>The capacity to be fully present with another person, to see them not as a role they're playing but as a whole human being… that cannot be automated away and hopefully never will.
I agree but I don't hold such a positive view of the result of this (anymore) as the author do.
(I think?) in the book The End of Burnout, an argument is put forward about how our change in work culture is contributing to burnout. One aspect of it being that with the service economy, part of the value we provide in return for salary is not just our skills but a pleasant "persona". In previous times, our work used to be less socially oriented: farmers farm, craftmans craft, factory workers do line work. Social interaction happened ofc but wasn't as much the core for many professions. With increased automation, the social component got more important. These days it's not even surprising for many craftmans to also work close to customers or other group of people in an organization, increasing the number of interactions you need to manage by order of magnitude. You're also expected to be socially professional, "pleasant" as the article points. You're supposed to act graciously when your customers demand the impossible, or your manager doesn't understand the problem at hand. Leave your emotions, personality, and completely valid thoughts at the company main entrance: here you be a "pleasant professional".
Combined it with another trend: the onus for productivity increase is on the worker and not the employer, as it used to be in the factory floor (productivity increased with improved system, not individual effort). I think this point was from Byumg chul Han, and I can see that with the onus on productivity increase being on the worker, in a "be pleasant" job it will be more and more "sacrifice your true self to be maximum pleasant" and the result will be a horribly burnt out society.
So the authors prediction is rather dystopian. A workplace that focus on pleasantness with a detachment to meritocratic conditions will also inevitably converge to squashing of diverse thought and getting stuck in their heads.
I agree but I don't hold such a positive view of the result of this (anymore) as the author do.
(I think?) in the book The End of Burnout, an argument is put forward about how our change in work culture is contributing to burnout. One aspect of it being that with the service economy, part of the value we provide in return for salary is not just our skills but a pleasant "persona". In previous times, our work used to be less socially oriented: farmers farm, craftmans craft, factory workers do line work. Social interaction happened ofc but wasn't as much the core for many professions. With increased automation, the social component got more important. These days it's not even surprising for many craftmans to also work close to customers or other group of people in an organization, increasing the number of interactions you need to manage by order of magnitude. You're also expected to be socially professional, "pleasant" as the article points. You're supposed to act graciously when your customers demand the impossible, or your manager doesn't understand the problem at hand. Leave your emotions, personality, and completely valid thoughts at the company main entrance: here you be a "pleasant professional".
Combined it with another trend: the onus for productivity increase is on the worker and not the employer, as it used to be in the factory floor (productivity increased with improved system, not individual effort). I think this point was from Byumg chul Han, and I can see that with the onus on productivity increase being on the worker, in a "be pleasant" job it will be more and more "sacrifice your true self to be maximum pleasant" and the result will be a horribly burnt out society.
So the authors prediction is rather dystopian. A workplace that focus on pleasantness with a detachment to meritocratic conditions will also inevitably converge to squashing of diverse thought and getting stuck in their heads.