Sleepwalking at work: suffering and complaining · Intense Minimalism:

We are living in a time where depression is raising worldwide — and our workplace plays a role in it. Being disconnected from the work we do is a common experience for many of us. Maybe is someone we know, someone we work with, or even us. When that happens we go to work because we have to, while we’re unable to find any interest in what we do. We often rely on acquired skills in the day-to-day, and we don’t have the curiosity to grow anymore. Often, we don’t even find the energy to connect with the people we work with, and we stop caring about the outcome of what we’re doing.

While sometimes there’s an external reason for this scenario to happen — after all, we all have a life outside work — more often the source can’t be clearly identified or it’s an entanglement of many different reasons: we are sleepwalking.

Sleepwalking is a form of dull apathy where the individual, existential pursue of a fulfilled life is entangled in a web of habits and behaviours that have been automated and repeated.

That description sums up my previous job almost exactly.

The proposed solutions that follow in the article are all of the “fix the organization so that that people can feel more connected to their work” variety. Sometime that is possible, but I also feel like there needs to be wider acknowledgment that not everyone wants to feel connected to their work.