It is so nice that everything is back to normal in the office now, right? If ‘normal’ means mass layoffs, vacant office buildings, confusing return-to-office policies, AI panic and the whiplash sensation means that just as employees began to push the boundaries between work and life, an economic downturn forced society to even brood more about work. Managers also reflect this by emphasizing “efficiency”—that is, if they’re not among the many managers Mark Zuckerberg has fired in his quest for, well, efficiency.
In that sense, Simone Stolzoff’s new book couldn’t be better timed. The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life From Work argues that we – and especially Americans – have fetishized work to the point that we have lost our identity to it. “For white-collar workers, jobs are akin to a religious identity: in addition to a salary, they provide meaning, community, and a sense of purpose,” says Stolzoff, a designer who has worked at IDEO and wrote for The Atlantic Oceanquartz and WIRED.
The book opens with a parable about an MBA type urging a fisherman to expand his business into a global enterprise. The fisherman replies that he already has what the MBA promises to achieve in the long run: enough success to feed himself and his family, and enough time for leisure. The MBA, of course, is confused. It’s a small but meaningful story that goes as easy as an oyster; the book makes a tasty meal of snackable stories and anecdotes.
The good enough job, which I read this week, also includes reports on the decline of organized religion, the emergence of an always-online work culture, and our willingness to use work as a means of self-actualization. It all adds up to a stark portrait of a society truly obsessed with work. That’s risky, says Stolzoff, especially in light of recent layoffs in the technology sector. I talked to him about our relationship to work and whether it is possible to achieve some form of work-life balance in the modern age. The book will be released in the US on May 23.
WIRED: Why is office work so weird now? Assuming you agree it’s basically weird.
Simone Stollzoff: Yes. I am reminded of when I worked as a summer camp counselor growing up and during our training the camp director used to say, “Children’s biggest fear is that no one is in control.” And I think that’s happening right now for office workers, without a clear mandate or a clear vision of what the future of the workplace looks like. It feels like everything is moving. Managers are dealing with their own uncertainty about reappraising the role of work in their lives, while also trying to be leaders and speak with confidence about a future that no one can really predict.
Someone said to me yesterday, “I’m a manager and my employees come to me and are upfront about updating their LinkedIn profiles and their resumes.” She has told them she is doing the same. The heightened uncertainty has led to much more open communication about the fact that even jobs that felt stable are not necessarily so. But this also speaks to the fact that no one really knows what the future of work holds and people are making it up as they go along.
It sounds like a continuation of the pandemic in that it’s all led to some people in the workplace being the most vulnerable and transparent.
It is a combination of both the pandemic and the economic climate. A YouTube employee told me how Alphabet allows employees to come to the office three days a week. And she said that on the one hand she thinks it’s bullshit and that the company is just trying to justify the capital expenditures they’ve made on offices. But she also admitted that it makes sense because morale is low and workplace culture is non-existent and returning to the office is really one of the better ways managers have found to enable a more collectivist identity.
