As renowned neuroscientist, Michael Gazzaniga, has noted, “When you get up in the morning, you …think about status. You think about where you are in relation to your peers.”
—-Scientific American article
Does that statement ring true for you? It doesn’t for me. I’m surprised that the quote appeared in the Scientific American because a few years ago Fortune Magazine had an article about the trouble managers had understanding technical people. The managers interviewed thought in terms of career advancement, climbing the ladder of success. The technical people didn’t want to go into management, they wanted to be left alone to work on engaging and worthwhile projects. They especially didn’t want to be whipsawed, to have projects that they had invested themselves in to be abruptly terminated. The two groups were motivated by completely different things.
My husband and I would have been in the technical group. I would never have married someone who was concerned about status, who valued himself according to where he was in a hierarchy. It just wasn’t the life I wanted to lead.
I was fortunate to have understood that when I was young. Rummuser recently wrote a post about friends of his who didn’t understand that until after they married and had children. The husband is a self-made man who did very well in business and is content to focus on his business and his family. Unfortunately his wife’s sister married a fellow who is the CEO of one company and the director of others. He earns a lot more money than Rummuser’s friend and is more socially connected. Now the friend’s wife and father-in-law are encouraging/nagging the friend to enhance his, and his family’s, social status by doing more networking. Instead the friend wants to spend his free time with his family, especially his two daughters.
My heart goes out to the fellow…and to his whole family. I don’t think his wife and father-in-law are wrong to have different values from him, but it is a serious conflict…one which could destroy the family. It’s too bad the friend and his wife didn’t know about the gulf between them before they married.
What do you think?
On a lighter note, bikehikebabe told me about this video about snobbery.
No, it doesn’t ring true to me. I was always more inclined to take it easy than I was to strive to be the best… except for just one thing.
I was an instructor the last three years in the Navy and, then, three years after I went to work in a civilian nuclear facility, I had the opportunity to become an operations instructor. I liked enough that I really didn’t want to do anything else and, if that was going to be my career, I wanted to be the best at it that I could be. A audio tape series, “Lead the Field,” by Earl Nightingale, was very helpful. It all came down to providing a useful service and taking charge of one’s own attitude. While other guys in the group made it a position or a job, I made it my profession, if that makes sense. I was the innovator, the guy that tried new things in the classroom, whiles some of the others taught the same old requalification lectures year after year.
Many of my peers from the early days, and others like them, went on to very important and influential positions in the company I worked for and other companies in the nuclear industry. Other rose to their level of incompetence and I worked as an instructor for 27 years… and still get to 6 months out of 18 — and have fun doing it, too. 😉
Mike,
Good for you! One article I read trying to explain why the Danes are so happy said it’s partly because there isn’t a wide difference between jobs as far as pay and social status are concerned. So people can choose their jobs based on intrinsic satisfaction.
Don’t give a rats about status.
Gazzaniga’s comment could lead to much enquiry about the bias of enquiry and the results that result. (“Our pathologies become our philosophies”.)
Certainly managers and technical folk are different. On the other hand, I have seen some pretty aggressive technical types who took an eraser to other people’s work and put their own name there. There was one instance when I made a related mistake on a project where someone helped me and I didn’t list any names on the work, since it was done on behalf of the company. The person was quite annoyed with me afterward and I had no good way to make it up.
Although I like to think that my ego isn’t tied up in the project, it still takes me awhile to get over it when I see my work with someone else’s name as the author – especially when the new author joined the effort long after the job was completed. But certainly it is a greater blessing to experience these things and grow.
Evan,
I was wondering about Gazzaniga too. My first thought was of the nine Enneagram types. It’s the Threes that are primarily interested in status. It seems to me he’s completely ignoring the people who are are motivated by other things.
Looney,
Yes, we do like to get credit for our efforts, but as you’ve implied, we’re setting ourselves up to be unhappy if that’s our main motivation.
my status varies depending on the event, the day, the time 🙂
I am not a rocket scientist, brain surgeon or an accountant although I do have some good vibes in the textile world…
Over the next week my status will change daily
Saturday(today): study for test, ascertain how difficult to create a vegetable garden, catch up with embroidery stitching
Sunday: store manager (voluntary position) + act as whole staff
Monday: assistant banking profits from day before, trainee embroiderer (hand)
Tuesday: am/friend who listens; pm/friend who directs rubbish removal from basement
Wednesday/Thursday: student (thursday also popcorn buyer)
Friday: delivery (wo)man of said popcorn, listener at event
Saturday: leisure pursuits
So I now can’t decide what my status is so I’ll stick with ‘bum with attitude’ 🙂
Cathy,
My comment on Rummuser’s was
Why buy into the whole idea? Why do we care?
ok
it wasn’t about my personal status but rather about my ‘social status’
Cathy,
You raise a good question. What’s the difference between personal status and social status?
One reason I didn’t major in psychology was because social scientists tended to think in terms of groups and social rank and I prefer to think of people as individuals. Sharing the adventure of life interests me more than trying to rank people. One reason I enjoy your posts and comments so much is because you don’t fit into a neat pigeon hole.
yes, I am out of sync with most pigeon holes! – thanks for the compliment…
If I was to look at my social status – I would have to think about the pigeon hole. I try to fit in, depending on whether I can be bothered doing what might be ‘norm’ in a situation. On one day I might be seen as middle of the road, the next time ‘not quite up with the play’
On Monday I am going to be sticking my neck out again…when the pigeon hole my friend wants me to fit into, I have decided I don’t want to! And she ain’t gonna be pleased as she believes I need to know all the basic embroidery stitches before I can go freehand/creative!
what she has forgotten that I have never been a stickler for basics…preferring to learn something on the hop if need be. i.e. if I need a certain stitch learn it there and then. i.e. bullion roses for a class years ago…probably forgotten the finer points but if pushed could probably make a reasonable stab at it!
Cathy,
That’s the way I love to do things too! I keep learning new things because I pick the right projects…that’s a lot more fun than letting other people decide what path I should follow.
Looney not being recognized for our personal contributions, whether in employment or in our homes is indeed very painful and it takes super human effort to not be demoralized. This however has nothing to do with social status as there is no contribution whatsoever to anything other than perhaps snootiness.
Jean, the saga continues and I expect it to be resolved shortly after which I shall write a ‘curtains’ post about it. The new development is much later than my friend’s wedding. The younger sister with social ambitions got married ten years after the elder one married my friend! The younger sister is a twilight child!
rummuser,
The poor guy is in a hopeless situation if he buys into it. There is no way he can ever compete with the younger sister’s husband. So he might as well tell his wife he’s sorry she’s disappointed, but she married him the way he is…he’s going to continue spending time with his children.
rummuser,
“…it takes super human effort to not be demoralized.” Not always. Some people recognize the situation as a wake-up call. They need to do something to change their job or their life. I know many people who did that.