Based on the comments on my last post, I'm ready to be lambasted for this one too, I honestly don't know what you all will think, but anyway,
I work at a warehouse job, so there are quotas to meet. We are expected to pick 150 units per hour. When I was hired on, they said they expected accurate and quick picks at that rate. My boss keeps promoting a “grind yourself” attitude, literally giving it your all on the floor in between breaks and doing things as efficiently as you can. But I don't see the point in doing this. It's a job, which is a necessity in this economy. It's true that I could earn slightly more money per hour if I keep up my pace, but I already make enough to get by. Nothing I do with my labor there is going to enrich me more than I enrich them. I just feel like it's a mind trick to convince me to line their pockets and not better myself much at all.
Maybe I would put more into my work and feel a little more inspired if we were unionized at all or had a more democratic workplace, but so far that is not at all the case.