My workplace recently started doing a "Path to the Weekend" initiative. This is a mandatory meeting held at 5pm on a Friday for an hour about every month, where we have to have extroverted style discussions such as "tell us about 2 new things you accomplished in your personal life since the last meeting.".

It's hell.

Beatings will continue until morale improves

either because they hadn’t been offered them or because they didn’t take their company up on the offer

Are they talking about the "Get fired for depression" button on the company website that no one presses because entering in all your personal info is the oppsite of anonymous?

In my experience these things are always a box-checking exercise to justify some useless person's job. As others are pointing out, participation can backfire because now the bosses know you have personal problems. (Everyone has personal problems, but formal admission will be punished in our toxic work-always-comes-first culture.)

It's a shame, because such programs administered in good faith could truly help people. But helping workers is never the real objective. It's only for the optics. "Look, we did a thing to address this".

I like (most of) the people I work with, and my boss is pleasant, sane, and reasonable. That does more than any bullshit “well-being initiative” ever could.

Its almost as though our horrible corporate culture and financial insecurity can't be solved by cynically implementing said programs 🤷‍♂️

Raise our wages and our bills will be paid, and our mental health will get better

Yeah bruh, why the fuck would i want to engage with work in any way beyond the engagement that i tolerate because they bribe me?

This is why work-from-home is superior. No one ever sends me follow-up on why I didn't do $dumb_corporate_shit this week.

I dunno, I get $25 every quarter for wearing the same pedometer I did before I worked there. 4 extra wellness days each year, which are basically extra paid holidays that you don't have family obligations tied to. Learning budgets to get me certifications on their dime. Month long paid sebatical after 3 years every 3 years.

Some wellness programs are alright. If the company actually means it.

Here’s a solution: Nationalize all major industries.

free subscription to some meditation app?

employee mental health well-being is secured!

Aaahhhh nothing like a bozo mid level manager Karen deciding that we'd all be so much happier if we'd do these stupid ass corporate retreats where we all have to do mind numbingly stupid games like blindfold a group, hold eachother, and they all blindly have to follow the leader. I'd lead the entire group into a swirling river and teach the fuckers the real lesson.

Sorry, but this shit pisses me off.

Here we have mid level manager karen2 deciding she is a psychologist because she watched a YouTube video about sharing so now we're going to obligatory share about our personal lives every Monday morning to increase productivity!

I'm not going "kill me now" but I might be tempted to "kill you now" with that nonsense.

I helped organize Friday afternoon parties at one of the last companies I worked at and we made fucking sure it was just a nice get together. We got beers, snacks, drinks, good music and you could come and stay or not, whatever, it was just a nice activity focussed on just actually honestly being nice, and THAT actually improved bonds between people, started friendships, improved office ambiance... It got me my wife!

I think we will see companies increasingly focus their hiring based on emotional intelligence and mental health.

Emotional intelligence is a four fold better predictor of academic and financial success, family stability.

I used to think being smart was enough if you're looking for a good worker.

I realize now there are plenty of smart people who failed to launch and are perpetually bouncing from job to job every few years, not usually on their own accord.

Next I want to see a study of these annoying wellness progroms that take basic health info and then shove healthy behavior down your throat.

It took me a while to figure it out but I ignore all that crap now.

What I do think would actually be helpful is assistance buying health club memberships or exercise equipment. A bike helps me be healthier. Nagging does not.

It's the thing that bothers me about the obligatory 1-on-1s we do every month with our supervisors, asking "On a scale from 1 to 10, what's your stress level? Are you dealing with any personal issues?" And the one time I pipe up and say, "Yeah, they raised my rent $300 and it's putting strain on my budget." The response was "Do you know anyone who could move in or that you could move in with to alleviate that?" I haven't gotten a raise in two years. Fuck this shit. Don't act like you care.

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