Oxen of the Sun

Is modern work inherently more stressful?

Gentle Reader,

Are modern jobs very bad, or are modern workers simply snowflakes? In my field, medicine, almost everybody is trying to get out of it. My lawyer friends are trying to get out of the legal field, or at least to escape from corporate law. In tech, despite high salaries, employees change jobs every couple of years or so. Those that hang in there are waiting for a big pay-off, immobilised in golden handcuffs.

In the medical field, the need to juggle medicolegal risk, patient expectations, and demoralising workloads has taken its toll. Satisfaction is low and bullying is rife, but due to the terrible optics of striking, we are checkmated into enduring unfair working conditions.

Hence, the beating will continue until morale improves.

A recently retired doctor told me about his experience of medicine in the good old days – “patients used to be happy to get out of hospital alive, now they want to be cured as well.”

The times they are a-changing.

In the novel The House of God, Shem talks about the 13 “Laws of the House of God.” Each rings as true as the next and when my sister, a junior doctor, told me she did not understand rule #8 (“They can always hurt you more”), I understood that she was still had much to learn.

Now, she understands.

Rule #13 is another standout: “The delivery of good medical care is to do as much nothing as possible.” Such a rule quakes in the face of medicolegal inquisition – patient-doctor incentives are no longer aligned.

Amongst my friends who don’t particularly hate their jobs, they don’t seem to be able to find much meaning in them them. They are very much ‘going through the motions’ like reasonably well-paid automotons. Those who are very stressed seem to suffer mainly at the hands of email and they fear the wrenching notification sound which signals the arrival of some fresh hell that has come to fruition (we can be reached at all hours through the novel nightmare of email).

I sometimes envy the lot of 1960s single-income families – at least when the guy came home, the work was truly done and he could be present with his family. Once you left the coal mine in the good old days, there were no late night emails. Now, the ‘onlineification’ of work, which also carries tremendous upside as well – location independence, facilitates childcare, no commutes – has proven to be double-edged sword which cuts deep at any hour of the day, and the fear of its blade lingers long into the night.

Maybe this is just the beginning. Maybe we will get it right. Some people are out there thriving – the ones who can control their workload, their working hours, and what tasks they work on. Usually this comes with self-employment, and lesser pay, except for the few successful outliers.

This latter group has fought for more independence, and is willing to sacrifice income and, that waning currency, prestige. Prestigious work isn’t what it once was. The medical and legal fields don’t carry the same ooomph that they used to, and status now seems more financially earned rather than through a perceived virtue or the soft power of an influential profession.

Maybe, esteemed reader, the current generation is simply a lazy, soft, and ungrateful generation. My father worked for the same employer for forty years. I suspect he was simply pleased to have a job, any job, and a pension. I have no idea whether he was happier, or less happy than I am at my current stage of life. We certainly have higher expectations, and we are entitled to them, and unlike the previous generation of doctors, we don’t take pride in being exploited.

“In my day, we used to work 96 hours in a row” – so say the older doctors.

What is the correct response? In modern times, we would ask why did they put up with that, but in reality they had no choice, and when you have no choice, you’re as well off to make a virtue out of necessity, and to wear your suffering with a badge of honour.

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