Workplace Quotes

“The job is what you do when you are told what to do. The job is showing up at the factory, following instructions, meeting spec, and being managed.

Someone can always do your job a little better or faster or cheaper than you can.

The job might be difficult, it might require skill, but it's a job.

Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to do it. Your art is the act of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people.

I call the process of doing your art 'the work.' It's possible to have a job and do the work, too. In fact, that's how you become a linchpin.

The job is not the work.”
― Seth Godin, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

“When you work on something that only has the capacity to make you 5 dollars, it does not matter how much harder you work – the most you will make is 5 dollars.”
― idowu koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability

“Lamb said, ‘If you had issues with him, I could have spoken to HR. Arranged an intervention.’ He tapped Moody’s shoulder with his foot. ‘Breaking his neck without going through your line manager, that shit stays on your record.”
― Mick Herron, Slow Horses

“While complying can be an effective strategy
for physical survival, it's a lousy one for personal fulfillment. Living a satisfying life requires more than simply meeting the demands of those in
control. Yet in our offices and our classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get you
through the day, but only the latter will get you through the night.”
― Daniel H. Pink

“Office: A hell, by the people, of the people, for the people.”
― Abhaidev, Anant

“...workplace dynamics are no less complicated or unexpectedly intense than family relations, with only the added difficulty that whereas families are at least well-recognised and sanctioned loci for hysteria reminiscent of scenes from Medea, office life typically proceeds behind a mask of shallow cheerfulness, leaving workers grievously unprepared to handle the fury and sadness continually aroused by their colleagues.”
― Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

“I can always tell about the health of a culture of an organization by how much gossiping is happening”
― Brené Brown, The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connections and Courage

“She had been a career woman all her life. She noted there was no such thing as a career man. She had made her choices. No regrets. But there were losses. There always were.”
― Jeanette Winterson, The Gap of Time

“Work hard, my friend, so you could afford some dignity! Work hard, not to be rich, but to be self-sufficient, so that you could refuse a well-paid job on moral grounds.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulletproof Backbone: Injustice Not Allowed on My Watch

“It would be fascinating — though probably impossible — to write a history of books, designs, plans, and documents attributed to famous men that were actually written by their secretaries.”
― David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory

“Every role is essential. But not equal. At the end of the day, everyone knows who gets the most credit.”
― Christina Estes, Off the Air

“I felt I had the right to not be a trustworthy person. It was good to make that clear, even if it worked against my professional future; from now on you should be aware that assigning me a job includes the possibility that I’ll quit halfway through. That was more or less how I put it. It was the closest I would come in this business to an outburst of dignity.”
― Margarita García Robayo, La encomienda

“Det er en farlig ting for en organisation at være usikker på, hvilke af genstandene i dens varetægt kan betragtes som levende.”
― Olga Ravn, The Employees

“...small talk with their Range Rover-driving, Cartier-watch-wearing wives insisted on telling her about their charity work. Not even consuming the equivalent of two bottles of Moet made it any more bearable. She needed something stronger.

Like Rohypnol, she thought...”
― Alexandra Potter, Calling Romeo

“The “ideology of Taylorism all but ensured a workplace divided against itself, both in space and in practice, with a group of managers controlling how work was done and their workers merely performing that work,” he writes. “It became increasingly clear . . . from the distance between the top and the bottom rungs of the ‘ladder,’ that some workers were never going to join the upper layers of management. For some, work was always, frankly, going to suck.”
― Nikil Saval

“With the barriers between home and work life increasingly fragile, and with the new electronic technology putting increasingly great stress on workers’ physical and mental health, protection of workers’ private time is of increasing importance.”
― Jon Peirce, Work Less: New Strategies for a Changing Workplace

“Although I was also aware that in a workplace context, people could become bad sorts as and when the situation required, so maybe it was more accurate to say he wasn't always a bad sort.”
― Kikuko Tsumura, There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

“People often tell me, "your not a manager, its not your job, don't do it." Or "Stay within your pay grade".

There are leaders who don't create impact however there are individuals that do. Your role does not add value to your team if you dont create impact, use your influence or shape culture.

Titles create weight on paper, but your influence creates weight over people. People first, position second.”
― Janna Cachola

“Despite all the advancements in race, gender, and other diversity causes in the workplace, deeply ingrained stereotypes persisted, and the underbelly of office politics often remained just as filthy as before.”
― Torres and Firsht, Tell Me Your Plans: A gripping novel of love, ambition, and power in a high-stakes world

“Workplace health and safety enforcement through OSHA is a government sham!”
― Steven Magee

“Research has established, however, that burnout is primarily the result of psychologically hazardous factors that occur at your workplace. (So no, it isn’t just an individual problem; it’s an organizational issue.) More specifically, burnout happens when there’s an ongoing mismatch between the conditions an employee needs to support their well-being and their best work, and what their organization actually provides. Not being given the resources or time you need to manage your workload, for example, or working in an environment where you have insufficient control and autonomy, are known burnout triggers.”
― Kandi Wiens

“Whether good or bad, I always have to work with toxic people, enemies, or problem creators. Since I can control all problems, I can do my work more effectively. Finally, working with the above bad people is good for me.”
― Dr Sivakumar Gowder

“No one, absolutely no one is irreplaceable, which is a depressing realization. A workplace is like a microcosm of nature, ruled by laws of evolution: As one species dies out and the whole system is destabilized, an efficient mechanism kicks in to ensure the survival of everyone else, and before long there is a new system, a new balance. Nature's sole purpose is survival, and the same is true of capitalism: A company is like a self-generating animal, a starfish that grows a new arm if a new arm is needed.”
― Therese Bohman

“Organizations are set up by and large to support an ideal type of worker, what I call a prototype, to succeed.


And research consistently has shown even across geographies, and across different cultures, that this is by and large a man. So, this tends to be somebody, you know, when we think of a manager, we think of somebody that’s male, but not only that, but they tend to have sort of masculine attributes. So, white, middle class, heterosexual, sort of able-bodied male.


But importantly it’s also someone that’s willing to engage in sort of dominant, assertive, aggressive, competitive, exclusionary behaviors to get ahead. And they are willing also to make work the number one priority, so that means it’s also somebody that’s free from dependent care responsibilities.


The problem with prototypes is people who tend to succeed in organizations are people who best fit the prototype. You fit in almost by default, you walk in, and it’s easier for you to access networks, it’s easier for you to be sponsored, it’s easier for people to see you as a leader just simply because you match in their mind what good looks like when it comes to leadership.


But the reverse is also true. So, the more ways that you differ from this ideal standard, the more challenges you’re going to experience trying to advance at work. And this is true for both men and women, which is a really important point to make. The barriers are not just something that women experience, men also experience challenges to that.


And so, what the system has got wrong is that since the beginning of time, since organizations have been around, they’ve pretty much been hardwired with this ideal standard in mind. In many ways, what we’re rarely getting right, or rarely trying to fix around the system, is how we value difference. So, can we create an environment where different types of individuals can succeed.”
― Michelle P. King

“...we need to let go of this idea that we’re good people, and really try to focus on understanding how our privilege creates challenges for people in the workplace.”
― Michelle P. King

“The best employees don’t quit. They outgrow stagnant workplaces.”
― Erden Tuzunkan

“This man was a keeper and I was indeed willing to make him mine.”
― Jessica Girke, Friendly Fire

“Life is made up of failures and successes. Be the person who encourages someone during both ends of the spectrum, as life is never perfect 100% of the time.”
― Torron-Lee Dewar

“Relevance isn’t about constantly running to stay ahead. It’s about adapting with purpose, knowing when to learn, when to lead, and when to let your strengths do the talking.”
― Janani Srikanth, Fear OFF Work: Psychological Tools To Overcome Workplace Fears

“Employers conversely view the work of their employees, and the employees themselves, as a thing that belongs to them as a personal possession. This extends beyond some notion that workers have sold their labor or their “time” to the employer. Employers in practice completely own a worker during a designated period of work, and measure this ownership according to time. This is why time is managed and not the quantity or quality of tasks completed. The manner by which time is managed is similar to inventory management. When a worker fails to offer himself up for the designated hours, even despite the possibility of circumstances outside his control, the worker is expected to “make up” the time lost, much like reparations paid to an employer for stolen goods. Employers handle “lost hours” as part of loss prevention for physical products. The worker’s skills, ignobly called “human capital,” comports to an employer’s existing technologies for this reason: workers themselves become capital, and capital supports other capital through modification.”
― J. Phillip Johnson, The Invention of Work