The Workplace Lie

There are many companies, especially in the tech industry right now, laying off large numbers of workers. Whether layoffs are “justified” or not is an intellectual argument that has no real end, but it is very interesting when these things happen.

Firstly, it is interesting because of how much it troubles us to be laid off, to think about potentially getting laid off, or to know people who get laid off. When you consider the standard of living, the life expectancy, and the luxuries which are available to most people living in western society–not to mention anyone who has a job in a technology company–it seems pretty ridiculous to worry about losing a source of income, especially when you add in the severance packages and unemployment. So what is it?

There are a few reasons I can identify, and they are all based on what are effectively lies. And why we believe those lies is the root of the problem.

A manager who publicly praises her subordinate because she likes the work he did. A CTO who praises higher ups in the department for accomplishing x, y, and z. An employee who posts in a slack channel some grand announcement that’s going to make things better for all the right reasons. What is all of this about? On the surface, you may say it’s reinforcement for doing work the company wants people to do. Underneath, I would say it’s a form of manipulation.

For the people being praised, it’s manipulation by the higher ups to keep you where you are, because you are useful to them. The lie here is that they don’t say what is really going on: “I find the work you did valuable to me personally. I think it’s going to make my position at this company more solid and permanent, and therefore that thing you did is useful to my self.” They instead focus on how great of a job this person did, and how grateful we all are “to have you”.

For the people seeking praise, the lie is that the praise covers up the insecurity. We want praise as an acknowledgment that things are going to be okay, that we don’t have to worry anymore. We want the praise because we’re scared of losing the nice things in our lives–the car, the apartment, the status symbol of our job and being wanted, the dog, the relationship with the desireable partner. We have a deep sense of this lie, and so we constantly try to cover it up by seeking more and more praise. Some have it worse than others.

The reason that it’s a lie becomes crystal clear when companies conduct layoffs. They in one breath say “our employees are out most valuable asset”–which is manipulating you to make you think you matter somehow beyond what you are doing for them–and in the next they lay off 20% of the company to cut costs. They lie with their mouths, and reveal their true nature with their feet.

And we lie with our attachments and reveal our true nature with our suffering. Every time we love the praise that someone gives us and bask in it, we lie a little bit to ourselves about the nature of what we’re doing: we are trading our tasks for dollars. The company is not interested in paying us a cent more than they think they can get away with, and they will use many tactics such as praise to try and convince us that something else is going on, all of which are lies.

I am reminded of a Chuang Tzu quote: “Useful? You should worry.”