That actual work is in many cases just for keeping up appearances. The company owners and leadership know that the product or whatever their staff is working on is doomed to fail from the beginning, but need something to show to /with bankers and politicians to increase borrowing.

Just think about how many truly awful competitors there are in any market or product sector. If you noticed, don't you think they've noticed?

Both hands are required to clap, and frankly workers play their own games too. The vast majority of folks have no issues enabling terrible situations for a paycheck, and pretending to work isn’t exactly new either.

>The vast majority of folks have no issues enabling terrible situations for a paycheck

Is it really "enabling" when there's a metaphorical (and often literal, in the case of police) gun to one's head? Most of us can't opt out of this arrangement, and that's by design. There isn't even a "run away into the forest" option, because all the forests are already owned by someone. Being homeless is effectively illegal. Being dispossessed in general is illegal, even though the system is predicated on dispossessing the populace to enrich those at the top.

It's less like a dysfunctional relationship and more like a hostage situation. Don't blame the hostages, please.

If the hostages are also usually the ones holding the guns, it’s an apt comparison.

If labor never walks, it has no power.

>If labor never walks, it has no power.

Agreed, the power we have must ultimately be exercised. There are more of us than there are of them. Getting organized is the hard part.

I'll stop here as HN is not the place to plan a revolution :)

If someone won’t take any risk - they get the corresponding reward. Law of the jungle and all.

They pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.

What's my incentive to take the considerable effort, burn what political capital I may have, and use my little spare energy to overcome the enertia of the terrible situation? I save the company 400k by eleminating unnecessary services. Great a challenge coin. I'll remember this next time you ask for savings opportunities or volunteers.

Yup. And in many places that’s ‘the deal’.

It may be worth considering overlap with burnout, and how staying (without really considering other options or addressing the underlying things going on personally) ends up damaging the person who stays.