Why Office Work is Bad for You – Reprise

Every so often it’s good to meet someone with same view. This guy commenting on the Guardian agreed with me that Office Work Is Bad For You; he was rather more succinct.

The article itself was a lament as to what’s gone wrong with the male yoof of today, and then this commenter rocks up and says it applies to the old farts too

You might also want to think about the other end of the career path. It’s not just that boys won’t join in, it’s also that older men are walking off whenever they can.

If you’d asked me (and most of my male friends in medical, educational and cultural professions) in 1997 if I fancied retiring, I’d have replied that I’d sue for the right to continue doing what I enjoyed and believed to be worthwhile as long as I was physically and mentally able.

Then new public managerialism arrived in the workplace – policies, audits, facilitators, away-days, team-building, initiatives, pr, hr, corporate imaging, buzzwords, the confiscation of all autonomy, demands that demented targets should be pursued by ineffectual methods.

Nowadays my male (and many female) contemporaries are grabbing at early retirement offers with both hands. Not because they hate their work, but because they loath what their jobs have become.

Thank you 1nn1t!  Must be something about having XY chromosomes…