Three years on from writing “The Great Reset at Work“, readers will be saddened and shocked to learn the progress or fate of my connections that I mentioned therein, because my greatest concerns did not take long to manifest and in the most tragic ways.
I fear that the threat to their psychological safety that all have experienced will have lasting impacts
“The Great Reset at Work” originally published on LinkedIn on 13 July 2022
For the connection who I described as “perhaps the most concerning connection … who is reserved about how they are feeling when the stress and pain is obvious when looking into their eyes”, their outcome has probably been the best as they found a new job giving them purpose and value, but it did involve significant upheaval through international relocation and their role involves significant international travel away from their partner.
The connection who I had in mind with this passage, “[a]nother connection has spoken of altered personality including yelling at colleagues and atypical irritability with loved ones” was particularly vulnerable to workplace manipulation (working for an American multinational) while new to the country (and Western culture) on a temporary work visa, but was such a strong character that they fought back against injustice they received. Consequently they were made redundant in a messy affair which almost drove them to nervous breakdown (which I supported them to avert). Having seen a colleague previously fight the same employer successfully for unfair dismissal, but witnessing all the stress it entailed for minimal return, and given the precarity of their family’s life between a past (developing country) they don’t want to return to and a future still uncertain, they completed their migration taking citizenship and started a new business. They continue to live under a great deal of stress trying to make things work.
The connection who “quit due to stress-related health issues after a 30+ year career in what many would have perceived as significant success in a ‘dream job’” actually worked for a television company in Germany. They have not worked in paid employment since. Instead they bought a small business in a quiet Italian village, but ill-health in the family saw them return home to care for them.
But the saddest story of family loss involves the connection who could not even enjoy vacations from work because colleagues continued to call them with work issues, so much so that they quit while in Italy. They returned to that workplace soon after returning to Norway from that vacation. They had a massive heart attack on the following New Year’s day and could not be revived by their partner and mother of their children. He was only 55 and was extremely fit being an avid mountain biker.
The other connection, my closest connection, who I had mostly in mind when I wrote “I have personally witnessed chronic decaying of personal wellbeing in the form of mental health deterioration expressed in work-related nightmares, depression with bouts of extreme depression, physical cramping, feelings of helplessness and catastrophising, isolation and disengaged/disconnection from loved ones and support networks, loss of self esteem, loss of energy to perform normal daily and personal tasks, and general reduction in capacity and decision-making”, had managed to fake it (i.e. better mental health and capacity than they were actually experiencing) until they made it out and into another workplace, as their therapist had encouraged them to do, before I published “The Great Reset at Work”.
In their new workplace in the first few months it was continually surreal to them how much they prepared for and expected an onslaught of microaggressions in various work settings that never eventuated. When speaking with others who made the same transition the word toxic always was introduced into the conversation by the other in relation to the previous workplace. However, the new workplace has a serious issue with work overload – mostly due to what I have termed on these pages ‘just in case’ tasks the majority of which ultimately get de-prioritised, diminished and/or dropped altogether but never before much effort had already been expended and stress caused – which seriously impacted their ability to recover from the injury done to their mental health in the former toxic workplace.
Then, less than 30 months after leaving the former workplace and starting in the new, they were diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and they currently battle for their life. They are the first generation in their family line to live – and work – the majority of their life in a developed nation while their forebears never experience such ill-health and displayed notable longevity living their entire lives in developing nation conditions even into their late 90s.
The causal link between chronic exposure to toxic workplace stress and poor heart health and outcomes is well established, and the degree of causal link to cancer diagnosis, disease progression and recurrence is surely also worthy of careful consideration.
This is clearly a shocking indictment of what are the impacts of working professionally in Extreme capitalism. Unfortunately many continue to trivialise these consequences, and see themselves as either immune to them or at least powerless to effect the necessary change, even in their own behaviours. Unfortunately many will gain the perspective required to extricate themselves or at least set their own firm boundaries to protect their own wellbeing – from colleagues, even apparently empathetic ones, who will continually overload them with tasks and/or unhealthy emotional loads (from microaggressions, etc) – only once the consequences of chronic exposure to work stress are manifest.
Then there are the Xcaps who increasingly argue more and more extreme positions to justify their own sociopathic beliefs, such as Elon Musk taking up the evangelical argument for there being such a thing as ‘toxic empathy’ where “The fundamental weakness of western civilization is empathy“, apparently.
If ever there was an argument for needing to sever the link between wealth and influence it is he.
‘Toxic empathy’ is a fiction to justify a mind made cynical and heart numbed in the context of their own nature and nurture, to make that person feel less alone by perceiving themselves as alike others. It reminded me of how a former (particularly unfriendly) French colleague described an Asian student as being ‘over polite’. Of the many weaknesses of modern western civilisation, inauthentic/insincere/fake empathy is truly profound …
© Copyright Brett Edgerton 2025
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