Does middle management just have untreated anxiety and are now projecting that onto everyone around them? Literally what are they complaining about here.
"ooooohhh nooooooo my wage slaves aren't performing emotional labor to cater to my delicate ego constructed on false bourgeoisie class identity. I want these trained monkeys to SMILE when they dance, not just do exactly as I've asked based on contractual obligation."
"i know my enterprise critical, high functioning employees are unhappy with their present conditions and my anxiety grows as i realize the increasing likelihood they will leave because the conditions i impose on them are even worse than they might find elsewhere in the community. however, i am unwilling to do anything productive about this except blame them as personally responsible for my unease." - confessions of the average typically self-deluded middle manager / small business tyrant
anyway, my work involves doing critical analysis of systems. i was specifically sought out and hired by the organization for having "strong critical analysis skills". let me tell you how much management hates when i apply those skills to the organization.
like how several middle managers' jobs, despite their JUMBO 4x-6x salaries, consist of sitting through meetings all day, saying the budgets are all in the red/there is no meat on the bone for anything, and additionally they have taken on so many commitments they cannot follow through on any one of them so they have delegated all of their responsibilities to their subordinates and cannot provide any updates on anything.
as though that doesn't suggest an immediate solution.
The only usage that would make any sense, and what I have always thought must have been the original meaning, is people who literally sit on their phone and send in job applications and do little to no work until the boss notices.
This got turned into "doing only exactly what was asked" and now we're finally at "Really great work but could do more!!!!"
I think it's not asking for extra work, but the thing is if they did that their performance would likely drop. I genuinely don't get how managers seem incapable of understanding that the quality of the work turned in is directly related to timelines and workload.
You keep saying I need goals you docked me pretty significantly on my review saying I am "my device too much". Do i do my job? "Yes you do but...." but what? Leave me alone. Stick me on nights and afternoons only if you don't want to see me doing nothing after my tasks are completed. Otherwise assign me tasks and I will do them. Goals? You mean pointless extra work that turns into yet another organization wide box for everyone to check? Please.
My goals are to kidnap everyone who's a boss, fire the board of directors, turn the whole company into a workers' co-op, and institute a Communist revolution.
"But you can't do that! That's illegal!"
Don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answers to, buckaroo.
It's amazing how the slimyness moving just behind the text seems confusing and hard to grasp until you've read Marx, then you just see the nature of the exploitation everyfuckingwhere
You read a tome of eldritch lore and begin to recognize the shape of an invisible unholy abomination controlling people, seeing its omnipresent tentacles corrupting everything that is good in its endless pursuit of profit.
Stammering sweating bullets screaming out neo-words like "corpogrifting" and "rest-extenders" and "leave-lunchers" while they march me to the wall with my hands bound behind my back and a sack over my head