The corporate charade
Why are we so different when we are at work?
A long time ago, around 1926, the Ford Motor Company rolled out the 5-day, 40-hour working week.
Prior to this, people basically worked more. A lot more.
Henry Ford didn't make the change because he was a lover of people. He was a lover of cars and money.
It is just really hard to sell people cars if they are working 10-16 hour days. There is no time drive them. There is more to it than that but that's the thrust of it.
The decision wasn't well researched. It wasn't researched at all actually.
But it was the beginning of how many business structures and rules were established.
They were made up. These rules are still are made up.
The rules of business extend to many corridors of our life.
While at work, the often times made-up rules determine how we speak, who we are allowed to speak to, how we write, what we are allowed to write, the work we do, the time we spend at work, when we eat, who we can trust, who we must be nice and not nice to, how much money we can earn, what we are allowed to think about the company, how happy we should feel we are, and and I almost forgot, we must document everything.
While we aren't at work, the rules of work still impact us. The times we have leisure (AKA life) is set by our work. Specifically, our leisure is when work doesn't want us at there.
That would feel better if, deep down, we knew it was based on something besides some wealthy business guy wanting to sell more cars.
The problem is that the rules don't often make a lot of sense and they definitely are not how we live our real lives.
I prefer my real life to my work life. I think others probably do too, but may not have realised it is a choice.
The choice isn't to quit, although that is a fair choice, of course.
The choice is to be yourself at home and at work.
So I wrote a book about it.
It's worth a read.
You can get it here:)
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