Subtitle: "One could make the argument that, actually, American workers are happier than they’ve been in decades."
So the writer chooses to start out right away with the obvious fallacy that people can't be both happier than in decades and also miserable.
A. They may be gate-keeping the word "miserable" to omit the mundane misery of working for a living at something you don't love (or at least don't 40-hours-a-week love).
B. It's very hard to empirically measure "how happy are US workers". Surveys are useless (people have all sorts of reasons for responding in a way that doesn't communicate their true feelings), and second-order indicators are fuzzy. This ambiguity also makes it very easy to get the answer you want.
C. Many people right now are obviously miserable because they don't feel they are getting the same rewards per effort as what they feel previous generations got (which is probably a mix of truth and bias).
D. Even if we ignore the variability of C, the universal constant will always be there: The availability of types of work will never match the availability people who enjoy each type, and even when the universe could pair a person with a position they would like, a lot of luck is involved. It's a fundamental problem of work that will probably not be solved until the far sci-fi future (if that ever comes). This is an uncomfortable truth. Most people who are happy at work are not happy because of the work, but simply because they get to socialize with people they enjoy socializing with. Employers of course prefer to push the message of this article's thesis instead.
As an aside: In addition to socializing, there is now a second source of non-work-related happiness: Working from home. This increases happiness for both introverted people, and also extroverted people who happen to be in a work environment where they don't really click with their coworkers personality-wise, which is a lot of people - maybe most people in a 21st cen. culture with so many diverse personality types. Luckily you can make both groups happy by allowing both modes of work, since the latter group were mostly not contributing to the social happiness of the former group anyway.
Edit: As pointed out, extroverts can also be fulfilled by in-person socializing at home. Also, both extroverts and introverts can fulfill or supplement their happy dose of socializing virtually (usually via text, which counter-intuitively is a better vector for socializing than video calls).
To your aside, I am one of the only people on my very social block that doesnt work from home. The block is its own social structure and people find it kind of odd I have regular contact with people in other parts of the city and go into work every day. So extroverts in dense areas can still thrive in wfh.
Until we eliminate scarcity or come close, not everyone can be at the self actualization section of the hierarchy of needs. And fighting automation doesn't get there faster. We need to take care of people independently from employment. We also need people who were in those jobs to at least try to pitch in on the stuff we haven't automated yet including automating things. If that isn't possible due to ability mismatch, then idelness is a mental health issue, so some help engaing on tasks that are in the self actualization realm would be great. This is all a naive pipe dream with human nature being what it is, but a nice one.
>So the writer chooses to start out right away with the obvious fallacy that people can't be both happier than in decades and also miserable.
You are making the (unfounded) assertion that there is some absolute scale of misery and so someone could be less miserable than they've been in decades and yet still be "miserable" because they haven't hit "happiness" on the absolute scale. But there is no such absolute scale. If someone is happier than they've been in decades they can't be miserable because that's just a term describing their personal low.
So the writer chooses to start out right away with the obvious fallacy that people can't be both happier than in decades and also miserable.
A. They may be gate-keeping the word "miserable" to omit the mundane misery of working for a living at something you don't love (or at least don't 40-hours-a-week love).
B. It's very hard to empirically measure "how happy are US workers". Surveys are useless (people have all sorts of reasons for responding in a way that doesn't communicate their true feelings), and second-order indicators are fuzzy. This ambiguity also makes it very easy to get the answer you want.
C. Many people right now are obviously miserable because they don't feel they are getting the same rewards per effort as what they feel previous generations got (which is probably a mix of truth and bias).
D. Even if we ignore the variability of C, the universal constant will always be there: The availability of types of work will never match the availability people who enjoy each type, and even when the universe could pair a person with a position they would like, a lot of luck is involved. It's a fundamental problem of work that will probably not be solved until the far sci-fi future (if that ever comes). This is an uncomfortable truth. Most people who are happy at work are not happy because of the work, but simply because they get to socialize with people they enjoy socializing with. Employers of course prefer to push the message of this article's thesis instead.
As an aside: In addition to socializing, there is now a second source of non-work-related happiness: Working from home. This increases happiness for both introverted people, and also extroverted people who happen to be in a work environment where they don't really click with their coworkers personality-wise, which is a lot of people - maybe most people in a 21st cen. culture with so many diverse personality types. Luckily you can make both groups happy by allowing both modes of work, since the latter group were mostly not contributing to the social happiness of the former group anyway.
Edit: As pointed out, extroverts can also be fulfilled by in-person socializing at home. Also, both extroverts and introverts can fulfill or supplement their happy dose of socializing virtually (usually via text, which counter-intuitively is a better vector for socializing than video calls).