Once upon a time at job interviews, when I was asked that standard question about my greatest weakness, I replied with the standard responses: ‘I am too much of a perfectionist!’, ‘I have trouble saying no!’, ‘I get too absorbed in my job to have work-life balance’. It was what I had been coached to give.
We are coached to give these responses because these admissions of weakness are designed to communicate something very particular to a potential employer–that my ‘weakness’ is to your advantage. But our veiled brag actually points to something deeply troubling about the way we have been taught to approach work and life. What we’re really saying is: ‘I will obsess unhealthily over an unrealistic standard’, ‘I lack boundaries. I will keep doing things even when I feel I am at capacity’, ‘I don’t rest enough’. Psychological studies have shown that perfectionism, lack of boundaries, and inadequate rest are antithetical to productivity. So why is it so ingrained in working culture?
Hetero-patriarchal binaries in capitalist culture
The root, I argue, is in capitalist hetero-patriachal structure that underpins contemporary work culture.
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