s a warning if you start seeing
problems with burnout it’s telling you
not who is burning out it’s telling you
why
[Music]
[Music]
in the 19th century we got this
invention of a new professional class of
people who were
managers those managers often came from
an engineering background so they were
quite good at sort of tuning the
Machinery they began then to see the
people as cogs that they could
potentially tune and make more efficient
as
well in about the late 1970s a
corporation a company was no longer
treated as a entity with people in
it the purpose of the corporation is to
maximize shareholder
value companies began to say how much
human capital have we got and they began
to treat their employ like a kind of
balance sheet which they could measure
manage as if they have no history as if
they have no family as if they have no
attachment to
place it’s not even just a cog in the
machine it’s a flickering digital line
on a balance sheet somewhere that can be
easily deleted at the Press of a key
[Music]
burnout is all in engineering I mean
rocket boosters burn out you know ball
bearings burn
out so it’s not a surprise that when
they started Silicon Valley startups
they called them burnout shops they
advertised as burnout shops cuz this is
what the life is going to be like but it
was intended to be a limited time it was
intended to be a Sprint two to four or
five years
Max is now the model for a
marathon this is the way we do business
all the time for
years human body cannot run a marathon
at a Sprint
Pace most people come to work really
wanting to make a difference
and it starts with the most basic clear
expectations so when people come to work
they need to know what their role is and
um too often in organizations now people
don’t one of the great challenges of
leadership is bringing teams together
creating a common
purpose how that mission or purpose
comes to
life is the
manager it’s the manager that helps that
employee see how that work connects to
that bigger
[Music]
picture often times we put people in
managerial positions for a couple
reasons we ask managers how’d you get
into your job one tenure been around the
organization a long time
two I was really successful as an
individual contributor before I was a
manager neither of those two things
correlate with being an effective
manager the motivation is I want to be a
manager because I’ll probably get paid
more I’ll feel like I’ve I’ve reached a
higher level in the
organization those are two human nature
motivations that it’s hard to get people
out of unless you have a path where
somebody can see they have a high esteem
position maybe even paid more than
managers for being an exceptional
individual
contributor they may not think about
people as individuals may not even
naturally care about them as individuals
that much so they think almost
completely about the work itself not
about how that person can develop over
time so what it does is it deteriorates
the culture of the team but it also is
isn’t good for the manager
but that’s the system or the right to
passage that’s worked that’s happened
inside organizations if you’re going to
ask me what a root cause of all this is
that that would be one of them here’s
the financial logic you make somebody a
manager just because they’re good at
doing a certain job and you pay them
more not to do that job anymore and
instead to do a job that they’re not
qualified to do with the result that the
productivity of everybody else in the
team goes down but you still have to pay
their
salaries meanwhile the new manager has
to prove to his boss that he’s still
getting results so he hires a Management
Consultant to try and fix the problem it
produces a cool report but half the time
changes
nothing but you still pay the
[Music]
consultant well I mean I don’t know how
many managers I had but I a lot and
there’s I think only two
so maybe you know 10% which you could
had really could really have a
personal uh conversation with which made
a complete
difference in how I was actually doing
my
job can I ask a quick question it’s
something that that everybody has
touched upon here you know you talk
about the expectations from childhood
about working life do you remember a a
specific instance of that clash between
expectations and
reality I was thinking about this um
yeah as I I mentioned earlier I’m the
big sister in the family and I have a
little sister she is two years younger
than I am and we are very different um
she is the the Wild Spirit and um the
one who’s been searching for herself
for her entire life whereas I’ve been
the more of the IR rational one perhaps
and uh the one who gets good grades and
like just like do what the society is
expecting me to do and that’s why I said
earlier that there I felt like there was
this train for me so I I jump on the
train then there is the school you get
the good results you do good don’t upset
the teachers then of course I will go to
UNI it’s law school or med school or
whatever be the good girl
maybe the point is like i i w i i feel
like I was something and then I was like
shaped into like suffocated into being
like something else something less
something
smaller and and that’s why I kind of
developed the sense that um I’m not good
enough and I
am there is something wrong with me like
there is something fundamentally deeply
wrong with me as a human
being and perhaps that is something that
I’ve been trying to kind of then um fix
through these different achievements in
life like go to that go to UNI get those
results because I felt that that is my
responsibility as Vanessa as as the
person I am like I am the person who is
supposed to do these
things one of the things that has
fascinated me over the years is
education
it’s almost designed to destroy the
Natural Curiosity we have as
[Music]
children somehow you know at when you’re
in primary education they’re beating
that out of you they’re destroying that
Natural Curiosity then when you go to
higher education they kind of halfway
put it back you never quite get back to
where you were when you were five but
you know maybe you get a little of it
just enough that you can function as an
intellectual many of the rituals and
structures of primary education are
designed to prepare people for factory
labor that’s why they have bells ringing
and you have to get up and you have to
move from room to room there’s no
particular reason you should have to
move from room to
room the interesting question for me is
why are they still doing that because
it’s not like very many kids going to
school are going to be working in
factories anymore
my conclusion is that they are preparing
us for a life that isn’t going to make a
lot of
sense they’re teaching us not to ask
questions about things that any
intelligent person who hadn’t been so
trained would like but why are we
filling out this form if we don’t get
any money either way
anyway why are we writing this report if
nobody’s going to read it all these
things that anybody in a job
really should be asking but knows as a
condition of their employment that they
[Music]
shouldn’t if a guy shows up in a white
coat or acting like he’s in Authority
faster than Nokia has ever gone before
just play along
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
Children First figure out that they are
separate from the world around them when
they realize they can have predictable
effects and he has this scenario where
say a child is moving his arms around
and he moves a pencil there’s a pencil
there and rolls down the table and he
figures out what happens he moves his
hand again it rolls a little
further this is great oh my God you know
I am I am an entity that can have
effects on things and and that’s the
moment you realize you were a person um
and there is a world and they’re they’re
not the same thing
[Music]
and and when you take that away people
just collapse it shatters their sense of
self really the very basis of what makes
us human or feel human
[Music]
it strikes me that we need to
re-evaluate what we see as valuable in
labor because we’ve if we’ve got to a
situation where millions and millions
millions of people around the world are
coming into work every day saying there
is no social value in what I do it’s
pointless there is a clash between what
the market dictates what our economic
system identifies as valuable and what
people actually feel in their hearts as
valuable there’s a disjuncture people
feel there are something terribly
[Music]
wrong they have some kind of notion that
real work meets people’s needs desires
it take it it it it’s about furthering
something in humans that we wish to
further so when you enter a company they
make you feel like you are blessed
working for them that they choose you to
work for them and it’s not you that
apply for the job but they kind of pick
up pick you up from out of nowhere
and they choose you to be the blessed
one working for them so that you kind of
have to feel your life is the company
life so you don’t have an identity
anymore but you are the company this is
the lucky one are you going to get
married oh what’s the thing about that
in Italy we say like when you when you
have the proo bottle and you open it if
the top finish on you you will get
married really something like that yeah
this this it’s crazy
in 3 years I’ve been assisting to three
reorganization where people have been
losing their jobs where people have been
crying where they were working since 20
years or more so in the back of my head
I always had that like you are giving
the best of yourself to this company but
remember one day they will call you and
say you have to pck your stuff in a week
I had a relationship for a few years so
we were living together and of course we
decide to start a family together and
then um we could not buy a house
together due to our incomes because it
was just too low I was the one of the
two who had a better contract I had a
better income so I felt like if I fail
in this job we will not buy a house so
we will not build up a family it will be
all my fault so I was really stressed at
home I was doing extra work at home so I
was not really there for the couple for
living together at that point what
happened to me is that I worked too much
at the point that I kind of destroyed my
private
life I was really frustrated because I
thought I work hard for more than 10
years I want to settle down I want to
have kids I want to do these kind of
things and I cannot
[Music]
corporations are a grand example of the
emperor has no
clothes it’s all about promise it’s all
about what we’re going to do in the
future they’re constantly undergoing
these change processes reorganization
restructuring downsizing right sizing
you fire people you hire people you
shift around the signs but very little
at the end of the day actually changes
[Music]
we know lots of people lose from all of
us many people who lose their job it
often becomes extremely stressful for
the people who stay often those things
are done not necessarily because they
need to be um they’re done because the
CEO has to show that something’s
happening
[Music]
who it doesn’t press is financial
analysts who set the price or make a
recommendation of what they think the
price of a share should be nothing
actually changes in how well the company
does but the share price goes up because
I’ve said the right thing to the
financial
markets but that also means because the
CEO is often rewarded on the basis of
stock options or share price their pay
goes
[Music]
up one of the most pernicious things
about our current economic system is
that the more your work benefits others
in an obvious and immediate sense the
more your work has a clear and
undeniable beneficial effect on other
human beings the less you are likely to
get paid for it
[Music]
if you look at the graphs we just
basically stay almost completely flat
whereas productivity continues to rise
precipitously so the big question is
what’s happened to that extra profit
again the the story We Tell ourselves
and this time it’s not entirely untrue
is that it all got pumped into Finance
basically these profits went to Rich
just 1% of the
population and they basically are
gambling with
[Music]
it I was running all my life to study
and get a job in a company and so I
could have a good life going to buy an
amazing house you know for myself and
then uh I want to be single and travel
for a long time and then I want to have
kids and settle down and
a it’s just a big Dream It’s Just an
Illusion
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
so for me to gave up so much of my
private life and not having achieving
the results that I expected
to it was just mind-blowing my brain
stopped working I I can tell you like
this is the feeling that I have now like
something break inside my brain and I I
could not picture how that
happened it was unbelievable
[Music]
the original sabotage manual was written
for a world where most people who worked
operated a
machine but we’ve been just as effective
at sabotaging work in our world where
most work relies not on a
machine but on the brain power of humans
the authors of the original manual would
have been amazed at how effective our
sabotage has been only 20% of the
workforce are engaged in their
work those that manage them are seldom
qualified for the
job and that less of the benefits of
work goes to those who do the
work go on why are we creating we
Society creating an environment in which
people are doing really good work
necessary work beneficial work and
making them do it in a way that it just
sort of Tears them apart and you know
out they
go so how to
make that realization that the setting
and the environment in which people
function really you know as much as
possible how do we design it to make
people
really grow and
Thrive we’ve known for a long time all
about ergonomics that we have to design
furniture and tools that adapt to the
human body you may not like the way the
human body was designed but that’s the
way it
functions I guess I’m talking more about
ergonomics in terms of the social
psychological what makes people tick
this is the weird thing for me and this
is the conundrum for me personally
because I love my job that I do at the
moment and I’m actually for the first
time in 20 years doing something I
really care about I feel like I’m making
a difference I’m working in a meaningful
industry and um but yet I’m still
experiencing um symptoms of a of a
burnout so how have I still got to this
stage what is it that’s gone wrong you
know what is it that I’ve done wrong
maybe or why am I having panic attacks
is it is it because I’ve you and I could
have the same job and there is something
out there that drives you crazy and I’m
okay what has been discovered in a lot
of research by a lot of people um is at
least six areas where that kind of job
person balance or imbalance the fit or
the misfit occurs that can be addictive
if there if it’s a good fit of Greater
engagement with the work if it’s a bad
fit the risk of burnout becomes more of
a problem the workload is was always
huge and there’s no like uh uh uh
long-term projects it’s always like for
yesterday that you need to
deliver so the one that everybody thinks
about is
workload and that is the one that is
probably most clearly t TI to problems
with exhaustion and basically the
imbalance there or the misfit is that
the demands are really high and the
resources is handle those demands are
low you don’t have enough time you don’t
have the right information you don’t
have the tools you don’t you know
there’s no way that that can be done
given given that what’s the point and
it’s a never ending process it’s never
ending it just goes never end you finish
with one task and tomorrow you have
plenty more because they need to expand
to other countries the second one is
control and that’s really the extent to
which you have some Choice some
discretion some autonomy some way of
deciding how best to do the job given
what it is like
today as opposed to you have no
discretion no choice you must do
this and what we find is it’s not so
much workload but if you have high
workload and you have high control no
problem it’s when you have high Work and
No
Control it’s like sisifus pushing up the
rock and all of a sudden end of the day
it’s
[Music]
back when there is insufficient reward
that that means that no matter what you
do how successful you are how great you
are meeting the deadlines and getting
things done in
something no good feedback
comes the reward is not just about the
salary or the benefits I mean I don’t
want to throw that out but I mean I mean
that’s not usually the biggies the
biggies are the social
recognition the appreciation that
somebody noticed you really you know oh
my gosh you really got us out of a bind
there by the the thing that you did and
oh thanks so much and you know we
couldn’t have done it without you little
things like that I thought God I’m I’m
going to have the logo in my eyes soon
and I’ll just be walking around like a
zombie yeah um because it was like you
know and you have to live and breathe
our values and you need to be a change
agent and you need to do this and you
need to do that and Community is really
the the the social environment that you
the people you come in contact on a
regular basis okay we have a flexible
time yeah we have a flexible you know
working time but every day 10:00 a.m. we
have a meeting
so how can be this flexible like you
give me okay can I work from uh 12: to
9: no I mean when it works well when
there
is social support Mutual social support
you know we sort of help each other out
if something’s unclear we kind of
clarify uh when there is trust when
there is kind of respect for each other
and uh you know notion of
reciprocity when all of that is working
well quite honestly it is like money in
the bank even though I give them the
message listen guys this is too much for
me and I got a burnout because of this
they don’t care they just like hide the
problem and they keep on doing whatever
they have to
do when people feel they are working in
a place that is unfair that treats
people
unfairly this will raise the level of
that cynicism Sky
High and if there is a value conflict
it’s even
worse we need to take into account what
human beings are like and how they
function what makes them motivated what
makes them uh do great things what do
they need to recharge and reboot and you
know have a life
[Music]
for Generations people thought they were
working really hard so we’ll someday
create a world where people don’t have
to work so much where robots will do the
the unpleasant drudgery the repetitive
stupid labor that nobody really wants to
do
[Music]
now we’re living under a system a
capitalist market system which is
supposed to be efficient it can allocate
resources in a way that will guarantee
the maximum production and profitability
maybe it create makes people unhappy But
ultimately it creates greater good by
being the most efficient system anybody
could ever
[Music]
imagine I mean any efficient system you
think should be able to reallocate
resources in such a way that we work
less and everybody still has enough to
eat if we can’t do that there’s
something terribly wrong I mean we have
an insanely ridiculously in
[Music]
system I think we should change the way
we think of the economy let’s not talk
about production and consumption
anymore most work isn’t actually making
stuff it’s it’s not changing it even you
know transforming it to make it into
something else it’s trying to keep it
the same you know you got to take care
of things or else they fall apart
then they tell us well you know we’re
going to create robots that will um get
rid of all our jobs this is a big
problem well you can’t have people have
too much leisure time they’ll they’ll
they’ll depressed they’ll just sit
around and watch TV all day they won’t
they won’t be able to figure out what to
do with
[Music]
themselves people do want to contribute
to the world and make the world better
for the people around them and left to
their own devices they’re more likely to
do something useful than if they’re
[Music]
not oh how do we know we’re not going to
have a world full of annoying Street mes
or or you know bad
poets awful musicians you know um crank
scientists with Hollow Earth theories or
trying to create perpetual motion
devices all we need is like one of those
bad musicians to be Miles Davis or John
lenon or one of those crank scientist to
be Einstein and you know you pretty much
made back your
[Music]
investment when it’s hot day done I walk
along long ring rest I’m coming back
where I
belong where I belong
days G by my oh my going
home when this hot day done I’ll see
your face they’ll bring no for sorrows
in I warm
embrace I warm and
Brace days come bright high up on high
see your
[Music]
face can we rest when it’s all
over you can rest

Superfluous meetings, endless paperwork and incompetent managers – sound familiar? Jobs that entail a steady stream of seemingly pointless demands can damage our health in the long-term. This film takes a humorous look at how we waste potentially valuable time in the workplace.

In an ideal scenario, work is fulfilling. But many people in office jobs find their daily work is making them miserable. Of course, it could be argued that the dissatisfaction of these employees is mainly a by-product of industrialization. They’re in secure, non-physically demanding professions that are often relatively well paid – unlike many people in this world living in vastly more dire circumstances. But is this unparalleled waste of human resources one of the biggest untold dramas of our time?

“The Happy Worker” explores the reasons why highly paid managers are so fond of parroting hackneyed phrases, following abstruse management methods and poisoning the working atmosphere for the benefit of shareholders. According to a Gallup poll, just 13 per cent of the working population endeavor to perform well in their job. However, 64 per cent of employees don’t care about their work and aim to get through the day with minimum effort. 25 per cent of workers hate their jobs so much they even work against the company that employs them. Although the numbers vary from country to country, these trends can be observed all over the world.

A sense that their work is pointless makes many people ill. The documentary hears from patients recovering from burnout. The accounts of their experiences are appraised by a number of experts including the Berkeley-based pioneer of research into burnout, the psychologist Christina Maslach.

#documentary #dwdocumentary #burnout #work
______

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