Sitges Tales: Voluntary Ignorance
Somos Humanos, SQ columnist, Juan Carlos arrived to meet
me and SQ Assistant Editor, Gloria Gannaway at La Formatgeria, a usual haunt of ours and the evening was underway.
Putting world politics aside, a
subject which inevitably surfaces the conversation, our discussion focused on
being proactive in the workplace and how in many areas of business it has
decreased and even been discouraged. Taking the initiative seems stagnant.
And really, blue collar millennial workers don't seem to ask much of their
employers.
The word is BENEFITS
Why would they? They've
never lived in a world where - if you worked hard for a company, it took care
of you in return - in terms of vacation time, maternal and sick leave, health
plans and retirement benefits.
Employee value has also been
eroded by companies. it appears now a fraction of what it was two decades
ago. And it seems companies have no problem asking more of its employees
while giving less. Automating where ever possible, making human workers
obsolete and piling more duties on those left standing. I guess we should be
grateful for being employed?
And what of Work ethic? Today it depends upon
the person, when in the past it was not only encouraged in the workplace but
nurtured. Oh, fulfilling ones work duties to the best of ones ability still
exists and is a joy to experience and behold. But as a customer, these
occasions don’t seem to be experienced as frequently as they once were.
We continued and moved on to
social media and voluntary ignorance -
to give over whatever necessary to get something relatively meaningless,
without thinking of the real cost you "pay”. How people seem to be
more than willing to hand over valuable personal information for the benefit of
shopping online or connecting with others, who I might add are still just a
telephone call away.
Where to from here?
It reminds me of a lecture
given by Jaron Larnier (the man who in 1987 coined the term, "Virtual
Reality”) in London, which I attended a few years ago. The main theme
I took away from his lecture was - that in this digital age, people are the commodity. Our personal
information, interests and habits we commit to the internet are harvested by
companies and governments to be sold and exploited. I quote from the Sitges local
Infoguia, "Nowadays it seems that
if you don’t have a blog you don’t exist. In the same way with social networks,
if we do not share our lives online, we do not have one"... How did we get
here?
Workers don't give too much of
a damn anymore. And why should they? Yes, minimum wages have slowly increased,
but it never increases in relation to the inflation rate.
Not all doom & gloom
For what its worth, here are
some lessons I’ve learned working for companies over the years:
Be noticed. At work (and in personal life) be the best you can be at your job. Take a real interest in what you do - guess what? Believe it or not, whatever you do REFLECTS on the person you are.
Climb.
Let there be motivation and motion in your professional life. Work toward some
position or state of being in the organization until YOU MAKE THE CHOICE to remain with or leave the company.
And always take pride in your work. Blue or white collar work. Work it is what you do that pays for the things in life and takes you away from your personal existence - make it count for something and bring value to your life.
Juan Carlos Uríszar - http://juancarlosuriszar.wixsite.com/ayudapsicologycoach/trayectorias
