The sign of a good compromise

Photo by Juanjo Menta.

Everyone thinks that eye rolls start at teenagehood but they actually start years before. Some other kid teaches your kid to stare at the ceiling and bring their eyes slowly around counterclockwise. Your kid comes home and tries this but doesn't fully grok the gesture. So they do it when you ask if they want ice cream and the whole thing backfires. And they wait a while before trying it again.

By the time the kid is a teenager, they are well-practiced at rolling their eyes. They are world experts on every ounce of life that might be boring or embarrassing or potentially disappointing. They develop a preternatural ability to anticipate cringe. Even the word "cringe" causes cringing. And their eyes find the top of the ceiling. And the cycle repeats.

This loop is the hallmark of teens. The kindness of the universe is that the teen may be surrounded by people who had their own loop. And eventually grew out of it. For they know that however unpleasant it is to be beset upon by constant eye rolls, it is also unpleasant to live a life awaiting disappointment.

The future of work

The past few years we've swung wildly between utopian and dystopian visions. We had lockdowns, layoffs, callbacks, and work-from-home forever. Then rising salaries, rising prices, four-day work-weeks, plus in-office meals and in-office massages. Followed by layoffs, return-to-office mandates, and robot coworkers. If this were a sci-fi novel, the reviews would complain that the plot has no through-line.

On the one hand, we've got employees who left the old job, took the new job. Were promised the sun, moon, and stars. And then just as the economy got tight, had their astronomical benefits package refactored and rightsized. At precisely the time every other major employer engaged in similar layoffs, targeting similar perks.

On the other hand, we've got employers who raced to top already-inflated titles and salaries just to be able to get any breathing human into the role. Only to find out that person was face-muted during meetings because they were working multiple jobs simultaneously.

There is a through-line to this plot and it goes in a circle. Counterclockwise from the ceiling.

Stalemate

There's this joke that lawyers will often drag out during a negotiation. They say, "the sign of a good compromise is when both parties are equally disappointed." It's a joke with strange tasting notes — on the palate it gives self-effacing irony, but the finish is heavy, unpleasant truth. Ha ha, but also oh no.

We're watching the joke play out now — the march towards equal disappointment.

If you're someone who can't afford to walk away, even when work sucks, you do the obvious things. You detach. You protect yourself. You quiet quit. You let more cynicism in, which doesn't exactly feel good, but at least feels less naive. Maybe you sprinkle some critical theory in for good measure. Work sucks, yes, but that's an inevitability under capitalism. You update your LinkedIn.

If you're a boss, you start shopping for talent markets that aren't so needy. You start checking badge access records to make sure people are doing their required time in-office. You lay off staff without reducing performance targets. You start to say things like, "Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here." You update your LinkedIn.

The result is a stalemate. A compromise where both parties are equally disappointed. It's not great, but it's better than being a sucker. Like, the facts on the ground are what they are, right?

The facts on the ground

There are other stories about work, though.

We have seen work be a place of stability and community through grief, and medical scares, and rocky divorces. We had dinner recently with someone so happy with the work she's doing now, and the choices she's made over the last few years to get here. We've worked with teams who love working with each other and gassing each other up across 13 timezones. Who, when they travel for work, arrive in the lobby as a pack and figure out where they can all eat together.

Those are facts on the ground, too. They don't count less, they aren't more naive, just because they're happy ones.

The thing about that line from the lawyers is that it's bad advice. A negotiation where both parties are disappointed is obviously a failure — that's... that's what makes it a joke. What good negotiators actually talk about is, "getting onto the same side of the table." They'll tell you that a high-quality negotiation is one where we have enough shared interests that we can solve our problems together, and get to something great.

If you're feeling cynical, that's as good a moment for an eye-roll as any. But can we call your attention to it, before you do? Can we ask you whether that cynicism is serving you the way you expect? Cynicism is all downside-management, no upside. It protects you from one set of facts on the ground, sure, and it's valid to need that. But it also keeps you from hoping for anything better. And the hope is also valid. Fuck, the hope is the whole reason we do what we do.

Work doesn't just happen at the utopia and dystopia ends of the spectrum. It's pushed back and forth across that whole continuum by management choices and market forces and interpersonal relationships (and, yes, capitalism). Maybe there has been a collective push towards cynicism lately, but you have agency in that. Bosses, whatever the specifics of your industry, or organizational politics, you have so much ability to change work in small, local, concrete, hopeful ways. Ways that matter to your people, that show care, and build community. Ways that make it worth showing up to work, that make it worth being something better than cynical. For them, and for you.

- Melissa and Johnathan