The Demonization of Effort - Bemoaning Pajamas at Work

[Otterly]

Autists (and I mean the kind we are all here, not the hand flapping kind) think that ‘just do your best’ is literal and regular joes understand that nobody actually does their best. Except Autists.
I’ve worked hard at every job I’ve ever had, from bar work to the science stuff. I always did my best. I’d get up and clean things during slow shifts because it was better than just sitting around. Thirty years later, after working and doing my best at a very technical job, I pretty much burned out completely. One of my colleagues who is really nice told me ‘Ott, your problem is you give a shit. You have to not give a shit.’ But I can’t.
So this below,

If you dedicate your life to your work, everyone lectures you about being "healthy" and having a "balanced" life, and everyone speaks through ten layers of irony because they aren't willing to stand up for their own right to an opinion.

Yeah I agree with it, I always took pride in my work. If I’m given something to do I do it to the best of my ability whether it’s fixing something broken, helping the kids with something or a multi million dollar project.
And ironically when I had crappy jobs it was better appreciated. Bar owner was thrilled I’d dragged the other two down to the cellar to clean the beer lines out properly and fixed the dishwasher filters properly and cleaned sixty years of nicotine build up off that mirror in the bar properly and steam cleaned the carpets . Best bar wench he’d ever had, apparently. Place looked and smelled better, everyone happy, I got an envelope stuffed with cash as a bonus.
The problem is that effort has been decoupled completely from feedback.

You get no job security, no pay, no advancement options as a wagie. That curtails effort. There is no longer any passion in work.

So a master carpenter or even 18 year old me scrubbing stuff clean, you can see the output. It directly makes someone else’s life better. There’s a direct feedback between working hard and what you get for it. That creates professional respect whether you’re a bin man or a corporate suit.
When I went into corporate science that link just stopped and I was so puzzled. I was working really hard and I was doing really well, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. I saw people not working hard and doing a shit job get promoted. I must not be doing well enough, I thought. Eventually I realised I just wasn’t schmoozing the right people.

People are also big believers in natural talent and being born superior to others, and see anyone who works their way to proficiency in something as a kind of fraud compared to someone for whom it came naturally. Thus, if something doesn't come naturally to them, there's no point in trying: They'll never be Mozart, no matter how much time they spend on the piano, so it's better for the ego not to put in the effort, so as not to be compared.

This is really true and I know it’s something I struggle with because I hate failing. It’s something I try to remind myself and my kids of a lot - everyone who is good at something started off shit at it. Ten thousand hours of practice, and all that. I watch things with them like engineering you tubes where they blow shit up and fail and fail and fail and point out look how much they fail, and they learn each time and get a bit better. In the end it works but they failed a lot to get there
I dunno - I agree completely that professional effort and pride is gone. We had some lads in to do a bit of stuff in the house and they buggered it up first time. I told them what I expected and when they’d fixed it I told them they’d done a great job and I was so happy that they’d taken the time to really work to get the finish nice. The previous bloke we had was older and I’d find him stood over his workers (in a nice way) explaining how important good finish was. They don’t make them like that any more but I’d have chosen and paid him more every time.
The pride has gone because the predominant forces that reward it are skewed. You’re not rewarded for a great job done well. It’s just line go up, and fuck you. Why work hard when you reap no rewards? Previously all your effort went to your family unit. Work more in field = more edible or sellable crop. Work hard in workshop = work goods produced/better goods produced, reputation as master craftsman. Now? Work hard and get laid off.
Sorry, that was long

 

[AssignedEva]

This is the latest grift by urbanists. Cars began to appear by the 1910s and 1920s, yet hat-wearing still dominated until the 1960s. (It is similar to the "no suburbs until the 1950s myth). It doesn't even make sense, either--by that token, Manhattan and New York would still be full of unironic hat-wearers (they aren't).

It's one contributing factor, especially since the headroom in cars gradually shrank right as they were becoming more ubiquitous;

That's because there was better understanding of aerodynamics, but it meant wearing a hat was more of a hassle if you were in a car - taller styles could get crushed.
Generally though, it's because of improvements in technology. You do still see hats, it's just they're typically not formal hats - they're sun hats/baseball caps, or wooly hats/beanies. They're getting worn to keep the sun off or keep warm. A big reason why hats were so popular previously was because they kept the hair clean - people didn't have indoor plumbing at the turn of the century and would typically bathe once a week (although they'd generally do daily ablutions with a basin of water). That's also part of the reason why men tended to oil their hair and women got their hair set in styles (which then also required a hat to avoid it getting disturbed).

As frequent bathing became easier with more indoor plumbing, this also opened the door for general informality. The Beatles "mop top" that caused a storm was basically this in 1962:

This was seen as too long for men's hair, but the other controversial aspect is it was being worn "down".

GEORGE: Astrid and Klaus were very influential. I remember we went to the swimming baths once and my hair was down from the water and they said, 'No, leave it, it's good.' I didn't have my Vaseline anyway, and I was thinking, 'Well, these people are cool - if they think it's good, I'll leave it like this.' They gave me that confidence and when it dried off it dried naturally down, which later became the look.

Men were expected to have heavily styled hair up until that point. Same with women - adult women had been expected to have heavily styled hair up until the 60s, at which point wearing it down in "beatnik waves" became more acceptable. Keeping hair neat and tidy wasn't as difficult with the advent of hairspray in the 50s, so having it styled gradually stopped being as prestigious (thus the giant 60s helmet hair and beehives) and you had things like dry shampoo emerging so you could reduce greasiness without having to hide it in a set or constantly wash it.

You see this in clothing as well. Taking the most aspirational brand in the world, Coca Cola as an example:

These are cherry picked, but what might read as smart to modern eyes from the 40s and 50s - tailored slacks, a shirt - would have been seen as informal - short sleeves, no jacket, no necktie; unacceptable for the office. This is partially because laundry became less onerous with the washing machine, and clothing became cheaper - so less emphasis on starched linens with removable collars for the neck grime; it was more of an aspirational symbol that you could have a leisure wardrobe. So things gradually got less formal - a tshirt was viewed as underwear in the 40s but became gradually acceptable in the following decades. There's also significant cultural shifts that can't be ignored after WWI and especially WWII, where people rejected the old ways and sought "modernity", to try and get away from the systems that created the World Wars ("Victorian" started getting used as an insult as early as the 20s).

The continuation of that started in places like Silicon Valley, where not wearing officewear became a hallmark of being a modern, progressive, dynamic company compared to the stuffy "suits", which gradually filtered into workplaces in the following decades - I think I started noticing men's neckties were significantly disappearing in the 00s, and along with it general informality (people on the phone call you by your first name etc). To the point now that some younger people seem to react with horror at the idea that they might be required to wear smart clothes to the workplace, and then covid and WFH put that on steroids.

Which is why these tend to look bad:

because they're being worn with inappropriately informal clothes because they just see "fedora = humphrey bogart" or "flat cap = peaky blinders". It's like a woman wearing a fascinator with sweatpants. The North has a bit of a different relationship with flat caps (those caps were more working class, so they weren't inherently as formal), but in summary, the reason you don't generally see formal men's hats is because the main reason for wearing them has gone away, and wearing them for fashion requires formal wear - which most people aren't wearing that much these days (and randomly dressing up really formally looks like a costume - you'd find it strange if a friend put on a tuxedo or evening gown just to go to the shops). But people will still wear a beanie/baseball cap/sun hat because they still have their functions and go with the informal clothing people wear now.

 

[Angry Alt Right Nerd]

I've found that 100% of the time, the people who profess this as a personal philosophy are wholly incapable of achieving either.

I've found that 100% of the time, the people complaining about the lack of a meritocracy and incompetence crisis are the mediocre ones. That's why they need to come up with a nefarious conspiracy theory against white men to blame for all their problems.

 

[McMitch]

I've found that 100% of the time, the people complaining about the lack of a meritocracy and incompetence crisis are the mediocre ones. That's why they need to come up with a nefarious conspiracy theory against white men to blame for all their problems.

This is nigger-tier coping by someone who feels called-out. I never brought up a lack of meritocracy (though I’ve definitely seen it first-hand), but people who claim to successfully gaming the system simply coasting on the goodwill of others.

 

[Shroom King]

"What?!?! You want us to add an overtime agreement to salaried employees? Stop being an idiot, Shroom King."

Six months later:

"Why do we get complaints from customers that no one is reachable on weekends?"

 

[Otterly]

The Beatles "

This is the answer to the hat question. Weirdly I was talking to my dad about this at Christmas. Pre Beatles, everyone wore hats. Post Beatles, nobody did like they used to

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

That is a damn shame. Hats are neat, for both men and women.