I’ve been thinking on the question of why an operationally rigorous company may grind people down and I have a few hypotheses:
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People used to have comparatively more buying power from their income, so even if a company was relentlessly driving you to work you wouldn’t mind as much. This seems implausible as Amazon was your first example, and generally programming salaries have stayed fairly consistent (as opposed to most other professions).
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Work used to take you through more levels of the “power process” of setting goals and achieving them through your own planning and actions. Optimizing businesses has removed this aspect of jobs so the work itself is less satisfying than it used to be. Other companies with less rigor give slack to employees, so they can spend their time on other activities they would prefer to do over work which is not available at rigorous companies.
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The underlying value system in people has changed. People used to gain satisfaction from even menial work as a good in and of itself. With that value system, doing more ultimately productive work would only be more satisfying for an employee. The value system has shifted to wanting to gain meaning from other things.
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The value system is the same, but most companies today provide less tangible value then most historic companies. Amazon’s value add today is fairly abstract to the average person compared to a nearby locally run store and an employee intrinsically feels that the value they are providing to “their world” (friends, families and neighbors) is almost nothing compared to the equivalent job they would have previously held. An example of this is contractors today building houses owned by a property development company vs. a contractor that is building a house for a specific family. The work could be the same and operationally rigorous, but I’d expect being able to see the tangible value being created from your work makes you not mind the relentless pace so much.
I think 4 is my most compelling narrative and have believed for years that job satisfaction comes in part from how few layers of indirection there are between your work, and the value you provide. I also think 3 is a major factor though, as it does seem like the value system has shifted even in my lifetime.