"Removing Permission To Think" Has This Occurred With Your Job?

We really do seem to be working on training independent thought out of people from day one, aren't we? Even the GP's aren't allowed to decide for themselves anymore whether or not they're going to collaborate with a midwife - they're being bullied by the main Obs in their regions, who are responding to pressure from AMA. Even if they AGREE that midwives are the people qualified to help women birth in their homes, they seem to have no real discretion as to whether they'll collaborate or not for fear of professional backlash.
Then, kids are supposed to just obey and comply or they'll be labelled with something - even in my psych text book, before they even get to the diagnoses for ADHD they talk about kids who are non-compliant, in a general sense...what? The point of having kids and measuring the success of such is to gauge if they're 'compliant'? So that they learn to comply with anyone who has any semblance of power over them? Hmm, that sounds safe and adaptive...not! Our world is taking this for granted, that kids must comply, and teenagers have to comply and then, you comply from there on in or you get passed over for jobs for thinking too much and challenging the status quo.
I think I'm starting to look into the social welfare sector, for when I finally look for work after graduating, and I really hope to have some independence of thought there. If not, I may have to succumb to lifelong nagging and take to writing, remaining poor!

Teaching definitely! A few years back we were told our teaching plans had to be so explicit that anyone off the street could teach that lesson. Showed me exactly how little they thought of the profession. The first step in bringing it down.

my job is looking at other parts of the business, working out what their problems are and fixing them. I find that i do that, then my boss goes and changes evertyhing but doesn't tell me, then i get in trouble. they say in the jobs "must be able to work independently" and then when you do, you get in trouble. what's the point really. I liked waitressing, it was fun and no worry at the end of the day.

I'm a nurse in a highly specialized field, with post grad training. I am not allowed to think cause that might be dangerous and detrimental to my clients (hospitalized patients) but we have to be pc about these things. I have a flow chart for everything. I even have a care plan written up, not by me, for each of my patients telling me when to weigh them, change lines, even when to update the paperwork.

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Yep, BG my DH works for the same CC as you and has been wanting to get out for a while now. I read your post nodding at every detail cause its the same as what he has told me :P

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funny thing is - given the CC i came from (one of the Telco's), this one is a dream!! i very rarely have anything said to me about performance or anything, so i don't feel like i'm in that position of hating my job like a lot of others there. there is a lot of political stuff, esp at the moment with the negotiations for the new agreement, but i just zone out. i deal with customers, i go home. i don't let it get to me. maybe it comes from the previous experience i have had in other CC's, it may also be that we have a few lower performers in our team so those of us who achieve the stats simply don't feel that pressure because it's being focused on others... i dunno. i genuinely don't mind my job! i have bad calls, like everyone. bad days too. but overall, i just don't have the degree of angst that others do!

So it's affecting teachers as well? Oh dear... *thinking how I'll have to draw up a secondary art lesson so that anyone off the street can teach it* I guess this explains why my son comes home with exactly the same piece of art work as the other 20 students in his class. Teacher doesn't have time to draw up a plan which accomodates the needs and preferences of each individual student... hmmmmm.

Kaz, there is a growing body of research into employee engagement and productivity - I can get you some starting references if you need to back up your ideas! I don't know how long most of the real world will take to catch up to the evidence and implementation of it :rolleyes:
I've been out of the workforce for 5 and a bit years, and I suspect so much has changed, that I have no idea where I'll fit!

definitely in a work sense - my field was marketing. i mistakenly thought this would give me the opportunity to be creative, think, create but ultimately the places i worked limited those things to the two or 3 people at the very top. it was disheartening & unexpected when working for a smaller company. i also worked in a similar role for a university, where i was treated similarly, but at least i expected it in a larger environment. you end up feeling like a machine whose contribution remains unvalued - i think it also breed apathy & makes you more & more reluctant to suggest new ideas the longer you're in the situation.

i also agree with this:

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I also worry how this affects women in labour in a hospital environment. Medical staff probably have to follow quite a strict protocol and ignore their personal thoughts on things... which is why I was told to "hurry up we need this birthing suite, we're really busy todäy" ie I was labouring too slowly according to their script.

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i had DS in a large public hospital. i had GD & PG induced hypertension (from 6 weeks that was well-controlled by meds & no strong traces of protein). at 38 weeks i was encouraged to be induced - regular scans/monitoring showed no issues & both GD & BP were under control. i held out till 40 weeks but then felt pressured to agree. i had had the shortest ante natal appts all the way through my PG - in & out in a couple of mins because i had no real issues. but i felt that because i met a few criteria on their checklist, they ignored my personal situation.

i'm also concerned to hear about teaching. my mum was a teacher & would be horrifed to think that teachers were no longer allowed some freedom in the classroom. i went to a playgroup victoria seminar last week about play. lots of emphasis was placed on allowing children to drive the play & not to provide them with outcomes (assist, but let them reach an end point themselves). there was a story in the booklet about a child at school not being allowed to draw their own picture but having to copy the picture drawn by the teacher & this killing free-thought & choice. i think by treating students as a group (although i understand a need to do this to a certain extent) you miss the opportunity to develop their indivdual strengths & talents. that is so sad.

oh - and one last thing - there's a billy connolly interview with andrew denton where he talks about everyone & everything becoming 'beige' & there being no personality these days. it does feel like that sometimes.

Yes, I worry a bit too about "groupifying" children as a convenience measure in the classroom. And I know that story too that was in the booklet... about a little boy who learnt very well how to sit and wait for the teacher to tell him what to draw and how to draw it... and when he went to a different school where he was allowed to choose how to draw something he was completely lost because all the creativity had been crushed out of him as he learnt how to be a lovely compliant little boy. I know exactly what you mean too Maya! All very scary.

Maybe they will start to "groupify" women in labour in hospitals... all first timers this way... but wait! They already do! for my first pregnancy i was one of about 10 women who stood up and shuffled to the toilets when "all women who are waiting for urine tests please come this way". Delightful isn't it? All in the name of progress.

When I worked for a local council a few years ago I heard the manager say " I would like to give the staff a script to read from so they don't have to think anymore".
I resigned a few weeks after.
I knew my job, was good at my job but would not be told how to talk to a customer....Reading off a script sounds like you are reading off a script and dont care about what the customer wants or needs....I might have to give them a negitive answer but usually I could also give them some advice on what other options they had.

Thank goodness that person is no longer in the position and the staff are still allowed to 'think' and speak for themselves.

Don't get me started on tickboxes during labour! (Hence Stormy is going to be a freebirth just to avoid the tickboxes and all the problems that come with them.)

Bath, if you like I'll e-mail you some of my lesson plans. They are hideously over-prescribed, but there is a good lesson that did allow for freedom of thought, in fact demanded it. Sadly I've only done a few of these lessons as they are so difficult to plan and prepare for, as they do have to be prescribed free thinking. The students are so nervous of these tasks and need to be taught how to do them, that's the saddest part.

We run a tax/account business. This year the company that handles our clients fee from refunds went bust, meaning we had to contact the ATO and individually change the bank account for over 40 of our clients to come to our new bank account (you know so people actually could get their refunds). This took a ridiculous amount of time especially when we got a new member who insisted on sticking to the script by the letter, and reading us the disclaimers before we entered into every section, and our quoting our Tax Agent number before every new client etc, protocol, why did we have to do that more than once? INSANE. Plus, we got one good operator who was fast and only made us go through the rigmarole once on behalf of everyone (obviously willing to ignore some of the protocol to a degree), asked if we could stay on the line with her till we were through them, they are not allowed to be in the phone to anyone for more than 30 minutes at a time regardless of the situation and she would be red flagged if she did. So yes, I spent a full day (half of which on hold waiting to get a new operator every time I rang the line since they made me call back every time) being seriously peeved at the inability of organisations like the ATO to give their employees any discretion anymore.

My last role as a management consultant in a big firm, where i thought being able to think was a criteria for the role, ended with me pretty much being an overpriced typist, sitting in meetings, going over the same questions with different people in the client organisation, only to have the conclusions ignored. It did my head in. I'm a critical thinker, most of the time, which you'd think would be an asset. Apparently thinking critically of overpaid, incompetent project managers who insist on all team members being in 2 hour meetings, when only the relevant supervisor needed to be so the rest of us could get some real work done (yano, what the client is paying for), was not within my purview. Turns out I wasn't a critical thinker after all, I just had an attitude problem. I should have realised that before I spent $40K on an MBA. I guess I'm still slightly bitter about the experience. Whenever I see reports about government agencies spending millions on consulting fees for huge projects that never run on time or on budget and often dont work, I usually laugh hysterically. I've been on the inside. Only a couple of people are actually paid to think. The rest are there to fill in timesheets and charge expenses.

As for hospital thinking. When birthing DS2, there was a fair bit of "discussion" about whether or not I could labour in the bath. Apparently this tertiary hospital did not have a policy for stillbirth labour in the bath, so they were going to let me struggle on in grief and pain. I could have had all the drugs in the world for the asking, but trying to have a normal as possible labour was difficult. One day, when I have the energy, I'll write to someone about that. At least I had an IM who fought for me and I was unaware of the drama whilst it was happening. If the midwives had been allowed to think for themselves, they'd have realised there was no harm and to just let it happen. Other women going through the same pain who dont have their own IM likely wont be given the option.

I think this discussion is why I cling so fiercely to the people who value individual people and the ability to use discretion! In my old town there is a boutique that has lots of things I love in it. I often send people in there, and I developed a rapport with the owner and her main staff member quite early on. By the end of their first year there I was getting $$ knocked off here and there and by the end of the second I was given a beautiful article as a gift (that I had previously coveted!) while I was pregnant and nowadays, if I don't have the money on hand, they tell me to take what I like home and pay it off - there is no cash register, no policy book, just autonomous, thinking people...they've been there since 2007, so it can't be that bad for business, when most other shops on that strip open for maybe a year or two then fold.
I actually fear the advancement of "computer says 'no'" mentality creeping into just about everywhere.

Interesting thread and so many areas involved. I work in a big hospital and we too have every task now with complimentary tick sheets, for almost every single process. So much so that you spend more time doing the proof of the task than the task (or at least that is how it feels). Rather scarily I have seen people more worried about the tick box being done and not realising the task has not been completed or that they should have focussed on something else.
Sorry to hear about the stress it has been causing your DH and family Bath - my Dh has struggled alot with his environment as well.