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The Consistently Two-Faced Nature Of Work
For about eight months of 2023, I worked with this lady Jessica Kriegel at a company called Culture Partners. I was doing some of her “thought leadership.” To give her credit, she would usually generate the ideas, although sometimes I would, and then I’d craft and she’d edit. She was the one flying around and speaking, tho. I wasn’t that.
I liked her and still like some of her work. I ended up on my arse at that job because we brought in a classic middle manager to “run marketing” — which was needed, because marketing had been a train wreck for a while there — and the guy ended up hating me. It was kinda jarring. I definitely wasn’t the best employee, but I didn’t deserve that BS either. Oh well.
Here’s a new column from Jessica (the thing I used to write):
I thought this was an interesting little dance around how a lot of white-collar executives currently think. There’s a lot of two-faced stuff even in this post. To wit:
- She starts by talking about how employees need to take their own accountability for layoffs. I’d say this is somewhat true, but moreso in the sense that employees can’t be entitled assholes and assume “I will never get laid off,” considering Nvidia — which is currently driving the entire stock market — laid off people this year. No one is immune to layoffs. The first-ever time you get laid off, it’s like a punch in the stomach. After it’s happened 2–3 times, which it does for a lot of people, you kinda get the hang of it. It’s still sad and you have to scramble, but it’s life. The idea that employees need to take “accountability” for poor planning by middle managers and executives is classic executive-level thinking.
- Then she suddenly pivots into “The Great Detachment,” which is basically a theory whereby inflation + job market that takes too long to fill roles + general malaise about white-collar work + fears about AI = people stay in jobs they hate, with bosses they hate, to be able to afford nectarines every…
