Why is work so crap?

This is the question that I started with and I return to pretty much every week.

I know, from my personal experience, that it doesn’t need to be. In fact, organisations would work much better if it wasn’t. If people enjoyed their jobs, were treated with dignity and respect and were encouraged to grow and develop, both they and their organisations would thrive.

So why do so few organisations offer good work to their employees? Why do the vast majority of organisations treat employees as disposable cogs, work in bizarre and counter-productive ways, and organise around making work as joyless as possible?

It’s mad, right? And that’s the madness I dig into.

Turns out there’s not one answer but a load of interconnected and interrelated causes for this mess, and lots of culprits reposnsible for this state of affairs.

I don’t go that deep but I do go broad and find the connections. I don’t go easy, either, I give the culprits what they deserve. l bring a sharp combination of humour and righteous anger to bear on these idiots. Come and join the fun!

My Back Story

I spent 25 years in corporate roles and another 20 getting over the experience. I’m still in recovery.

15 of those years was with one employer, a large UK telecoms company, and there were two distinct halves. The first one was like being in a Playground, I absolutely loved it. It was entreprenuerial, creative and we were treated well. I thrived.

The second half was like a Prison. A fear-driven, hierachical command-and-control organisation, where bullying was the default management style. I did not thrive.

Then I ended up with my ‘Psycho Boss’. It did not go well.

I got sort of made redundant. I left to work at a smaller business and did well but then got properly made redundant. Go figure.

I ended up at a company that couldn’t have been more wrong for me but I was so bent out of shape that I didn’t see that until much later. I lasted a couple of years before we parted ‘due to artistic differences’.

After a while, I realised I had fallen out of corporate (three strikes and out, I guess) and decided to reinvent myself. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise that I was in no position to do such a thing. I was suffering from PTSD and Anxious Depression (although I didn’t find that out until much later).

My reinvention didn’t go terribly well. My coaching was good but my coaching business wasn’t. I tried various collaborations that went nowhere. I probaby let a bunch of opportunities slip through my grasp. I was spinning my wheels.

In 2019 I decided to address the question that had been rattling around my head for so long. The one I thought I was unqualified to answer.

Why is work so crap, for so many people, when it doesn’t need to be? When ‘not being crap’ would be better for organisations and for everyone.

And I also asked myself, what can I do to make it better for people?

And I’m still wrangling with those questions on this Substack.

So what do you think?

I would love to know what you think, what your relationship with work is, what your ‘war stories’ are. Your views and experiences inform my thinking and we will find the best answers through dialogue, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.

How can I help you?

If you’re in middle management and struggling to keep going;

Or you’re feel like you want to make some change happen but don’t know how to start;

Or you’ve left coroproate but are lost and confused and a bit stuck;

Or any part of my story resonates with you

get in touch and let’s have a chat.

That’s where it starts because you will have to craft your own way forward and figure it out one step at a time. And maybe I can help with the first one.