When a company prizes those who are heroically overworked in stress-filled jobs, a siren song whispers to everyone else in the organization:
Make your job difficult, stretch yourself thin, stress yourself out and eventually you, too, may be honored with executive approval.
If you desire the blessing of the Mighty Corporate Fathers:
Work longer hours (than is sensible); take on more responsibility (than is sensible); make your job harder (than is sensible).Do this, and your sacrifices will be celebrated and your worth confirmed.
This cultural seduction plays into the old illusion that if we just work hard enough, and if we just work long
enough...
we will finally be found valuable...
finally be found loveable...
and finally find security.
Instead, what the seduction delivers — if we buy into it — is a workplace where the quality of life is continually eroded by contrived travail.
Wouldn’t a more promising choice be to turn your back on the Overwork-as-an-end-in-itself Game
And, instead, enlist the hidden genius within you and develop the skills to play like a champion?