SUMMARY OF THE GOOD JOB AND BAD BOSS

The businessman observes a fisherman approaching the coast with his daily catch while he is relaxing on the beach of a tiny fishing community. The fisherman responds that it's all he needs when the businessman inquires how long it took him to bring in his catch. The businessman proposes to assist the businessman in expanding his enterprise by purchasing a larger boat and using the money to establish his own cannery. The businessman goes on to say that he might relocate to the city in order to start a distribution facility and eventually list his company on the stock market.

As activity knows no bounds, the fetishization of work is not exclusive to the United States. As much as Big Macs and Levi's trousers are cultural exports, American management styles and work cultures are as well. White-collar professionals now view their work as analogous to their religious identities in that they give them meaning, a sense of belonging, and a sense of purpose in addition to a paycheck. Derek Thompson, a journalist, gave this new phenomena the name "workism." Similar to how a religious person gets meaning from their beliefs, a workist looks for significance in their work.

The contemporary ideology of workism demands the union of two opposing goals, financial success and personal contentment. Even though they are not always compatible, we increasingly seek to our professions to fulfill both of these desires. This book is not a memoir; rather, it is a study of the reasons why labor has grown to be so important to so many people's identities, including mine. To choose the nine people who will be highlighted in the following chapters, the author spoke with over one hundred employees.

America is currently seeing a widespread trend that defies both logic and history. The amount of time people spend working has been inversely connected with wealth. You tend to work less as your money increases because, well, you can afford not to. Due to increased economic competition in the second half of the 20th century, people are now more likely to be able to afford to work the more they do. White-collar workers are the most likely to look to their jobs for purpose and identity, and they have seen large increases in work time over the course of the 20th century among the highest incomes in the United States.

Adults who are wealthier and better educated tend to be less likely to have alternative sources of meaning, such as organized religion, which supports the occurrence. But the majority of people who work do so to survive, not to achieve their full potential.

Workism developed in the United States as a result of the industrial revolution, which set seasonal and solar output limits. The organized labor movement battled to establish these rules for workers, but since then, practices regarding our working hours, days off, and motivations have been universal. Each of these variables is amplified by the significant cultural change that has occurred in the United States. Millions of people's relationships to their jobs have changed as a result of the new American work ethic, which emphasizes individual passions and identities over labor.

Because studies have shown that a "obsessive passion" for one's work is linked to increased rates of burnout and work-related stress, having the expectation that one's work will always be rewarding might result in suffering. The record-low fertility rates in nations like Japan are largely a result of work-centered lifestyles. Inflated expectations of professional achievement in the US contribute to the country's record-high rates of despair and anxiety.

High expectations cannot be overcome by simply not caring about your work. A third of the average person's life will be spent at work, therefore how we spend those hours is important. How can you strike a balance between seeking out meaningful employment and running the risk of letting your career define who you are? The idea of

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