What is the biggest lesson that employment has taught you?

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Being emotionally detached from really stupid leadership decisions is harder than it seems
- Took me a lot of years to not think it's my company that is being run into the ground. I should not - and nowadays could not - care any less.
  
  my company
  You mean "my responsibility", right?
  
  Reading about it, it seems they are in fact all the same. Even the white haribo mice. TIL.
  Yeah, in a way. As in, I don't feel like I have any responsibility in things in the company going to shits (which I would if it were, well, my company).
- The book The Responsibility Virus helped me a lot with this. Most people are over-responsible for the choices of others, specifically ones they can't reasonably influence, anyway.
  
  I found out that https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ explains a lot of the dysfunctions that one finds in an office / corporate environment.
  
  Yes. This lies among the reasons I find it easier not to blame enterprises for their dysfunctions. The unsustained growth imperative of our economic systems makes the Gervais Principle behavior the path of least resistance. Indeed, the only way to stop it seems to come down to the heroism of one key influential person who chooses differently.
  This also accounts for why I stopped trying to fix enterprises and instead focus on helping the well-meaning people who otherwise would need to fend for themselves.
- That hit hard 😶
- I'm determined to ever only work in public, state-owned companies. I believe in a causal connection between being a private, profit-oriented business and the daily "wtf" moments, the only true measure of quality.
  Edit: fixed the link.
  
  I'm afraid I'd be even more depressed by the wtf moments in a public organisation, but I am also considering it.
- I stopped giving a shit a long time ago. I do my best to consult and warn and if they don't listen it's not my problem.

597 comments