Thanks but no thanks

Photo by Pixabay.

You'd be forgiven for missing it. It's not that news doesn't happen during the tail-end of August. It's just that most of us are busy with other things. Like rushing around town to find (yet another) indestructible water bottle.

Somewhere between back-to-school shopping and throwing ourselves in the public pool one more time, the economists were trying to get our attention. Just before Labour Day, they put out a report that the Canadian labour market is weakening. That the voracious appetite for job switching that defined the past few years, had waned. And that more people are staying put. At least for now.

It makes sense that people are nervous. We talk to hiring managers who have thousands of applications for a single role. And we talk to employees who made a big move recently and are still finding their footing in the new org. Even with some positive signs around VC funding, many tech orgs are still regrouping after multiple rounds of layoffs.

Less turnover than in the past few years should be good news for bosses. But when we talk to the bosses, they don't sound happy. They sound frustrated.

Regardless of their day jobs, bosses are now several years into completely rearchitecting how work happens across their organizations. Multiple times over. And if you have to sit through those meetings once, ok, well that's survivable. But many orgs have gone from fully remote to fully hybrid to fully in-office in as many years.

Do you understand how many executive planning sessions that requires? How many town halls where we're all just waiting for Jesse to point out that the new approach directly contradicts the last approach? And, lord help us, if one more person complains that it's hard to focus in the office. (Get yourself some noise-cancelling headphones.) Or that their flight was delayed on the way to HQ. (We are not in charge of Southwest's flight schedule.) Or that the budget for home offices doesn't cover the specific model of gaming chair they want to order. (Just gonna step outside for a moment and scream into the void.)

You should be grateful

That's how it comes out. The frustration — the incredulity — at something this person just said. An objection about something trivial. A complaint, maybe even about some element of the very flexibility you've been fighting to build for them. There's a gobsmacked feeling to it. Like you can't believe you have to say it, but you're going to.

Maybe you're a boss who's never said it. Even if you haven't, we suspect you've thought it. Bosses are people and people have feelings. You're in rooms that other people aren't, and you know the stakes, and how hard it all is, and when someone on your team comes in with some pithy gripe about a thing that you know the full backstory on, that feels shitty. And then you feel shitty. And there's an understandable, if regrettable, impulse many people have in that moment to make the instigator of that shitty feeling feel... shitty. And whether you give voice to it or not, it appears in your head fully formed. You should be grateful.

It's not a simple statement. Superficially it's a suggestion. But under the surface it's a threat. Gratitude implies a gift, an indulgence of some kind, and should implies that we can take it away.

You should be grateful or else we'll cut remote work completely.

You should be grateful or else we'll stop doing summer hours.

You should be grateful or else we can find someone else to do your job.

It's also worth asking what it would mean to be grateful. Does that just mean that they should say thank you? Maybe. Does it mean not complaining so much? Does it mean not complaining at all? Does it mean shut up and keep your head down and do your work and know your place?

Most bosses we know can't imagine themselves saying that last thing. It feels like a cartoon-villain version of management, and they can't see themselves in that. But in their weaker moments? If a comment like "you should be grateful" caused their people to complain less and work harder to stay in the good books? Would that be so bad?

Yes, it would

Threats that buy you comfort are still threats. And, at the heart of it, the urge to scold an adult colleague of yours is not going to help you build a great working relationship. Sometimes humans really do need a reality check, that's fair. But if you're going to reality check someone, we suggest starting with the manager in the mirror.

The reality is that work has been very hard and weird for a lot of people lately. The reality is that hybrid and remote work have been a complex, mixed bag for organizations and for individuals. People genuinely do value the flexibility and also feel the way workflows and handoffs have strained or broken. The reality is that more time with family and friends is important, and that less time with colleagues feels isolating. It's complicated.

The non-cartoon, fully-realized human beings you work with are also complicated. Among other things, they probably are grateful. But feeling gratitude, or even warmth, about their employer doesn't mean there aren't difficulties. Doesn't mean there aren't things really messing with their ability to get work done, or to engage in the deep, focused way you pay them for. In general it's a good sign, not a bad one, when employees feel safe to raise concerns. One read on those complaints, especially when they seem petty, is ungrateful. Another read is frustrated and trying very hard to make it work. Sound like anyone else you know?

When both halves of a working relationship are frustrated with how work is going, a very good first step is to lay it all out. This is true of org charts, of remote-work policies, of whether we use gDocs or Notion. We made this change with these expectations. It's had these benefits and these costs. How is it working out? Is it worth the costs? Are there ways to reduce those costs while keeping the things we value?

Sometimes you're bearing a cost that your person never saw or understood. Sometimes you imagine you're doing a thing for the benefit of someone who, it turns out, doesn't find it beneficial. None of this conversation requires guessing about the other person's interior level of gratitude. But, for whatever it's worth, conversations like this tend to increase it.

We've both had jobs where we felt grateful. Where someone, somewhere took a chance on us. And we worked alongside people who were either far more seasoned or far more clever or both. And we tried not to breathe too hard in the hallway, lest someone notice us and figure out that we weren't supposed to be there after all.

The thing about jobs where you feel grateful to be there every day is that at no point in time, in the entire history of holding those roles, does a boss have to tell you you ought to be grateful. You feel it in the way work happens. The way you're in it together. It can be in the meaning that infuses your work or the way your colleagues inspire you to be better. You feel it in your bones. And a lot of the time, so does everyone else you're working alongside.

As a boss, if you find yourself scolding. Even if only in the silent scream between meetings. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes. And remind yourself that, in this organization, you get to control how work feels. And, for that, you should be grateful.

- Melissa and Johnathan