It’s Cool to Hate Work

Thank God It's Friday.

I hate Mondays.

My boss sucks.

All three of these slogans I've seen on t-shirts people are proud to wear and proclaim. When did it become cool to hate your job? In the Great Depression people begged for any kind of work they could get paid for in order to provide for their families. Working people were grateful to have a job. any job.

Somewhere along the line it became the norm to dislike your job. In fact, a recent survey indicated 75% of the American workforce was dissatisfied with the jobs they were in. That is ¾ of our working population unhappy, disgruntled and less than fully committed to performing their jobs. And we wonder why we have an economic crisis?

Most of the reasons people indicate for their dissatisfaction relate to their direct manager. More people leave a job because of who they directly report to than any other reason. How can this be fixed?

It comes from both sides of the issue.

Managers need to shape up!

Leadership in this country is atrocious. We have lost sight of how to lead people. We have lost focus on what are the keys to being a leader in an organization, the most important being good communication. Once corporations took their focus off good employee relations, customer service and product quality commitment, and instead, focused on the bottom line profit numbers, they lost their way.

Managers are also not being given proper training (because of a bottom line profit focus) so the damage continues to be repeated by people ill-fit for the position they are being asked to fulfill.

The long-term damage of poor leadership can ruin a company, create irreparable employee attitudes, and eventually shut down the organization. Management has a great responsibility to give people work they can care about and actually enjoy doing.

Employees need to stop whining!

Being a cynic has become an American past time and employees are using this state of mind to focus on all the negatives they encounter. Get over it. Should work be challenging? Yes. Should work push a person to achieve more and improve on their skills? Yes. As long as the attitude is "I hate my job," nothing productive can come from that mindset. Ever work for a pitifully bad boss? Sure, we all have but is that any reason to carry that animosity into your next job working for the new boss? No, and this is where the American worker needs to stop whining.

Often times our own attitudes and negative behavior creates that which we dislike the most. If my mind set is to dislike work at any job, then I will never be happy, fully productive or satisfied with my work contribution. Considering most of us will have to work 40 to 50 years to cover our financial responsibilities, wouldn't it be more productive and satisfying to be able to have the mindset to enjoy those years?

Managers and employees need to work hard to find a common ground of satisfaction before all American business ends up like the American auto industry. That is a wake up call for everyone to find work you find satisfying, enjoy the parts of the job you currently have, and work with management to open the lines of communication.

Common sense says, having the mindset of enjoying what you do will help you to be more productive where everyone benefits more. In reality, hating your job isn't cool, in fact it could bring down the entire economic system, and then we'd once again be glad just to be able to dig a ditch for a pay check.