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If you haven't noticed yet, working sucks. Unless you are a racecar driver or an astronaut or Beyonce, working is completely and utterly devoid of awesome. It is hard, it lasts all day, the lighting is generally fluorescent, and, apparently, drinking at your desk is frowned upon. If you ever needed to ruin someone's fun, I mean really poop a party, just move things to the workplace. Fun terminated.
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Aisha Tyler (Self-Inflicted Wounds: Heartwarming Tales of Epic Humiliation)
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two tests that I use for spotting whether a person is acting like an asshole: β’ Test One: After talking to the alleged asshole, does the βtargetβ feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized, or belittled by the person? In particular, does the target feel worse about him or herself? β’ Test Two: Does the alleged asshole aim his or her venom at people who are less powerful rather than at those people who are more powerful?
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Robert I. Sutton (The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't)
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The travails of being an employee include not only uncertainty about the duration of one's employment, but also the humiliation of many working practices and dynamics. With most businesses shaped like pyramids, in which a wide base of employees gives way to a narrow tip of managers, the question of who will be rewarded - and who left behind - typically develops into one of the most oppressive of the workplace, and one which, like all anxieties, feeds off uncertainty. Because achievement in most fields is difficult to monitor reliably, the path to promotion or its oppositie can acquire an apparently haphazard connection to results. The succesful alpinist of organizational pyramids may not be the best at their jobs, but those who have best mastered a range of dark political arts in which civilized life does not usually offer instruction.
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Alain de Botton (Status Anxiety)
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Bosses use humiliation to dominate.
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Gary Chapman (Rising Above a Toxic Workplace: Taking Care of Yourself in an Unhealthy Environment)
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In his book "Originals," the business professor Adam Grant describes how there are two kinds of failures: those centered on action and those centered on inaction--or, failing by botching the thing you tried, or failing by not trying at all. Most people think, ahead of time, that it's the failed actions they'll regret the most: the anguish of a tanked business or the humiliation of a botched marriage proposal. But guess what? When people reflect on their biggest regrets, what they regret most are the inactions--or the failure to try, not the failure itself.
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Jess Bennett (Feminist Fight Club: An Office Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace)
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Psychological safety is broadly defined as a climate in which people are comfortable expressing and being themselves. More specifically, when people have psychological safety at work, they feel comfortable sharing concerns and mistakes without fear of embarrassment or retribution. They are confident that they can speak up and won't be humiliated, ignored, or blamed. They know they can ask questions when they are unsure about something. They tend to trust and respect their colleagues. When a work environment has reasonably high psychological safety, good things happen: mistakes are reported quickly so that prompt corrective action can be taken; seamless coordination across groups or departments is enabled, and potentially game-changing ideas for innovation are shared. In short, psychological safety is a crucial source of value creation in organizations operating in a complex, changing environment.
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Amy C. Edmondson (The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth)
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I read a joke somewhere about how Bollywood movies exaggerating about people getting heart attacks as a result of being humiliated was nonsense, because if that were the case, then everyone working in toxic jobs would get one every week.
Reading that βjokeβ actually made me pretty sad about the kind of lives many are being forced to lead.
Obviously, people will say they have no choice. Because they need to put food on the table. This is a valid reason.
But itβs not just food but also expensive clothes, gadgets, jewelery and accessories.
And they need expensive furniture in an expensive house. And then they need an expensive car outside, or maybe two. The more the better
The best part, they buy almost all of that using bank loans.
Congratulations, now you are a slave till every single one of your debts is paid off, which is probably the next 30 years. Now you just need to choose whom you prefer to make your life hell - Your toxic workplace or the "friendly" people from the collection agency when you default on the loan? What a beautiful life indeed!
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Anubhav Srivastava (UnLearn: A Practical Guide to Business and Life (What They Don't Want You to Know Book 1))
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Shame can falsely equate the quality of the person with the error made. Instead of focusing on correcting and learning from a specific mistake, the employee feels humiliated. Nothing positive comes from humiliation. Employees who feel badly about themselves never do optimal work.
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Elaina Noell (Inspiring Accountability in the Workplace: Unlocking the Brain's Secrets to Employee Engagement, Accountability, and Results)
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Struggle sessions were a form of public humiliation and torture used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at various times in the Mao era, particularly during the years immediately before and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and during the Cultural Revolution. The aim of struggle sessions was to shape public opinion, as well as to humiliate, persecute, or execute political rivals and those deemed class enemies.
In general, the victim of a struggle session was forced to admit various crimes before a crowd of people who would verbally and physically abuse the victim until they confessed. Struggle sessions were often held at the workplace of the accused, but they were sometimes conducted in sports stadiums where large crowds would gather if the target was well-known.
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Wikipedia: Struggle Session
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Many Palestinians are unaware of how the occupation has been privatized because it makes no difference if a state officer or private individual harasses or humiliates them. Neither entity is accountable to those over whom they rule. I saw this constantly when working and traveling across the West Bank beginning in 2005. Many checkpoints through which Palestinians are forced to travel to access their schools, workplaces, or Israel if they are fortunate enough to get one of the few work permits handed out by the Jewish state, use facial recognition technology and biometric details to document their every move.
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Antony Loewenstein (The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World)
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A hallmark of teams and organizations that are led by assholes, or where swarms of assholes run rampant, is that they are riddled with fear, loathing, and retaliation. In a fear-based organization, employees constantly look over their shoulders and constantly try to avoid the finger of blame and humiliation; even when they know how to help the organization, they are often afraid to do it.
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Robert I. Sutton (The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't)
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In simple terms this evolutionary heritage is why our adrenal system leaps into high gear when the boss confronts and humiliates us in a meeting. Our bodies want to jump up and either run away or attack but we have to sit there and take it. It is unhealthy and excruciating.
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Richard Schwindt (Emotional Recovery from Workplace Mobbing: A Guide for Targets and Their Supports)