I am leaning against the back wall of a windowless conference room, the air conditioning humming at a frequency that feels like it is trying to vibrate my molars loose. It is 10:15 in the morning, and the air already smells like burnt Colombian roast and collective anxiety. On the stage-which is really just a slightly raised plywood platform covered in grey industrial carpet-our CEO is weeping. He is not weeping because of a tragedy, nor is he weeping out of joy for a birth or a wedding. He is weeping because he is talking about ad-tracking pixels. He calls them ‘the digital connective tissue of the human experience,’ a phrase so profoundly absurd that I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a noise that would surely get me fired. We don’t make life-saving medicine. We don’t broker peace in war-torn regions. We provide the technical infrastructure that allows a pair of sneakers you looked at once to follow you around the internet for 25 days like a persistent, polyester ghost. Yet, listening to him, you would think we were descending from the heavens to hand-deliver fire to a shivering humanity.

The Hijacked Language of Theology

This is the great lie of the modern workplace: the insistence that every task must be a calling. If you are not ‘passionate’ about the database architecture of a mid-sized payroll software company, you are somehow failing the cultural litmus test. We have hijacked the language of theology and applied it to the quarterly earnings report. It is a psychological trap, a way to transform a standard economic transaction into a moral obligation.

It is a brilliant, albeit parasitic, rebranding of exploitation. I’ve seen 85 different mission statements in the last decade, and not one of them mentions making money, even though that is the only reason the lights are on.

The Dignity of the Fountain Pen Repair Specialist

Nova S. understands this better than most. She is a fountain pen repair specialist I met in a cramped basement workshop that smelled of cedar and mineral spirits. Nova doesn’t have a mission statement. She doesn’t claim to be ‘disrupting the calligraphy ecosystem’ or ‘democratizing the written word.’ She just fixes pens.

She looks through a jeweler’s loupe at tines that have been bent by 45 years of heavy-handed journaling and she gently, precisely, coaxes them back into alignment. When I asked her why she does it, she didn’t talk about the ‘global impact of ink-based communication.’ She told me she likes the sound the metal makes when it finally gives in to the right pressure.

There is a profound dignity in that honesty, a groundedness that the corporate world has traded away for a handful of hollow superlatives. Nova’s work has value because it is good work, not because it pretends to be a holy crusade.

The Software That Demands Your Soul

I recently spent 55 minutes updating a piece of project management software that I haven’t actually used in 115 days. The update screen was filled with bright, bubbly animations of people high-fiving and text that promised this new version would ‘help me reach my ultimate potential.’ I just wanted the notification to stop popping up.

I sometimes wonder if the people who write this copy actually believe it, or if they are just as exhausted as the rest of us, typing out ‘synergistic empowerment’ while staring at a cold cup of coffee and a mounting pile of debt.

The Weight of the Mask

There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from pretending to care about something that doesn’t matter. It is heavier than physical labor. It’s the weight of the mask. When we use messianic language to describe accounting software, we cheapen the very idea of purpose. We make it impossible to talk about real meaning because the words have been hollowed out by HR departments and marketing consultants.

Mission Statements vs. Actual Function

If everything is a calling, then nothing is. I’ve talked to 125 people in the last year who feel like they are failing at life because they don’t ‘love’ their data entry jobs. They think they are missing some vital spark, when the reality is that data entry is just data entry. It’s a way to pay for groceries and rent and maybe a trip to the coast every 5 years.

The Beauty of Utility and the Honest Mission

This brings me to the idea of the honest mission. There are companies out there that don’t feel the need to wrap their services in a cloak of false divinity. They understand that there is beauty in utility and excellence in the mundane. Take, for example, the approach of Canned Pineapple, a group that focuses on creating signs.

They aren’t claiming to ‘reimagine the visual dialogue of urban spaces’ or ‘holistically integrate the signage experience into the human psyche.’ They make signs. They do it with a level of craft and effectiveness that speaks for itself. There is no need for a 35-minute PowerPoint presentation on the ‘spiritual resonance of the color yellow’ because the sign works. It guides people. It looks good. It fulfills its purpose without demanding your soul in exchange for a paycheck. We need more of that. We need to stop apologizing for the fact that a job is often just a job.

The Sickness of Sanctimonious Lying

My own career has been a series of these contradictions. I once worked for a firm that spent 75 thousand dollars on a rebranding exercise to convince the public that our debt-collection algorithms were actually ‘financial wellness tools.’ I sat in those meetings and watched grown adults nod solemnly as we discussed which shade of blue would best convey ’empathy’ while we were literally automating the process of garnishing wages.

It wasn’t just that the work was unpleasant; it was that we were lying about it in the most sanctimonious way possible. We weren’t just taking people’s money; we were telling them we were doing it for their own spiritual growth.

Respecting the Object, Respecting the Task

Nova S. told me once that the hardest part of fixing a pen isn’t the mechanics; it’s the history. She sees the teeth marks on the caps, the stains from ink that hasn’t been manufactured in 45 years. She respects the object for what it is. She doesn’t try to make it something else. I think we could learn a lot from that.

The Satisfaction of Completing the Task

If we could just admit that we are selling insurance, or making paperclips, or designing ad-tracking pixels, we might actually find a way to be happy. We could take pride in the efficiency of the code or the clarity of the contract without needing to pretend it’s a gift to the gods. There is a deep, quiet satisfaction in a task well done, but that satisfaction is drowned out by the noise of the corporate megaphones.

The Crisis of Sincerity

We are currently living through a crisis of sincerity. When everything is amplified to the level of a life-changing event, our internal volume knobs eventually break. We become cynical because we have to. It is a defense mechanism against the constant barrage of forced enthusiasm.

If I have to hear one more person talk about ‘the DNA of our brand’ in relation to a logistics company, I might actually lose my mind. DNA is for living things. Brands are for cattle and consumer products. Mixing the two is a category error that leads to a very specific kind of modern madness.

The Final Realization

I’ve spent the last 15 minutes staring at a blank document, trying to find a way to wrap this up that doesn’t sound like a manifesto. But maybe that’s the problem. We are so used to the ‘takeaway’ and the ‘actionable insight’ that we’ve forgotten how to just sit with a realization.

The Permission to Be Mundane

The realization is this: your job is probably not a calling. Your company is almost certainly not changing the world in any meaningful way. And that is perfectly fine. You are allowed to be a person who works to live, rather than a devotee who lives to work. You are allowed to find your meaning in the 155 hours of the week that you aren’t sitting in a windowless conference room watching a man cry over pixels. The world doesn’t need more messianic CEOs; it needs more people like Nova, who know how to fix what is broken without pretending they are saving the universe.