I just happen to be writing on this when Indeed sent a n invitation to post about #AloneAtWork.
Yes there is an epidemic of loneliness in the US. But, work is not the place to address it.
Connecting with another person, a real heartfelt connection requires careful listening, reflecting, and sharing emotional impact. The things that stop connection dead in its tracks: advising, helping, criticizing, judging, anything that puts the listener above the speaker. Anything that separates us from the seeker. We are all seeking health. We all suffer pain. And we are very uncomfortable with suffering, hence responses such as helping and advising which are an attempt to minimize pain, but just divide us.
The work place has way too many power dynamics to create a safe enough space to connect with others over the most challenging pain: suicide, trauma, poverty, return to use (relapse), etc. Judgement is the foundation of employment. Employees are worth paying, some more than others.
The main reason work should not be the place where we connect is this: unemployment is hard enough as is, but now you would be bereft of your source of connection too. Work already has an outsized monopoly on survival. We are dependent on it for shelter, food, medical care. And now employers also want it to be the source of our social health. The more employers take on the responsibilities of caring for their employees, the more dispossessed are the unemployed. The more power employers hold over their employees.
4 replies on “AloneAtWork”
The unemployed are only dispossessed if they have not yet found a group. There are abundant ways to connect with people that don’t involve employment.
Good point Callie. Thanks for the thought. I have always had a very active social life outside work, but have also envied people who had a social work life. At least the idea of it.
“Judgement is the foundation of employment.”
WOW.
So true.
What a potent piece, thank you. I’ve seen countless friendships dissolve the moment one party got promoted (put into a position of judging/feeling responsible to judge the other) or left the workplace, and I’ve heard of just as many flourishing when the workplace (or hobby group!) no longer determined the depth and nature of a friendship.
I like that you question the purity of any corporate agenda, even to nurture, because double agendas come out right when things get hard, and we humans can be devastated when morale turned out to only be important to, for instance, raise share prices before putting a work community under new management.
I agree with what I think you’re getting at:
even if an employer is awesome,
we (personally, and as a people,)
need redundant connection systems.
Thanks, a admit this piece is an oversimplification. I still mostly agree myself.