No One Is Coming To Help

The estate management service is contracted to cut the grass every 2 weeks between April and October and now, having erased the last remains of desiccated vegetation two weeks ago, they're slicing into dust. 
 
The estate managers make soothing noises and nothing changes.

Everyone is fulfilling the terms of their contract.

And you can bet that if they didn’t there would be residents who demanded that they do, because they’ve paid for the contract to be fulfilled.

In the years that I’ve seen clients, both as a volunteer counsellor and in private practice, it’s been clear that people want to do their best which for a huge majority means fulfilling their contracts and avoiding trouble. They work full time on a part time contract, take on more and more work, don’t let their team, clients, boss or family down all the while becoming more and more frustrated, exhausted and despairing.

Underneath these behaviours is often a fear that they will be seen to be not even deficient but just different and different is bad. All too often they have a boss who is putting pressure on them to do more. Never mind that their boss is also under pressure, the burden just gets passed down.

There’s no good end to this. People get ill and go off work: if they’re employed they at least have the backup of sickness legislation, if they’re self-employed they lose income hand over fist with very serious implications. Teams have to take up the burden of an absent colleague, customers have to wait and vulnerable people’s services become less functional until they become harmful.

Blame rears its head. People who have followed policies and made all the right noises cannot be to blame; look, here are all the boxes, ticked. People who have become ill may well be to blame, particularly if that illness isn’t physical or if a physical illness is invisible. Slipped discs, irritable bowel syndrome, stress, migraines, well, anyone can make them up, right? Looking meaningfully at the causes of stress, of illness, doesn’t pass through anyone’s mind while finding and getting rid of a scapegoat makes everyone feel better for a month.

‘We’re not getting the support we need,’ is a truism. I can’t think of one group of working people who is. Because what almost every working person needs is less work.

 I mean it. 

Healthy people of working age in the west are most likely to find satisfaction by working an 8 hour day, sleeping for 8 hours and doing what they want for 8 hours. That’s well established and we are simply not prepared to take responsibility for it, waiting like a damsel in distress for someone to come and rescue us. Worse, growing numbers of people embrace the performance of martyrdom finding perverse pleasure in and measuring their worth by their public suffering.

There’s a reward in being seen to be faithfully ploughing on, not letting anyone down, being good. Being very, very good. That’s fine, go giddy with masochism, but be aware that you’re doing it and take responsibility for it.

People who don’t get gratification from overwork are directly and adversely impacted by people who do. An organisational culture of virtue/performance overwork can begin with just one person, becomes normal then expected from everyone. A good manager isn’t one that goads their teams to further work but who has the confidence and wisdom to say, “Mary, John, I can see that you really want to do your job well. But that means taking the time to go home and relax. You’re putting other people under unnecessary pressure. We’re working for the long term here, sickness and burnout are avoidable costs to our business.”

Yes, absolutely easier said than done. But it doesn’t mean that it can’t be done. It just means that you treat people respectfully rather than like a herd of abused donkeys. You don’t overload your business. You don’t take on work you can’t fulfil without brutalising yourself or your workforce. You accept that there are endless numbers of people who need help and that your power to help them lies more in your vote than in your ability to work an 18 hour day.

While we wait for the entire culture of the UK to alter you may have to take your life into your own control by making long term plans involving seeking a new job, retraining, moving, all kinds of profound and stressful changes. You may have to lose money. You may very well lose status.

Genuine self respect will lead to people treating you with genuine respect and that is worth more than a title and a 50-hour working week. You’ll have your price, everyone does, and balancing your financial needs against your long-term wellbeing is a delicate matter. The sooner you begin the sooner you’ll find a better, more satisfying way of living.

​But you have to begin.