To value (a degree of) laziness

[Hingeandbracket]

There are loads of posts on here about people’s co-workers DHs etc being lazy.
I can’t quite fathom the obsession with hard work.
Hard work is rarely directly rewarded - certainly not in proportion and the physical and mental costs of hard work can be massive.

Are you talking about work in the workplace or a division of household chores?

Because it’s usually thr latter I see people moaning about.

I am probably what most here would call lazy. I work part time from home and my house is less than pristine.

I've never taken my DC out somewhere every day. We did toddler group once a week...and a walk/play in the park a few times a week.

Now they are older they're well adjusted teens/tweens.

There is a difference between laziness - which means avoiding something that someone else then has to do - and being chilled, which impacts no one else. I’d value the latter whilst resenting the former.

Why does everyone go on about hard work and working hard so much all the time though? What’s the point?

I disagree I work hard to get where I am today both professionally and with my family/ social life etc so I think there is a point . I do agree to a work life balance ie my husband does sometimes turn down overtime not because he's lazy but so that he can spend time with his family .

I think if you want to achieve something out of the ordinary then hard work is necessary. Out of the ordinary would include...being a millionaire, publishing a novel, running a successful business, heading up a new charity that raises millions...things like that.

If you're content to just live quietly and have enough money to eat and pay bills, then it's ok to chill out in life.

Why would you think hard work isn't rewarded?
IME it always has been.

What do you view as a ‘reward’, though?

I think I know what you mean OP

Well, there’s definitely something to be said for not working yourself into the ground.

But I think the problem is when the laziness (or not working hard, being chilled, whatever you want to call it) impacts on other people.
Which is what most of the threads complaining about lazy coworkers, DP’s etc are about really.

If someone in my life is sitting back and doing the absolute minimum or less, when there’s a job to be done that can’t be ignored without negative consequences, then it’s leaving me in a position where I’m having to do their share of the work as well as my own.
And then it’s a problem for me, because they’re being lazy at my expense, and that’s when I’m most likely to start complaining about it.

Why would you think hard work isn't rewarded?
I meant in financial terms - some of the hardest working people I know are the most poorly paid.

then it’s leaving me in a position where I’m having to do their share of the work as well as my own.
I see what you mean, but picking up the slack is only really baking out an employer who isn’t addressing the issues. TBH I have never paid much attention to how hard colleagues work - but maybe that’s just because of the kind of work I’ve done.

I work in an industry where hard work is certainly rewarded. I worked hard at school to get great results to facilitate that. I got a job at 14 and worked all the way through school and uni because hard work meant more money for playing/clothes/hobbies. We show our kids that hard work gets both financial and spiritual rewards. The feeling after a hard day of work which has gleaned a positive result is addictive and fulfilling. I know people who work two jobs to fund their kids’ activities so it’s not just ‘career’ jobs where this applies either. My best friend’s parents used to work double shifts and weekends in menial jobs with anti social hours to allow them a good standard of living that they wouldn’t have received in straight shifts in the same roles.

Horses for courses though. We are both driven and ambitious. If you aren’t that’s cool but reward is certainly linked to endeavour in many ways.

I have never paid much attention to how hard colleagues work - but maybe that’s just because of the kind of work I’ve done.

Maybe. Most of the jobs I’ve done have been the sort where there’s a team of people working together to complete projects.
Which means that you do tend to be aware of how hard the colleagues in the team are working, because one person’s laziness can affect everyone else in that team.

Well, in my job we work as a team (HCP), seeing and treating patients who arrive on the day. It’s pretty frustrating when co-workers don’t pull their weight and leave others to do the brunt of the work. It’s obviously detrimental to the patients too.

Now I do agree with having a healthy work-life balance, which is completely different to being a lazy co-worker!

My partner was telling me this morning about why he stepped back from a management role in his corporate job. An amount of money was allocated each year for pay reviews which equated to a cost of inflation rise for each member of the team. His task was to decide who got a bigger rise for their outstanding performance to the detriment of the rest of the team who then got a less than cost of inflation, technically a pay cut, for doing a good job. So hard work isn't always rewarded.

I think the issue is when one person's laziness forces another person to work harder. If you don't iron your bed sheets because it's pointless that's fine. If you leave dirty plates lying around it's bloody irritating because either someone else has to clean then up or your family have to live in your filth. Likewise at work you shouldn't feel like you have to stay late every night to prove you're a "team player" but if you do the bare minimum while your colleagues are rushing around to compensate you're a bit of a selfish twat!

For me it’s about being smart about where you put your work in. We all only have a limited amount of time and energy. Don’t throw time and energy away on people/employers/activities that aren’t productive or don’t value you or aren’t worth it or aren’t enjoyable (need to be one of these)

I absolutely agree that some of the hardest-working people I know are the most poorly-paid — my parents, before they retired, were a bin man and a hospital cleaner — but, if anything, that made me determined to put myself in a position where my work was remunerated. And the hardness or easiness of their jobs definitely depended on colleagues pulling their weight. Pretty much literally in my dad’s case before the introduction of wheelie bins when bin men had to lift bins.

Couldn't agree with you more @Batqueen, I cringe when I think of the amount of effort I have put in in the past to try to gain validation and approval from idiots. Working on getting out of my current job because of the exploitative mentality of my miserly boss.