Remember as a kid, having to wear that uncomfortable school uniform every single day? We were told when to sit, when to stand, when to eat, when to play, even when we were allowed to go to the toilet. Myriad rules to crush us into oppressive obedience!
Now imagine a similar scenario in your workplace. Employees are given insultingly basic commands and training that even the most sheltered individual would have learned simply in the school of life. There’s a term for it: Workplace Infantilisation. Workers denied their agency and wisdom from experience in favour of child-like over-proceduralisation. And no, workplace infantilisation is not a term for child labour, pathological smuggling of employee’s children into the office, or a worker boasting an adult diaper fetish.
Infantilisation in the workplace is basically when your boss treats you like a child. Explicit instructions for straightforward tasks, insinuating that you don’t have the common sense to figure it out. They make rules for things that well-adjusted adults don’t need rules for (like you’re not allowed to masturbate on someone else's desk.) Well duh. You use your own desk; we’re not animals!
But is workplace infantilisation genuinely happening on a significant scale? Or is it merely a vent for worker frustrations over the minutiae of bureaucratic tape?
On our deep dive into workplace infantilisation, we weren’t convinced either way. Sometimes uniforms are required in order to identify yourself as an employee in client-facing scenarios. Sometimes, you are required to be in a particular spot preventing you from ducking off to the toilet whenever you want. But sometimes, there exist baffling scenarios where rules and guidelines serve no other purpose than to keep HR staff employed.
Some people claim that signs of workplace infantilisation include strict work hours, timed breaks, performance evaluations and having to ask for time off. How dare you want me to be at work at a certain time and do my job properly! And it’s beyond insulting that I am required to submit a holiday leave request and not just take off to Fiji whenever I bloody feel like it. Stop treating me like a child!
While these examples do seem a bit stretched to be considered infantilisation, other management practices do cross a line. Like the dreaded dress code. Sure, if you’re in a job that requires specific clothing and footwear for safety, we get it. No arseless chaps - understood.
Perhaps you’re in a job where you face the public, we get that you need to look respectable. Make sure the arseless chaps are clean - gotcha.
But what if you work in a call centre or a warehouse and literally no one sees you? Is there really a need to have explicit rules for what you can and can’t wear? And if someone does wear arseless chaps, clean or not, maybe it’s the hiring policy, not the dress code policy, that needs to be reviewed here.
What about working from home? With so many people working remotely now, managers need to get a handle on how to lead people without micromanaging and making them feel Big Brother is watching.
So where is the line between infantilisation and the practicalities of running a business? From our perspective, specific work hours, deadlines and performance evaluations are all pretty normal expectations for a workplace.
While finding concrete data to prove the prevalence of infantilisation is inherently tricky, anecdotes and potential symptoms abound. However, is this simply an outcry against annoying workplace policies, or a sign of an actual, prevalent issue? We’re trying to differentiate genuine infantilisation from the simple need for standard procedures and rules within an organisation.
And assuming there is an element of truth to these claims of workplace infantilisation, what’s causing it? Perhaps in an increasingly litigious society, it's all about risk aversion. Avoid all potential lawsuits by laying out explicit rules for everything, and inadvertently treating everyone like an idiot.
While debate might continue on the prevalence and severity of workplace infantilisation, we think the key is striking a balance between maintaining professionalism in the workplace and still respecting the autonomy and maturity of the employees.
At the end of the day, employees perform best when they're treated as adults who are capable of understanding context. Take Rod for example. He’s an HR nightmare, but he only ever makes those crude and tasteless jokes out of earshot of context-impaired narcs!
-
[00:00:00] Rod: I don't want to work in a place where people are so context impaired that they can't tell the difference between a suitable joke and an unsuitable joke.
[00:00:07] Will: Yes. Workplace infantilisation is happening, but it's not every annoying thing that you see from your bosses. There's a bunch of things that are, yeah, we need to do this. Yes, you're actually in surgery. We need to work out when people can go for a pee.
[00:00:22] Rod: You can't pee while the artery is spurting.
[00:00:25] Will: There are dumb rules out there. And I think we can look at those and we can say, yeah. They might be risk averse managers or just managers that just want to show that they have the power.
[00:00:44] Rod: Workplace infantilisation.
[00:00:46] Will: What workplace infantilisation? Is that taking your children to work?
[00:00:51] Rod: No.
[00:00:51] Will: Is it? And this is very different to that, adult diaper lovers. Are these people that do this at work?
[00:00:56] Rod: No.
[00:00:57] Will: I've run out of guesses.
[00:00:59] Rod: So that's all you got. Okay, so for me, it's that whole idea, and we see this a lot in our own day jobs. In order to be a grown up When you work in a workplace, you basically got to act more like an infant. Like certain words are more offensive. You can't wear certain clothes. Everything's more and more careful and sookie. And I didn't coin the term infantilisation of the workplace that has been coined by others whose names, of course, I can't remember.
[00:01:21] You know, when you're in the shops, right? Or you're at work, whatever you're in, and someone brings their kid in from school after work and they come in there wearing like Superman suit. And you think I'd fucking love to wear a Superman suit to work, but if we did it.
[00:01:32] Will: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So like similarly, if you play hide and seek when you're a six year old or even you're playing with your kids. You know, you can do hide and seek as a six year old as long as kids are involved but as an adult, you can't do hide and seek
[00:01:44] Rod: for some reason it's weird . So my question is then if we're supposed to be less sweary, more cautious, not offending everyone, don't get hurt, wear special clothes that are all the same in the workplace, they're going to infantilize us. I want to go full infant. If you're going to infantilize me at work, I want to be able to wear the Batman costume and have no one do anything other than that's just what he's wearing today.
[00:02:03] Will: Awesome. All right. I love this topic. I love this topic. Okay, here we go. All right.
[00:02:08] Rod: Safe search off.
[00:02:10] Will: Treat employees like adults.
[00:02:10] Rod: I know straight away. This is Harvard Business Review. It's from 2005, but I think it's probably still active. People aren't getting dumber, but they're often treated that way. Which is not quite what I was thinking about it too. But they talk about businesses being progressively dumbed down by book authors who teach management by parable.
[00:02:26] Will: I get being angry about management by parable. Yeah. You know, it's like to he that hath give email to he that deserveth more. Spreadsheets are just pain leaving the body.
[00:02:40] Rod: No, they're paying entering the body. You get them out through printed reports. Oh, we go. Much of the dumbing down that occurs in organizations today, so workplace infantilisation is dumbing down, is fueled by aversion to risk. I don't disagree with that. How you define risk is a big deal here.
[00:02:55] Will: I guess, I guess. Let's put some legs on this and go, okay, so what is the infantilisation we're talking about?
[00:03:02] Rod: So from the Harvard Business Review, it's saying it's dumbing down. That's their first kind of claim. Dumbing down things for employees.
[00:03:08] Will: You you you're giving instruction on everything rather than figure it out.
[00:03:11] Rod: You're doing instructions on everything. You're making them kind of offensively or at least insultingly stupid or obvious. And I get that, things like that.
[00:03:19] Will: So there is that little bit of. If you haven't been explicitly told not to do something then
[00:03:25] Rod: you didn't tell me not to masturbate on my colleague's desk
[00:03:28] Will: et cetera, et cetera. You didn't tell me I had to wear pants to work
[00:03:31] Rod: but I think that's true. I think that's true because you look at the HR rules. You see, you know, well, you can't fire them for masturbating on their colleague's desk if you never told them because yeah, nowhere in HR does it say do not beat off.
[00:03:43] Will: Okay. Yes. I would claim that as a form of infantilisation. If you're like, that's not, we're not just based on common sense.
[00:03:50] Rod: If you have to say that out loud, you have to think about your hiring policies. Surely like what you hired a dude who'd wank on cons desk. It's like. Did you ask him any questions?
[00:04:01] Will: Did it have to be con? Why con?
[00:04:03] Rod: Because I didn't want to make it a lady because that would be sexualist.
[00:04:06] Will: All right, okay, so, so, part one of workplace infantilisation is
[00:04:12] Rod: Making explicit things that any non fuckwit would already know.
[00:04:15] Will: Yeah. Yeah. You have to, at work, you have to sort of do work
[00:04:20] Rod: and not do non work things.
[00:04:22] Will: Yes. Yeah. At work you have to
[00:04:24] Rod: I like to do lines of coke and touch people's tits. That's great. Don't do it at work.
[00:04:28] Will: Okay. So that is a form of infantilisation. Giving explicit instructions about things that are just normal human.
[00:04:33] Rod: You tell a three year old, don't pull your junk out in public and they go, Oh, I never thought
[00:04:37] Will: Other examples then of workplace infantilisation.
[00:04:40] Rod: Yeah. It's things like particular language. So they say what it codes, guides, and rules proliferate in every area and they are designed to save individuals the trouble of thinking for themselves and learning from experience. I don't disagree with them.
[00:04:52] Will: Your employers code on answering email or something.
[00:04:57] Rod: Yeah. Or, you know, how you're allowed to sign off. There would be, there'd be organizations so you can't say cheers. Cause what if there's an alcoholic at the other end?
[00:05:04] Will: Oh, that's awesome.
[00:05:07] Rod: I reckon there would be, there'd be an organization that goes no, there might be an alcoholic. And you're like, I'm not telling them to fucking drink. I'm not. And if they don't know that see option A, review your hiring policies is
[00:05:18] Will: best wishes superstitious? So therefore, no, but wishes, they're like, that's for fairies
[00:05:25] Rod: who's best wishes?
[00:05:25] Will: Okay. So language
[00:05:26] Rod: Language and tone where they go and yeah, not depriving people of the ability to learn from experience. And I think that's kind of true. Of course, the danger is experience could lead to terrible things that people need to recuperate from.
[00:05:37] Will: I'm reading this LinkedIn post here and it's sort of saying there's a bunch of explanations, you know, that the employees are giving and he seems to be a boss is miffed at hearing all of these explanations and saying, I don't care. I don't care. Just do the work. Don't tell me about why you're out of town or what's going on.
[00:05:55] Rod: Deliver by the milestone of the time and then we're fine. I got no beef with that depends on the industry. Of course, I understand there are different rules for different industries, different requirements,
[00:06:05] Will: but I think what he's saying is a lack of trust
[00:06:08] Rod: big time
[00:06:09] Will: lack of trust as a key part of his infantilisation of the workplace that, that it says we're not treating people as people that can look after their patch.
[00:06:17] Rod: Yeah. And this is a conversation that's been had in many bars, meeting rooms, whatever, over the, over since COVID. Working from home and then people in certain industries, at least your organizations having to account for, you know, like online log in for how long they're actually showing up for work at home or otherwise.
[00:06:34] And, you know, people like mindless accounting of time on snow, so to speak, not whether you're actually doing anything. But my my dear wife made a very good point about this years ago, which is a lot of these managers who were suddenly thrown into this situation have not been taught or have any experience with how to manage people who aren't in front of them.
[00:06:51] Will: Or even, there's probably a lot of managers who haven't been taught how to manage. And so whether it's, you know, working from home or not, I can absolutely imagine there are people like, Oh, well, okay if I give policies for everything, then that will explain.
[00:07:04] Rod: They talk about the incessant emphasis on quote appropriate behavior. They say it encourages workers to view one another as physically fragile and in need of protection, which is hardly the best conduit to mutual respect. I don't disagree. The idea that everyone is, you've got to, you've got to assume everyone's really fragile physically and psychologically.
[00:07:23] Will: Just flagging here. There's a huge devil's advocate I'm going to play in a second
[00:07:27] Rod: as you should, because you know, I'm a monster and we know that even worse employees come to see themselves as fragile. So, and every off the cuff comment or email invites the question, should I be offended by this and a subsequent protest to a manager.
[00:07:41] Will: First, there's establishing this idea of what workplace infantilisation is, and I think there's an idea of workplaces now potentially not treating their employees or everyone there as common sense adults who can function in the world and need to give them instructions for everything, guidelines for everything, guide rails for everything, everyday interaction, every time. Okay. Second thing is, that's a feeling, is this happening?
[00:08:08] Rod: Good point.
[00:08:09] Will: So a bit of me, a bit of me says, yeah, sure. In my own workplace, I see little bits of, okay, we're given instructions on certain sorts of things. And I think, okay, fine. You know, normal people don't need to read that, but sure. If you need to learn, which is the most appropriate email sign off and that is not one that we have actually had, but I'm just then that, okay. Okay. Yes, this is a potential fear. We're not getting to what's causing it because we need to establish, is this actually happening?
[00:08:36] Rod: Yeah, so it's sort of about what causing it because it might not be being caused.
[00:08:39] Will: Like, is there any data on this?
[00:08:41] Rod: But you're right, the idea that it's happening isn't necessarily reflecting the reality that it happens. Or As we see in our own organization, there are guidelines and rules, but two things I would say about that one who reads them, like you kind of mentioned, but two, how often on paper, let's look at our own behavior.
[00:08:57] Let's be fair. Let's look at my behavior. You know, you don't, I don't drag you into this. So it's not, you still have career aspirations. It's passed for me. I have joked out loud and often to colleagues that I'm an HR nightmare waiting to happen. Not because I fondle people and do terrible things, but I'll say things that on paper, if you just looked at them as a transcript, you'd go, well, he shouldn't have said that.
[00:09:16] But the room does not freak out. The room does not cry. The room will either laugh or go oh that's him being a dick again.
[00:09:21] Will: What you're saying is you are treating the room as adults who understand context, which is the number one thing of being an adult. I think understanding context is one of the big things.
[00:09:30] Rod: And your place in it.
[00:09:32] Will: Yes. Yes. Know thyself and all that.
[00:09:34] Rod: Yep. Because I mean, I say that quite literally because I'm happy to throw myself onto the fire here because it's true. I say things at times, which when I go home, for example, and say, I made this joke in a meeting today. My wife goes, Oh fucking hell.
[00:09:45] Will: Don't get fired. Don't get fired.
[00:09:47] Rod: But she laughs as well because she knows damn well how I meant it, how I would have delivered it and she knows my colleagues. But someone else could have said it with a much more sinister angle in the wrong environment in exactly the same words, could be an HR meltdown.
[00:09:59] Will: So in some senses, I wonder if this is the infantilisation that these people are talking about is a policy attempts to deal with actually bad people
[00:10:09] Rod: it's complete risk aversion. They're looking at the edge cases all the time. What is the worst it could be?
[00:10:13] Will: That's diagnosis. I still want to know how much this is happening. So, so you would say in a workplace that you see everyone is treated like adults.
[00:10:22] Rod: That is my impression.
[00:10:23] Will: But other workplaces may be different. So I've got here what is an example of infantilisation at work? This is from study. com. One is oversimplifying explanations, which is okay, that's just bad comms.
[00:10:34] Rod: Like, yeah, one person's oversimplification is another person's clear explanation for non experts.
[00:10:39] Will: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. A different sort of thing using demeaning nicknames. Sweetheart or honey like that, that is, but I don't think that's infantilisation. I think that's actually being rude. Yeah that's not the same thing.
[00:10:52] Rod: Like when I call you shit for brains at a meeting, I'm not infantilizing you.
[00:10:56] Will: No you're being accurate
[00:10:57] Rod: Just being a cunt.
[00:10:58] Will: Well, yeah. Okay. Or here's another one suggesting that the infantilized person wouldn't understand that you wouldn't understand this.
[00:11:07] Rod: That's patronizing as hell.
[00:11:10] Will: That's a form of infantilisation, but it's not the workplace as a whole. That's one particular person being, I'm an arsehole. You wouldn't understand this. You wouldn't understand.
[00:11:18] Rod: But the implication of some of the policies is that most people wouldn't understand it, or enough people wouldn't understand that it could be a problem for the organization.
[00:11:25] Will: Yeah. I'm still troubling here with what the definition of this is.
[00:11:30] Rod: The dictionary definition infantilisation in general is treating someone as a child or in a way that denies their maturity in age or experience.
[00:11:38] Will: That's a useful definition. We could put that right up the front.
[00:11:40] Rod: What's considered age appropriate or mature is obviously quite relative. Yes. As the Bible puts it, in 1 Corinthians 13: 11
[00:11:48] Will: what did jesus say about infantilisation?
[00:11:49] Rod: You can quote that, can't you?
[00:11:50] Will: I think he said you get the same pay no matter what. Like if you turn up for the farm at midday,
[00:11:55] Rod: it says when I was a child, I talk like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, let's say adult, I put childish ways behind me.
[00:12:04] Will: That's just Jesus saying you can't play video games. Like that's what he's saying. He said he put childish things away. He didn't say my employer should also stop treating me like a child.
[00:12:13] Look in fairness. Jesus, did he have a job? Was he self employed or yeah, but was he self employed or
[00:12:19] Rod: everyone was self employed back then
[00:12:20] Will: I guess so.
[00:12:21] Rod: Unless you were a Pharisee
[00:12:23] Will: yeah. You work for the org. No. There were plenty of like organizations like temples and the soldiery
[00:12:29] Rod: there was nothing in this article about the data on how often it happens. You got anything?
[00:12:33] Will: So, okay. Here's another sort of way of defining this infantilisation. And this is a tough one because it's like infantilisation is strict work hours, timed breaks.
[00:12:44] Rod: Well, it depends on the job, but yeah.
[00:12:45] Will: Well, see, here's the thing. Yes, of course there are industries and sectors where it's like, no, we need a person to be on that bit of factory.
[00:12:53] Rod: We're open until five o'clock. We need you to be here till five o'clock.
[00:12:56] Will: Is that treating them as an infant to say, no, you're here till five o'clock.
[00:13:00] Rod: But you're shitted in vandalization because you bring in context. You're terrible at this.
[00:13:04] Will: This is a thing. I get, we work in an occupation where we have a lot more freedom with our time, but it doesn't mean a hundred percent. It's like, you turn up to do those things.
[00:13:11] Rod: That's true. When you have a commitment, you're there for it.
[00:13:13] Will: Strict work hours is not infantilisation actually. Sorry whoever wrote this , that is just life. Here's another one, arbitrary dress codes.
[00:13:22] Rod: Oh, fuck. I hate that. Unless it's safety. Now again, I'm not going to turn up in a pair of arseless chaps with my dick hanging out to work because I know that would be dumb.
[00:13:30] Will: Chainsaws. You need, well, not the arseless, but you need the chaps.
[00:13:33] Rod: You do, and you need to dick tuck between your legs at the very least, because what if you have a wee spasm with your chainsaw?
[00:13:40] Will: Well, yeah, all I'm saying, that's not arbitrary.
[00:13:42] Rod: No, dress codes, I think I don't fan, unless it's safety.
[00:13:46] Will: Let's draw that line between arbitrary and non arbitrary dress codes. Yes. Like you are public face of of retail. And it's like, we need to know who is someone who can serve me and who is a regular customer.
[00:13:58] Rod: Sure. Like an identifying mark, like a tattoo on your forehead or something that says I'm a worker. Then you can wear whatever you want
[00:14:04] Will: Any organization ever. But what if you're in the shop and someone is saying, Hey, are these jeans available in size 25? And you're like, I don't work here
[00:14:14] Rod: I would do that.
[00:14:14] Will: Okay. Sure. Where are these arbitrary dress codes? Okay. I did one. I was call center and you know, we are not public facing
[00:14:21] Rod: dress code for a call center?
[00:14:22] Will: Well, there you go.
[00:14:24] Rod: What the fuck are they talking about?
[00:14:25] Will: Yes. And they were like no, we're a bank. And therefore we have to choose. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm getting closer to accepting there is some, is that infantilisation or is that an effort to say, look, we have some sort of standards.
[00:14:40] Rod: Well, under a broad definition of like infantilisation to my mind is you're too stupid to make sensible decisions yourself in this environment.
[00:14:47] Will: And we're asserting that we have the right to make decisions. You are decided for And we are the deciders. Yes. Okay, I'll take that one.
[00:14:53] Rod: cause we pay you.
[00:14:54] Will: I gotta read all of these out. infantilisation of employees includes strict work hours. Okay. Okay. Come on. Like you sign a contract with people and it's like, I'll be there. The shop needs to be open. Yeah. Timed breaks. And in fairness, again, the factory needs to run if it's a factory. Micromanaging bosses, I'm going to put that to the side for a second. Having to ask for bathroom breaks.
[00:15:14] Rod: Please, can I go and have a piddle?
[00:15:15] Will: Yeah, that's annoying, but again, there are some things
[00:15:17] Rod: unless lives are at stake, and that's not asking, that's saying, I need to go, can you cover my stopping people dying on cliff lines?
[00:15:24] Will: Literally, you know, you're doing surgery. It's like, you can't just drop things and go for a piss.
[00:15:28] Rod: Well, I worked in a job where we would literally put business people off cliffs in harnesses and stuff.
[00:15:32] Will: You can't just go for a dump when you're like, sorry, you're hanging off there.
[00:15:36] Rod: I know they're nearly likely to die, but I have to poo.
[00:15:38] Will: Being monitored, reported on by other employees. Come back to that. Having to ask for time off.
[00:15:46] Rod: As opposed to just disappearing when it chooses you.
[00:15:47] Will: Disappearing. Okay.
[00:15:49] Rod: Ken didn't show up again. Ah, well that doesn't matter.
[00:15:51] Will: Arbitrary dress codes, being expected to stand or sit for entire shifts.
[00:15:55] Rod: Depends on the job.
[00:15:56] Will: Yeah. Yeah. Being excluded from setting deadlines for projects that you are working on. That's an interesting one. Who gets to set the deadline?
[00:16:04] Rod: The person who understands the whole project should have a strong say in that.
[00:16:07] Will: Having performance evaluations?
[00:16:09] Rod: No, that's not infantilisation.
[00:16:09] Will: I don't like performance evaluations.
[00:16:11] Rod: But it's not infantilisation.
[00:16:12] Will: It's really not. It's like, are you a useful employee?
[00:16:15] Rod: Are you doing the job we agreed you would do? That's not an unfair question.
[00:16:18] Will: So this is, these are not great examples. I'm still struggling. I think arbitrary dress codes, yes, is a form of infantilisation. Being there at your desk when you need to answer that phone. You can't just run off in surgery and do your number twos. Give me some more examples of infantilisation. Then I think we can go to try and understand, is this actually happening or what's causing it?
[00:16:41] Rod: No one's talking about whether it happens or how you measure it so far.
[00:16:45] Will: Google Scholar. Let's see. Well, this is one of my definitions of, is this a topic of people talking about things or actually doing research on it? People who don't read a lot of stuff from Google Scholar, you just got to love some of the stuff that comes up. So the contemporary imaginary of work, symbolic immortality within the postmodern corporate discourse. Tell me what that means in less words than that.
[00:17:08] Rod: Give me it again and slower.
[00:17:10] Will: The contemporary imaginary of work, symbolic immortality within the postmodern corporate discourse.
[00:17:15] Rod: Symbolic immortality? Because of my job, I are in some way, metaphorically or symbolically, live forever.
[00:17:23] Will: Is it corporations live forever? I don't know.
[00:17:25] Rod: Well, they can. None has so far.
[00:17:27] Will: Okay, here's the self infantilised adult and the management of personality.
[00:17:31] Rod: Self infantilised. We're moving into Other realms now.
[00:17:33] Will: I don't think this is the diaper guy. But this would be an argument that we have accepted this if, if this infantilisation process in the workplace
[00:17:42] Rod: I think we have, because people don't, as a rule, it's only fucking dickheads like us with egghead brains who think about it that way. As a rule, people don't think about it that way.
[00:17:50] Like a lot of, when I say to people like this, like there's a dress code but I like, well, you know, what are you going to do? Play the game. That's the rules. And I think I get that argument, but I don't want to play with that argument. So I get that. I get why people would say like, well, they're paying me and this is the job I do.
[00:18:04] Will: And of course we should be critics of the world around us, including our employers. There is no pre Nuremberg code that says employers can tell us whatever we want to do.
[00:18:18] Rod: Look, and also, and I've been reminded of this many times in the past in an organization and an occupation like ours, we have the privilege as it were to choose a lot of things that many people don't in their workplace. Even if they're also office workers, you know, Monday to Friday, blah, blah, blah.
[00:18:32] But then I say, well, is it a privilege? I mean, yes, it is. But also, you know, I made choices to end up there. And one of the choices I have made quite explicitly when I finally said, fuck it, I'm going into academia was I do not have to wear certain clothes and I came out of a place that said you must wear a suit.
[00:18:47] Will: And there are definitely people who choose the other and go, you know what, I want to earn more money and if I have to wear a suit to earn more money, cool.
[00:18:53] Rod: My line has always been, if you want me to wear a suit in academia, I want at least 50, 000 more a year.
[00:18:57] Will: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
[00:18:58] Rod: Literally that's it.
[00:18:59] Will: But it's almost like, and I know all options aren't open to all people. Absolutely. But for a large swathe of modern society, there are a range of options open to many people and you make choices. You go, okay, how much do I want to make the money, have a cool job? So, you know, it's like people respect people that are like, I'm saving wild animals from death, doesn't pay very well.
[00:19:25] There are trade offs in all of our work. You know, it's like, and some of them are the wrong trade offs. You know, nurses and teachers should absolutely be paid more. I absolutely get that. But they are at least valorized by society in other ways. There's no one who says, you know, you meet them at a party and.
[00:19:42] Rod: I'm a nurse, you disgust me.
[00:19:43] Will: No, exactly. You fucking loser. Whereas someone saying I'm a tobacco advocate, do you get to go to parties in different ways? Like the nurse and the tobacco advocate gets to go to parties in different sorts of ways.
[00:19:54] Rod: And ours could be both depending on the party. I'm an academic, are you?
[00:20:00] Will: Okay.
[00:20:01] Rod: Your quest for how much does it actually happen? I think there are two problems. One, maybe people aren't researching it, but two, what constitutes it to measure?
[00:20:09] Will: In some ways it's a growth of rules and policies in workplaces.
[00:20:13] Rod: And they're dumb rules for things that you don't need to happen. Yeah, silly rules.
[00:20:16] Will: And we can all point to things in our own workplaces. I'll bet. Every one of you listeners, you're like, why do I have to wear this? Why do I have to sign off my emails this way? Why do I have to whatever. Is all of that infantilisation?
[00:20:30] Rod: Or it's what my, for whatever reason, we've got to remember just cause you own run or in charge of areas of a large company, it doesn't mean you're right. It doesn't mean you're smart. Doesn't mean your ideas make sense.
[00:20:41] Will: So I guess then let's accept that. Let's accept that there are things where employers, managers, bosses are saying, here's some rules that you're going to live by and the people in the workplace are going, okay, I either have to, I don't want you or whatever, and I'm going to call them infantilisation.
[00:20:59] What's causing it? And one part I say, maybe if we don't accept that it's happening, we can go, this is just the, a whinge of
[00:21:06] Rod: people like me
[00:21:06] Will: but if it is happening, is it risk aversion?
[00:21:12] Rod: No, you're right. A lot of it is actually, I think 93. 6 percent is risk aversion. Just in case someone is confused, offended, injured, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, we must make everyone behave in certain way. In principle I understand the argument, but in reality, you've got to think about how that actually manifests. That's infantilisation. Let's assume everyone is equally a low bar.
[00:21:36] Will: Yeah. Look and this is a really tough one because there's a bit of me that's like, there are people that are legitimately offensive and need to be stopped in their workplaces by various versions of corporate policies.
[00:21:47] Rod: Yeah. but that policy doesn't include your tie must be red, not Brown.
[00:21:52] Will: But I mean, one of the policies is don't sexually harass your colleagues and another is we're public facing and we need everyone to look roughly the same so that people know who the employees are.
[00:22:04] Rod: Yeah. So that's not infantilisation.
[00:22:05] Will: Neither of them are infantilisation.
[00:22:07] Rod: Yeah. Don't be a total shit and finger people who don't want to be fingered at work or anywhere. I agree with that. Like I do. I don't think that's infantilisation. That's like, honestly, we're against you abusing people and I think that's fine.
[00:22:19] Will: Thank you.
[00:22:20] Rod: You know, I'm very open minded that way, but having to wear a uniform, like, you know, the classic IT uniform, at least in Australia, there's a polo shirt with a corporate logo stitched into it. I don't think that's infantilisation. We need to be able to go when we're going to lunch, we look around and go, that's the IT guy who fucked up my computer.
[00:22:36] Will: Well, even in a non public facing set, you know, in a semi public facing, but people know, Oh, you're from IT. You know, I can identify who the workers are in the chain. That is not infantilisation.
[00:22:47] Rod: No, it's not infantilisation. There may be different reasons to agree or object to it, but it's not saying you're a baby who can't work out what to wear in the morning that won't offend or endanger people.
[00:22:56] Will: I think the legitimate one instructions that don't need to be there. I mean, that's where we'll go. That's the thing that may exist. Instructions from managers that we have to do a certain thing, answer an email in a certain sort of way that don't need to be there.
[00:23:11] Rod: Well, it's don't need to be there and it's also context matters and you can't code for all context or account for all context. So comedians do this, you know, like Jim Jeffries, Ricky Gervais, people like that. They make some jokes about things like pedophilia and rape. Like those are the words they use, but the jokes themselves in context, they're not saying pedophilia and rape are good, but the context matters.
[00:23:33] Will: Just on that, I've got an article here, an academic article, understanding humor in contemporary corporate culture. Should I search for pedophilia? It doesn't mention pedophilia. It doesn't have a specific section on pedophile jokes.
[00:23:46] Rod: Even the most outrageous things. When you just use the word without context can be okay. And so context is what matters here and large organizations making blanket rules for hundreds or thousands of people. It's difficult to take into account all contexts. I get that. Like, I appreciate that. That said, depending on the organization or the area you work in, I don't want to work in a place where people are so context impaired that they can't tell the difference between a suitable joke and an unsuitable joke.
[00:24:14] Will: Okay, well, let's go with that. Let's go with that. Yes. Workplace infantilisation is happening, but it's not every annoying thing that you see from your bosses. There's a bunch of things that are, yeah, we need to do this. Yes you're actually in surgery, we need to work out when people can go for a piss.
[00:24:34] Rod: You can't pee while the artery is spurting.
[00:24:36] Will: There are dumb rules out there. And I think we can look at those and we can say, yeah, they might be risk averse managers or just managers that just want to show that they have the power. There you go. That's our deep dive on workplace infantilisation. As I said before, you know, we want to answer your questions, listener on life, the universe, everything, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera plus universe
[00:25:03] Rod: life, the universe, et cetera, misc other.
[00:25:06] Will: But here's the number one thing. If you have questions, we want those questions. If you wonder about, I don't know,
[00:25:14] Rod: how tall is Jesus?
[00:25:16] Will: Yeah. What color is a soul? What's the best pasta or the worst pasta?
[00:25:21] Rod: Who was the first person to experience anger?
[00:25:23] Will: Then, we will deep dive for you. You can go onto our website and you can tell us, this is the question I want answered, you can do it there, but you can chuck it into a YouTube comment, Wholesome Show on X, and Insta. The other one you can do is, Five Star Review, and chuck a question in. Say, Five Stars love it, I wanna know
[00:25:41] Rod: Why people have two feet, not three.
[00:25:44] Will: And we'll be back with you to Deep Dive.
