Translated material
Workaholism as a disease
Trudogolism is a disease that is destructive not only for the individual, but also for the organization. In the first case, everything is clear: a multifaceted person drys to the function of the employee. In addition, a person hangs on one thread. And when the authorities for one reason or another cut off this thread (dismisses, sends it to retirement), only the bullet remains in the forehead or sleep. The elementary sense of self -preservation requires the creation of personal redundancy, which significantly goes beyond the duties. The life of a harmonious personality is harmonious - this is a life jacket in storming social reality.
However, this type does not appear on its own. Often this is the result of a common management system that constructs a human function as an ideal employee. On a short period of time, this type is good: it is much easier to control a function than an individual. The function will not ask: who needs this nonsense and why?
However, with a sharp change in circumstances, when serious restructuring is required, the function is useless. It is easier to hire a new employee - a versatile and flexible person than to make another one from one function. As a result, people-functions turn into one of the most socially vulnerable groups that easily turn into the category of "extra." In the current situation, which Bauman aptly described as a “fluid modernity” of changes (often indigenous), restructuring, the disappearance of professions or their traditional functions become the norm. And in this context, a person-function as a natural result of workaholism becomes dysfunctional. In order to live in the conditions of fluid structures, workers with great personal redundancy are needed: capable of changing jobs, professions, and moving from function to function.
The revolution of managers, apparently, facing a new round, stimulates the reproduction of people-function. At the same time, workaholism acquires specific forms: a good worker is not the one who is an excellent professional, but the one who fits best into the logic of the bureaucratic machine: he works strictly according to its rules, even if they contradict professional success criteria, he writes reports in strictly established forms in time, he finishes high indicators according to the criteria selected, he follows the established schedules (he visits everything, he visits everything. He is not late), he throws everything so that at any time of the day to carefully write a certificate marked "Urgently!". The logic of management and profession comes into contradictions. The higher the creative activity of managers, the more acute the contradiction. And if you take into account that the manager is common by a person whose stupidity is multiplied by the volume of the power given to him, then the rule is valid: the higher the activity of managers, the higher the likelihood of organizing the organization with stupidity that undermines the logic of the profession. A phrase from the novel by D. Granin "I go to a thunderstorm" comes to mind::
- Who is more dangerous than the fool?
- A fool with the initiative.
The policy of organizations that seek and form with all his might of "ideal workers" that lose their personality in their merger with the company acquires a frightening character. Creative and independent people are increasingly fleeing corporations, agreeing to less paid, but more creative and free work. I am increasingly meeting capable young people who mention the idea of working in the context of traditional corporate culture as fundamentally unacceptable. Not that! As a result, there is a negative selection to the authorities, management, large corporations.
As a result, the ability to be a function turns into a filter that cuts off many organizations of people that they need in the first place. Instead, those who are able to simulate functionality come on a smaller scale - heroes who are ready to put life in order to fit into management requirements.
In addition, a functions are a hero that covers the flaws and failures of his organization with his breasts, which only takes them to the level of downward trends. Heroes often perform the functions of impeccable bodyguards saving ineffective bosses. It performs the function of anesthetic, which delays the solution to the problem of treatment.
Two American researchers of organizations tried to delve into the strategies that are being developed by workers who are faced with the pressure of their companies trying to make functions of them.
Appendix: Article Erin Raid, Lakshmi Ramarajan