A Country Music Classic Turned Workplace Reality

By Craig Irons

The workplace is a demoralizing environment. Bosses are jerks. Employees feel trapped. Their debts are piled high. There’s trouble on the home front. 

Sounds like the plight of today’s American worker. But, as you may remember, we’ve heard it all before:  More than three decades ago in the late Johnny Paycheck’s country song, “Take This Job and Shove It."

Paycheck’s rowdy workingman anthem, which was written by fellow country music outlaw David Allan Coe, was a huge hit in the late 1970s, in no small part because it gave voice to an undercurrent of workplace angst that rang true for millions of people. 

Now, “Take This Job and Shove It” is again reflective of the times. In fact, any leader who really believes all of his or her team members are just happy to be working in this down job market, and are therefore engaged in their jobs, needs to revisit and listen closely to this song. 

The crude proclamation of the chorus is the hook, but the real story is revealed in the verses. The protagonist has toiled in the job for 15 years, and he harbors genuine disdain for his foreman he describes as “a regular dog” and the line boss with the flattop haircut who “thinks he’s cool.” He’s busting to get out and relishes the thought of seeing the look on his supervisors’ faces when he announces that he’s walking out the door for good.

When all is said and done, however, our disgruntled worker doesn’t go anywhere.  Because he lacks the guts? No. It’s because he can’t afford to quit. He stays in the job because he needs it. And our recent “Pulse of the Workforce” survey demonstrates that most people will only stay until something better comes along.

And that is the lesson modern-day leaders need to take from this timeless country song.  Your silently unhappy employees aren’t going to tell you what you can do with the job. At least not today, anyway. But once the job market rebounds, all bets are off.

What are you doing now to prevent it from happening?

Craig Irons is the editor of GO magazine for Development Dimensions International (DDI).

Comments

[Dan McCarthy]

Craig -
Wow, pretty depressing.
My own experience supports the lack of interest in management. We seem to have a serious branding issue when it comes to the role of a leader. We need to better educate those “contented workers” as to the benefits and opportunities of being a leader. When done well and with the right motivations, it can be incredibly rewarding.