The case for being grumpy at work

One thing i've seen is the importance of righteous anger in getting what you want.

The primary job of a manager is to keep the employees happy. Since this realization makes them glorified babysitters, they'd rather hire people who can fake happiness so they don't have to care about things kike team cohesion and attrition.

If your project gets cancelled that you've worked hard on, you are entitled (in american culture) to be angry and then reigjteously demand compensation. It even is a reasonable justification for a job switch.

This focus on a fair world and individual sovereignity or sanctity is unique to american culture. In many other cultures there is distinct social stratification that allows upper levels to trample lower levels with no ill effect. This of course still happens in the US but it can't be obvious or egregious. It must be roundabout.

Without this righteousness, it's hard to rise in the american workforce. It may even be a reason managers like Indians and Chinese H1Bs so much. The immigration status plus the cultural bias towards deferrence are very attractive for lazy managers.

People are coming to realize though, that managing a team is actually the ONLY value a manager provides for knowledge/creative work. Those that see it as babysitting often think of their core job as "strategy" when in practice they are ignoring their core job to play politics.

They can't be completely removed as they act as buffers for righteous anger from up high and down low as well as diffusion centers intra-team. Without a sense of righteous anger though, you have very little mobility in the US workforce. (It may be a detriment in China/India) It actually plays in a larger theory of mine that the middle class is primarily guilt-driven, and the way to get people to do things is to tap into their sense of guilt. Righteous angers makes people feel that they've wronged you and activates some sort of instinctive tipping 15%-20% behavior.

> But research shows that forcing workers to appear more pleasant and more cheerful than they actually feel can lead to a whole host of negative consequences—from emotional exhaustion to withdrawal.

"Research shows", yet even the article linked to at the end of the sentence above doesn't support what this claims.