Задание №16452 ЕГЭ по Английскому языку

Why So Many Workers Have Lost Interest in Their Jobs

   It wasn’t long into the pandemic that Danielle, a 31-year-old public school teacher in New Jersey, US, realized almost everything she loved about her job had disappeared.

   “I still loved teaching, but the circumstances didn’t allow me to do my job the way I wanted to do it,” she says. “The way I think students learn best is through talking to each other and asking questions, and we couldn’t do any of that. They weren’t allowed to work in groups, they barely talked. It was awful.” She never doubted teaching was her calling before the pandemic, but Danielle began to dread going to work.

   Throughout the past year and a half, many employees have similarly felt their relationships to their once-loved jobs deteriorate, as work has become remarkably different. Some found pre-existing disinterest amplified, while others discovered a new level of distaste for their positions or entire fields. And although not every worker has to love their position, keeping the relationship positive — or at least neutral — is key for many to get through the day.

   Millions of workers now at odds with their professions are in tough situations: it can be unnerving to be in a job you no longer feel connected to, especially if you don’t have an alternative on the horizon; and difficult to know whether you’re just going through a phase of disinterest, or if your spark is permanently out.

   So, what next? Is there a way to re-ignite your passion for a job you once felt good doing — and should you even try?

   There’s a very clear and current phenomenon of people experiencing a waning interest in their work, says Jon M Jachimowicz, assistant professor of organisational behavior at Harvard Business School.

   “Particularly in the beginning of Covid, people started spending a lot more time at home and that gave them a lot more downtime,” he says. “When you’re in the office and it’s hectic, you don’t have as much space and time to think. It’s hard to zoom out and think about the next month, year or five years of your life. Being at home kind of forces that on you, for better or worse. It made people start to question: how can I live a life or have a career that’s in line with what I’m actually interested in?”

   In addition to increased worker introspection, Stacey Lane, an Oregon, US-based career coach and consultant, says a drop in interest could be because many jobs were stripped down to their most essential components. Workers who may have said they enjoyed their jobs before going remote realized it wasn’t the work itself they liked.

   “Suddenly, people were no longer going into a workplace, and they no longer had those social connections. And for a lot of people, that’s what ties them to their job, whether they realize it or not,” she says. “It wasn’t the actual job they were doing — it was the culture, the people, and you just can’t translate that into remote work. It’s all really a package, until it’s not, and then you’re like, ‘eh, I’m actually not interested in this at all’.”

   Still, others lost interest, says Jachimowicz, because doing their jobs during the pandemic became unusually tough, and employers didn’t do enough to help.

   “We’re seeing it a lot in people who don’t feel supported, or who feel overworked,” he says. “The most common thing I hear these days is that employees are burned out, either because the workload has increased, or because this thing we call a psychological contract — all the unwritten trust that exists between organization and employee — has been breached. People react with a loss of interest and a desire to leave their jobs.”