Hi hello, Many of us have been in this state of evaluating our work-life-balance, especially since the pandemic. We have shows like The Bear featuring characters coming to terms with the costs of their all-consuming professional ambition. We have more disillusioned employees aware that their jobs will not, at the end of the day, have their backs.
I don’t disagree with your example but what I see in huge swaths of the care economy (education, health care) are people who are deeply invested in doing their jobs well, yet conditions are set by bosses so that the employees who deliver the service must choose between breaking themselves emotionally and physically and doing a good job. Ultimately as you point out, it’s a catch-22, these people are not capable of doing their jobs without caring, so if they give anything less than self-destruction level effort, they hate themselves which causes “burnout” or “moral injury” or whatever the term is today. Either way I see care workers so physically and emotionally exhausted they are broken by their labor conditions.
I don’t disagree with your example but what I see in huge swaths of the care economy (education, health care) are people who are deeply invested in doing their jobs well, yet conditions are set by bosses so that the employees who deliver the service must choose between breaking themselves emotionally and physically and doing a good job. Ultimately as you point out, it’s a catch-22, these people are not capable of doing their jobs without caring, so if they give anything less than self-destruction level effort, they hate themselves which causes “burnout” or “moral injury” or whatever the term is today. Either way I see care workers so physically and emotionally exhausted they are broken by their labor conditions.
Good life lesson, a hard one to give without feeling lame or like a secret boss but one that is definitely true!