Work and the Enshitification of the Self

No Identity by JulijaJan

While I’ve felt it for a while, it’s only been in the last year or two I’ve really acknowledged that I am just not built for work, specifically the 9-to-5. It’s not something that my mind or body is geared for.

This is not something that is specific to my current job - although my current job has certainly made this more apparent - and it’s not simply a lazy, unambitious “I don’t want to work” mentality. It’s more than that. It’s something I feel deeply and I struggle with every day.

I hate how much of our lives is spent working. I hate how much time it takes away from the things that I - we- really care about. I hate that I have to use what energy I have to do mundane, thankless tasks when I could be using that energy to write, draw, create, be with family or friends, or exploring the world.

I hate that our society says “this thing you want to create? That’s not important. However, these long, boring spreadsheets and meetings are.” I hate that work makes you nothing but a number, just a cog in a machine that ultimately doesn’t care about you at all. I hate that you are expected to give your undying loyalty to your job, to offer up your blood, sweat, tears and most of your time on this planet when the job itself would cast you aside without a moment’s hesitation, and most likely give you a good kick in the ribs while it’s at it, as soon as its bottom line looks a little shaky.

I hate that if you make a mistake - usually because the training is so poor or you’ve simply never been told - you are treated like a criminal, like you are worthless. The job yells at you for not following the training, even though that “training” amounts to nothing more than a bad PowerPoint presentation with crap clip art and some self important manager yabbering on in a pointless video, all of which is simply tells you all the ways you’ll probably fuck up, but now you’ve watched this video you’ll have no excuses when you do.

Want practical experience? Nah, just go out and do it. Would you like a competent colleague to show you how things are done? Pfft, there’s no time for that, just have some overworked and underpaid sod who was only told this morning that they have to show you the ropes on top of the 100 other things they have to deal with take you through quick as possible.

I read once that the two worst things about a job are not having one…and having one. I also read that jobs are where mental health goes to die. To that I would also add individualism, creativity and freedom. Work doesn’t want us to have our own ideas or come up with anything. It wants us to toe the company line, to tap keys like good little robots, to not stand out from the crowd. Work wants us to conform to the ways it wants us to work. They push “out of the box thinking,” but only if it leads to the bigger box they have, in their generosity, allowed us to exist within.

Turns out, when you strip away their humanity, people revolt. They quit, cause a fuss, join a union. AI bots don’t do this though, which is why so many workplaces are so keen on AI.

Work kills the soul. It kills personality and individualism. It kills freedom and creativity. It wants you to be an automaton, a drone, and cares nothing for the person it destroys to get you there.

---