[mboto]

What is also useful to keep in mind is the tendency to recreate your primary family life in the workplace. So if you had critical controlling parents who never valued you and everything you ever did was worthless, then you'll tend to select for those places and it is often done outside of awareness.

Was your primary family spent being valued and appreciated? Then you'll select for that and when people start to not value you, you'll intervene earlier to correct for it and you'll have the skills to do that.

Did your parents respect your boundaries growing up? Were you able to erect strong boundaries and have people listen to you when they over stepped, or were you constantly put down and your wishes ignored? A lack of skills in erecting proper boundaries and then maintaining them by being in the goldilocks zone of not too soft and too hard can lead to issues in the workplace and personal life.

First step is bringing this in to awareness so you can look back with hindsight, next step (the hardest) is mid-sight, you know you are doing or not the doing the thing you need to do but can't do it or don't know how. There there is foresight, hey I normally do this thing that's not good for me here, I had better do the thing I need to do to keep this situation positive.

Keep this mantra in mind: You are the only in charge of you and your emotions, no one makes you do anything, and you will protect yourself.

Awareness + skills = ability. Psychotherapy (not counselling) is what you need to look out for. Combine that with Transactional Analysis and it makes you very very effective.

[agumonkey]

The psychological basis is most probably one of the main forces.. your job is your survival, just like your parents were. Very often your refuse to challenge limit or keep boundaries because of the same fear of being ousted and out of options.

It's both very useful to get out of this pit, and also sad.. because our lives are not supposed to be fully transactional. We prefer to have a group with who we share more than notarial duties.

[isoprophlex]

I'll add to the general consensus here that this is an extremely valuable comment. At least for me it closely resonates with things I am only now discovering, at an age close to 40; the (in)ability to set and guard boundaries is super dependent upon early life and upbringing.

Thanks for articulating this so clearly.

[77pt77]

Setting boundaries is only a thing if you're able to implement them, just like in geopolitics.

If you lack the power to implement them they mean nothing.

Children can try and set the boundaries they want, but parents, family and society in general can just laugh and ignore them.

[munificent]

This is true, but it's worth taking a step up a meta level.

People who don't believe they deserve to have their boundaries respected also don't tend to do things that will garner them the power that enables them to do so.

The amount of power we have is not at all fixed. It can be changed by our choices and is meaningful mostly relative to the power of the people around us, and we also have a lot of choice around who those people are.

In short, people who want their boundaries respected tend to work to avoid getting into situations where they aren't able to enforce them.

[robocat]

Setting boundaries implies conflict management. Most people have some power, but many fear to use their power because it risks conflict.

Navigating conflict is hard.

Many people are conflict avoiders, and they struggle to set boundaries. People pleasers or panderers in particular often cost themselves a lot to avoid conflict.

[kevinventullo]

You do need a certain degree of leverage. I think especially in the tech sector, people often do not realize how much leverage they have, and how a little pushback can go a long way. It is sometimes worth asking and testing: “Are they really going to fire me for this?”

[FeteCommuniste]

A lot of us have jobs where the answer to that question is often "I don't know."

[77pt77]

Or, yes they would and probably for far less.

[larrled]

Good advice. Psychological transference is a closely related term. But it’s easy to take that framework too far and eventually get to where you blame things like schizophrenia or ptsd on the mothers. People who grew up in shitty families probably have plenty of insight already. A lot of human behavior is determined rather than the result of free will. If you had a bad mom, it may be better to just lower expectations than try to “fix”yourself and become the CEO. And taking drugs like ssri or adderal helps many in their careers where psychotherapy might not. Freud loved cocaine.

[ricardobayes]

Incredible comment, thank you. I can't believe I read this for free. This is probably years of distilled behavior science applied to a workplace-specific environment.

[joshmlewis]

It's called attachment theory and does show up in more than just romantic relationships.

[deadbabe]

Keep in mind it’s not really accurate.

[paulcole]

> What is also useful to keep in mind is the tendency to recreate your primary family life in the workplace

Is this research based or one of the things you believe to be true?

[anton-c]

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I appreciate you posting that. I wonder if that's why I found myself at certain workplaces.

[im3w1l]

This is interesting. I could imagine that it's not exactly that you are selecting for the same dysfunction. Maybe it's rather that you don't know what functional looks like, and therefore can't as easily find a place that fits or steer your current place in the right dirrection?

[47282847]

Our organism’s primary goal is survival. Unknown territory will feel unsafe and thus stressful, up to the point of unreal, even if on a rational level it may actually be safer. It takes courage to face and calm those fears without consciously or unconsciously returning to known survival strategies - and meta cognition skills to sufficiently distance yourself from those past emotional memories. After all, they allowed you to survive.

[jaredklewis]

This is interesting and I've also seen this sort of psychoanalysis applied to relationships, but I'm skeptical and don't understand the evidence for these sorts of analyses.

What convinced you? Any particularly compelling resources re: the evidence and methodology for these theories?

[BonoboIO]

Interesting, never thought of that that we even recreate family in our workplaces.

My therapist said one sentence to me that stuck „… you are marrying your parents“

Like you seek a partner that has similarities to your mother or father. I see that very often with friends.

[mawadev]

Thank you for your comment. Are there any books on this? I wish I could adapt this frame of mind :(