I like to call this "toxic positivity". Forced cheeriness about the grind, the hustle, we're all in this together, etc. Better than negativity, but not by much.
Why the moral judgments on positive or negative? They both have their place. It’s the moralizing of positive or negative that causes problems in society.
And yes, I blame social media because advertisers love focusing on just the positive and not the negative.
But "we can't express negativity whatsoever, we must express that everything is totally fine even when we're wading through shit" is its own kind of horrible.
Toxic positivity is "all criticism is negative, therefore no criticism".
An excolleague of mine was a "happiness engineer" at a FAANG-esque firm, we discussed the pros and cons of ensuring positive communication is demonstrated in all echelons of the business. We were delighted knowing that although discontent existed in some engineers, the mandatory happiness messaging prevented them from gaining any real traction and material support from the rest of the business, since that goes against the business culture.
Thus, the problematic engineers could be dealt with and removed with minimal impact on the morale and reputation of the company.
I don't agree that a negative outlook should automatically dismiss someone or their ideas. That's seriously crazy toxic. Some of the best work comes from frustration and it's totally worth it to dig into that resource when you have problems being swept under the rug by maliciously cheery people.
From the FAQ. I'm entirely aware what I was replying to may have been satire, but I don't care. What's it worth to you?
Although at first it may seem awfully bleak, but one must consider the broader implication of maintaining a culture harmony and stability, especially for larger companies in the age of social media, where a small group of disgruntled individual contributors can cause significant reputation damage.
Happy to discuss this further, I am interested in your views too. There could also be a cultural difference as I've mostly worked in India and the Middle East.
In that case, the goal of the business or corporation or organization is not to make money, it's to create those services/products. Making money along the way is then seen only as an organization tool that allows you to build those services/products by coordinating technology, material, labor etc.
The reward is not the pile of money that you can run off to some Shangri-la with and enjoy a few more years of luxury or whatever, it's seeing the thing you built take form.
This notion might seem alien to our hyper-financialized modern economy (which seems suicidally foolish to me), but this is how industrialists in past eras often thought, and is not entirely unheard of today, either.
This is being stated as if it's some kind of universal law of physics, when it's as far from that as it can be. Modern society is built on past businesses, corporations and managers who did not have those end goals and objectives.
Can you give an example of "mandatory happiness messaging"? What does a structured program for that look like?
I’m pretty sure it’s what triggered an anxiety breakdown for me from having to pretend spending 6 hours a day dealing with broken backend systems and spreadsheets is sparking uncontrollable joy at all times.