It's October 2016. Together with a colleague from Google, I am in Paris to conduct a training course. We are at the hotel reception to check in.
Even before I have my passport out, my colleague rushes forward to the receptionist. He introduces us by saying, "Hi, we're from Google."
It takes a moment for this comment to sink in. We are just standing at a random hotel, with random customers. Even the receptionist is unimpressed and looks at us indifferently. Only when he takes our passports does he slow to move.
My colleague is in a dilemma. He doesn't care much about his job anymore and has been letting it be known for some time that he would rather do something else. Never mind that he is so proud of his work that he spontaneously starts talking about it. Only the supposed status that comes with his employer clearly still pleases him.
I encounter this regularly at companies: people who work for wonderful brands, but don't like the work itself. They go to the office reluctantly and sit there biding their time. They know they need to do something else, but often don't know how.
Because how do you say goodbye to the golden cage with a generous salary and accompanying status, even though it may not be entirely optimal? After all, the mortgage has to be paid eventually.
It is not only the employee here who is a "victim of his own success. The employer also has a problem.
Employees who don't enjoy what they do are rarely outstanding. Employees who only do it for the paycheck are rarely innovative and creative (except in pretending to work hard). Not for nothing that large multinationals often look to driven startups for inspiration.
In a documentary on work happiness from Focal Point charts the cost to business of underperforming employees versus the cost of burnout.
Respectively 3.6 billion euros versus 1.6 billion euros per year, in the Netherlands alone. More than twice as high. With the risk that a dissatisfied employee still slips into burnout.
Because happy employees outperform, a whole new trend has emerged around the theme of "work happiness. There is a Week of Work Happiness, we organize competitions Champagne Dolls (Looks like genuine fun, by the way; see if you can hit a blow-up poodle with a Champagne cork) and we attend massive training sessions on, yes, work happiness.
The only question is whether you will really become happier from a training course on work happiness if you are already not happy from your work itself.
So did my colleague. Seven months after our visit to Paris, he finally left, after a period of time-consuming personal development programs and expensive coaching.
Incidentally, his fears about leaving his golden cage proved unfounded. In no time he had another job that did make him truly happy.
