Burnout [audio]
npr.org
npr.org
It's easy to underestimate their impact, but a good person in support can really make someone's day.
In the modern world, all large battles are fought out behind desks.
A researcher who gives up a $200k job at a large IT company (e.g. Google or Facebook) for a measly paid job at a university to work on a project with eventual high societal impact IS a hero.
Re: battles. There are still real battles in the world (Ukraine, Syria) where there's plenty of heroes.
To sum up, I'd say that it's a blessing that a lot of the world is so peaceful now that the meaning of the word 'hero' is getting washed down to literally 'people doing their (maybe slighly unpleasant) jobs'.
Also, IMO military service is a lot more gray area than black and white when viewed in cultural and societal context. I've known several active and veteran members of a few branches of the US military, and while I commend their skills, I don't think many of them would describe everything the US asks them to do as "heroic". A sizable fraction of the current world mess is the fault of the governments currently fighting it.
But all of this is barely relevant to a discussion about what might be termed everyday heroism.
I think you're right that most people that work in a contractual fashion with a money payoff should not be considered heroes, but it's also not true that only people who go to war should be considered heroes. Rosa Parks (and the less famous women who did the same thing and preceded her), for example, are certainly heroes.
Not every activist or revolutionist is violent. Sticking to known examples: Gandhi is another excellent non violent example. Sticking to politics, Nelson Mandela. Mark Felt, also a whistleblower. More recent examples are William Binney, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange. These are my examples, of people I consider heroes. History will decide who the public's heroes were.
These people go against authority, often get ignored or bullied in return, including loved ones and relatives. Like the poster from Fargo, "What If You're Right And They're Wrong". It indeed takes great courage and often sacrifice to go against the tide.
That support employee who's ignoring his protocol and is risking a sneer (or worse) from his boss, the one telling you truth while he's now allowed? He's performing one heroic deed. If its a pattern, we can speak of a hero.
I did not used to hear the word "sacrifice" a lot. I hear it a lot now. I don't like it as a standard of behavior and wish it would stop.
Was your grandpa that fought in WWII (assuming for a second you had one) a barbarian?
Is it barbaric? Maybe, but, whether we like it or not, the world has a defnite component of barbarism to it. There are wars going on as we speak, and there are threats of much bigger wars constantly hanging in the air.
It not impossible to eliminate physical danger out of our lives and to dismiss it (because one does not witness it first-hand at the moment) is not very mature. I'm not even mentioning the natural calamities, fires, car crashes etc., where there's room for heroism as well.
I'd just prefer to see no sacrifice of any kind, especially on my account.
Fighting doesn't make one a barbarian. The belief that suffering and sacrifice are the path to glory are.
With the focus on customer service, most of the team building and special events are oriented toward the people on the phones (and chat and email). Quality of life perks are available to everyone (free and discounted snacks, meals,and drinks, free downtown parking, 100% paid employee health and life insurance, etc.) and customer service representatives are hired with the intention of retaining them for years, with promotion and new role opportunities available. The goal of every customer contact is to resolve any problems and make them happy enough to buy from us again, even if we lose money on that individual sale, and regardless of the time it takes on the call. Metrics are based on customer happiness rather than contacts per hour.
In your example though what if an employee is so plain awkward on the phone that they're performing badly. Still on Holiday Help duty?
Going a step further, as someone in marketing I suspect they are likely one of our company's larger contributors to the value and awareness of our brand. It is very hard to quantify, but I don't think there is a single person I work with who wouldn't agree that they add value and are not a cost center.
There are probably a lot of nice people at Comcast, but my negative opinion of them is almost entirely derived from my customer service / billing issues with them.
The CSRs's behaviors are direct results of decisions made by these very same people. If the CXOs at Comcast gave enough of a shit they would have competent customer service reps and plans that had clearly defined charges. But their current slimy and confusing practices earn a lot of money, so the people at the top don't want to do anything to shake that up.
For example, if someone is damaged a knee, he need to relax until knee will restore it health. What will happen if someone will continue to run and jump with damaged knee instead?
If your brain is damaged, I will suggest to relax at least until brain will restore it condition. If you will continue to damage your brain, as suggested, you may die, because, unlike a knee, our body cannot live without a brain.
If you have some spare brains to throw out, you can try alternatives on them, of course.
I wrote a comment about her comment on another article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10157608
I remember her writing something about burnout being to do with your brain being effectively trained to associate hard work with failure (but I can't find where she said that, so it might have been someone else). My strategy to self-heal was to put myself in situations or activities where I had many small-to-medium-sized wins.
(A different kind of burnout vs. call center burnout)
Are you afraid that you'll get fired? It's not like you will have a hard time finding a new job these days as a developer.