Rude Awakening
Harsh Realities of the Workplace
By Daniel Muniz

The self-esteem movement of the early 1990’s became a wildly popular trend that many parents and a lot of school districts got hooked on. Certain parents and plenty of schools would heap lavish praise on kids, many times when they didn’t deserve it, in an attempt to build up their self-esteem. So instead of a child doing something to earn self-esteem, society seemed hell bent on giving it to them.

As a result, anything that was deemed as negative in nature was removed from the school environment.

Some of the initiatives that were put in place were common sense improvements that were sorely needed in our education system while numerous others were questionable from the start. And of course, there were also plenty that were down right ridiculous and absurd. In fact, some schools were becoming paranoid that any negativity would irrevocably damage a child’s self-esteem and stunt his social growth.
 

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For example, instead of punishing a student for bad behavior, school administrators would lavish praise rather than meting out a reprimand. Some teachers were forbidden from using red ink to highlight wrong answers on a test or on a homework assignment. Also, many competitions, such as spelling bees, were removed because it would publicly demonstrate that some students were better at it than others, which could possibly harm someone’s self-esteem if they discovered that they were not good at something.

In other words, some kids were very quickly becoming spoiled and narcissistic and had a completely unrealistic outlook of the real world that that they would soon step into.

Eventually, the real world will inevitably burst any child’s bubble.

Although parents and schools may have sheltered children from negativity and even positively rewarded them for any wrongdoings, the real world is harsh and brutal.

In the workforce, managers and bosses will grimace and glaringly highlight any and every mistake that an employee makes and it won’t only be with a red marker but it may also include a few sharp profanities. In many jobs, a worker may not receive any recognition or rewards for hard work and effort but they will definitely be informed and even reprimanded for anything that goes wrong. Below is an astute observation that reflects many work environments.

The Six Phases of the Project Lifecycle

1. Unbounded Enthusiasm
2. Total Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Frantic Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment of the Innocent
6. Promotion of the Uninvolved

The Six Phases sums up it fairly well how life can be in the rat race.

The workplace is a rough and tumble environment that brings out the best and the worst in people. The schools that went overboard with the self-esteem movement are doing a tremendous disservice to their student populations. Many kids who were saturated with praise and sheltered from negativity will soon face a rude awakening when they get a real job and find themselves surrounded by people who aren’t interested in making them feel good.

The self-esteem movement had good intentions. It was a noble effort to make kids feel good about themselves but the price for it was to toss out the realistic expectations of adulthood. And that in itself is a horrendous crime.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with negativity when it involves honesty and the truth because there are plenty of ways to learn from mistakes and especially from deficiencies. And the imperfections that everyone has helps build character and responsibility which enables and equips a young person with the abilities to handle far more difficult tasks and endeavors that will be faced later on in life.

For example, a wrong answer on a homework assignment or on a test is still very much wrong even if it has a smiley face written in purple ink. However, in the real world, you are not going to get a smiley face whenever you screw up in the workplace. Instead, you are going to get an unsympathetic stark reaction to it.

Consequently, it takes character and maturity to flourish and thrive in such environments.

Sheltering children from these harsh realities will create bigger problems down the world when they have real life confrontations that deal with competitiveness and excellence. Some people are better at certain jobs than other people are and that alone should not diminish anyone’s self-esteem because that is a fact of life. And the same goes for getting laid off or fired from a job.

The rat race may be a cruel world but it also provides a paycheck.

Schools need to eliminate the silliness of the self-esteem movement and return to the focus of a work ethic, responsibility, and honesty. A school should never have to worry about making a kid feel bad. Accurate and honest feedback ought to be the most important requisite to an education that will enable him or her to face the reality of the real world.

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