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Antiwork

Why does it feel so annoying to ‘help out’ at your job?

I work at a Planetarium doing the media stuff we need, and that's my job description. I'm the only one who does that here, and except for the Boss, I've been here the longest. I used to put in a lot of extra effort to help out, running shows and stuffing envelopes and making extra media for the dome just to show what we can do. But no rewards came from it, and now I don't. Like, I can see lots of good reasons to say “Look, being totally unhelpful just looks petulant” but it's not that. I'm mostly curious what combination of factors makes it feel so uniquely bad. I think it's due to a feeling of nonreciprocity and involuntary compliance. I can say no, but only if I want to cause problems, and saying yes to 'helping' feels like confusing the relationship between us. I'm not helpful, I'm…


I work at a Planetarium doing the media stuff we need, and that's my job description. I'm the only one who does that here, and except for the Boss, I've been here the longest. I used to put in a lot of extra effort to help out, running shows and stuffing envelopes and making extra media for the dome just to show what we can do. But no rewards came from it, and now I don't.

Like, I can see lots of good reasons to say “Look, being totally unhelpful just looks petulant” but it's not that. I'm mostly curious what combination of factors makes it feel so uniquely bad.

I think it's due to a feeling of nonreciprocity and involuntary compliance. I can say no, but only if I want to cause problems, and saying yes to 'helping' feels like confusing the relationship between us. I'm not helpful, I'm an employee, and I'll do work if you pay me, but only because you pay me. But saying it that way makes me feel like an asshole.

I've also got no hope of getting a pay increase or any other benefit if I do the exceptional stuff I used to. That's just part of the background vibe now. It was never said that hard work would get me anything extra, so I didn't have a real reason to feel entitled, but I think there's some kind of implicit understanding that I'm paid to be here and do work, so anything out of the ordinary is demonstrating extra-ordinary capabilities. If it's not rewarded then I don't know why I should put in the effort, right?

I have the smallest sympathy for an employer who can't just kick a raise my way every time I do something cool, but I also think it's clearly fucked that they're treating me as something they just get access to because I'm here. But yeah, they're paying for my time, so they get my time. I dunno, not sure how to articulate what's actually wrong about what they're doing, except that it means I'm jumping ship as soon as I can secure an offer.

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