Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It_ The Results-Only Revolution - Cali Ressler [12]
Human beings judge everything—especially other people. Their attire, their hair, their driving, their cooking, their speech, their financial well-being, their occupation, even their child-rearing skills. We make judgments automatically, and sometimes we choose to say out loud what’s in our heads. Some people are outwardly cruel, cutting down their friends and family with barely veiled references to their shortcomings. Some people are well-meaning but unthinking, making otherwise innocent comments about how much money someone makes, how their marriage is going, their weight, their hair.
Still there are rules. Part of growing up is learning what you can and cannot say to people, what is polite and what is rude. Strangely, at work a lot of these rules don’t apply. We have this weird permission to be shitty to one another at work. We judge people’s perceived work habits. We judge how we imagine people’s personal lives and personal choices affect their work. We especially judge people about how they use their time.
We say:
“Coming in at eleven again? Boy, I wish I had your hours!”
“Another vacation—how many vacation days do you get? I haven’t taken a vacation in five years!”
“How in the world could John get a promotion? He’s never even here!”
“I wish I smoked. Then I could always be on break and never have to work.”
We call this kind of judgment SludgeSM. Sludge is the negative commentary that occurs naturally in a workplace and is based on outdated beliefs about time and work.
We’ll go into Sludge in more detail in the next chapter, but for now let’s just say that Sludge performs a very important function at work. When we judge people—when we Sludge them—we are expressing outdated attitudes about time and about what work looks like and how it gets done. We judge to make a point that someone else is different. We judge to make the point that even if someone’s crime is small, they are acting outside the rules of work. We judge to make ourselves look better, to show other people (and ourselves) that we’re the hardest working, we’re the most dedicated. Most of all we judge them to reinforce those unspoken beliefs about work. It’s a vicious cycle.
Time is the misguided measure.
Beliefs about work give time more power than it deserves.
Acting on their beliefs, people judge (or Sludge) one another to give time power and reinforce the status quo.
When you look at work through this lens, then even seemingly “innocent” phrases start to take on deeper meanings.
“Ten o’clock and just getting in?”
The person who says this believes that work can only take place from eight to five in a physical place. They’re telling you that you better start coming in on time or you’ll be branded as a bad worker.
“I’m not surprised Bill got that promotion. He’s always here!”
The person who says this believes not only that if you’re not at work you can’t be doing work, but that if you aren’t seen “working” then you’ll never be recognized for your achievements. They’re reinforcing the idea that the people who work the longest hours must be getting the most done.
“Rita is in the lactation room again. I wish I had kids. I’d never have to work.”
Translation: People who have children aren’t as committed to their jobs because they’re seen as not available for work. They also work fewer hours, which means they can’t make a positive impact. This person is sending you a warning that if you take your career seriously, having kids can be a detriment.
As you start to hear what’s really behind these kinds of comments (or catch yourself making them) you’ll begin to realize how sick work is. How our sense of time and our beliefs about how work gets done are really holding us back. When we judge one another in this way, we’re championing a system that distracts us from