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comment by _refugee_
_refugee_  ·  3438 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Your job will never love you.

    This article bugs me because it implies that your work should love you. GET A FUCKING GRIP. You do stuff for MONEY. Expecting love out of it makes you Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman

This is the point that should be made here, beyond and before any others. Why should your job love you? Why should you want it to - I suspect a world in which your job loves you would be a world in which you did not do much else.

I feel like something I have learned over the years, that is key to discussing and determining good content, is to approach by asking "well yes, but why does that matter?" For example, someone posted a comment the other day deriding articles about privilege because such articles only served to make rich whites feel aware, slightly bad, and then good about themselves for the feeling first two. I opted not to ask "well yes, but why is that a bad thing?" (Invisible follow-up question/punch: "is the alternative (that rich white kids not read such articles and thus remain wholly ignorant but at least not self-cogratulatorily 'aware' of current issues) really preferable?")

I try to apply that question to a lot I read and comment on. It helps me identify when an article's or comment's premise might be the problem, as opposed to their argument. I failed to apply it here.

I don't think your job should love you and I think trying to make it do so is a bad idea.

Then again we are also all humans and like to feel secure. We feel secure by doing things which are supposed to prove our worth, to ourselves or our employers - which I think feeds into this "kill self for work" phenomena.

People probably work a lot harder when they don't think their work loves them, anyway. It probably wouldn't help the bottom line if everyone started to feel cuddly and at ease and appreciated. I imagine many people would relax, even slack off, without the pressure of acceptance and the felt need to prove their worth each day.