Love the Work, Hate the Job: Why America's Best Workers are Unhappier than Ever

Reader Reviews
"Love the Work, Hate the Job" is a book that basically discusses how the relationship between employers and employees has dramatically changed over the years. It all began in the early days with a master-slave approach, then turned into making the work environment as pleasant as possible with the implementation of "human management", and finally due to global competition and other related evil, stepped backwards by companies starting to treat employees as disposable resources, or "costs to be cut instead of assets to be invested in", as the book mentions. It is claimed that companies are today more focused on costs reductions instead of making quality products, putting their trust built over years into serious risk. Innovative and creative projects that is often brought by the most competent professionals inside the companies are often blocked by "bean counters" who have no vision of the technology evolution and think that expensive investments are just useless for the short run, completely ignoring the benefits for the long run. If one informed reader thinks about what is said in this book, he/she will certainly have to agree with it. Just look around and see that even though we live in a high-tech environment with possibilities that no one has ever predicted before, it is often easy to buy brand new - but defective - products supported by an awful customer service. One might even say - and not without reason - that there's nothing like the old products. They might not be as fancy as today's ones, but used to work like a Swiss watch. Terrible and disastrous modern management practices based on maximizing profitability at all costs (including disrespectful treatment to the scientific and professional workers rights and benefits as employees) caused even the elitist white collar professionals to unionize in certain industries, like high-tech. The middle of this book puts a great emphasis on the everlasting tense relationship between WashTech and Microsoft. Revelations under this theme that can be found on the book is just astonishingly unbelievable, and sadly represents the reality of a great deal of workers today. Incompetent managers and corporate greed is making skilled professionals to have a great sense of dissatisfaction in their functions, and the feeling of being exploited and ripped off is constant. They love their work, their knowledge, the challenges, the solutions they can provide, but stays trapped into a world that dictates them what to do with no right to argue. When pathetic corporate policies fail, it's just easy to blame it on globalization. What could be an opportunity for growth and innovation, is used as an excuse for their bad moves and desperately unreasonable tactics. Some youngsters feel unmotivated to pursue tech jobs because they know their function could easily be outsourced somewhere else. Technology, as most people are aware of, is one of the key drivers to the prosperity of a country, and all of this know-how is just being given away. I have the feeling that almost everybody who decides to pick this book to read will relate to it at some point or another, if not in all. That's a good reading experience. It tells that I am not alone on this situation, neither are you.