Feelings at Work

Douglas Murray is great, and I highly recommend his recent article about the British civil service scandal. Here’s a little quote:

When I survey the current state of Britain, apart from needing to lie down, I always face one question. When was it that the grown-ups disappeared, or otherwise chose to vacate the room? How is it that the party of Gordon Brown is simulating horror at the throwing of a cherry tomato? That civil servants complain if someone doesn’t like their homework? That the trial of the Deputy Prime Minister is being carried out by a man who boasts about commendations for his written work and for being ‘kind’? When did we all become such drips?

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/where-have-all-the-grownups-gone/

When one hears the accusations of bullying advanced by the complaining civil servants, one does think it’s a bad comedy show. That adult people would think it’s ok to infantilize themselves to such a degree is extraordinary.

But their affected childishness isn’t the real problem. Remember how I recently posted about the meeting agenda with pre-planned feelings? “We leave this meeting energized and confident…” Remember also the budget meeting that the administration tried to open with a conversation about our feelings over the Memphis video?

Here’s the deal: the moment you decide to start bringing your feelings to the workplace, you become a sitting duck. It will be deployed against you endlessly. Your energy will be sucked out of you by daily masturbatory conversations about how you feel. You will be stripped of authority and treated like an infant.

There’s a price to pay for everything. Expecting your job to heal (or arrange itself around) your emotional wounds will make you poorer and easier to exploit.