So, the Washington Post ran an article this week where the former Surgeon General states that the U.S. has a “loneliness epidemic” it’s currently facing. A what?!
From the article:
“Vivek H. Murthy, who became the U.S. surgeon general in late 2014 after a lengthy confirmation battle over his remarks about guns being a health-care issue, added emotional well-being and loneliness to his list of big public health worries.
Now he’s writing about the impact the workplace has on those issues, taking his concerns to employers and speaking out about how the “loneliness epidemic” plays out on the job. In a new cover story in the Harvard Business Review, Murthy treats loneliness like a public health crisis, and the workplace as one of the primary places where it can get better — or worse. “Our social connections are in fact largely influenced by the institutions and settings where we spend the majority of our time,” Murthy said in an interview with The Washington Post. “That includes the workplace.”
Have we lost our f#*king minds!?
So, Timmy doesn’t make friends at work, goes home and spends eight straight hours on social media, or binge watches 8 episodes of Breaking Bad and feels like no one is his friend. That not an epidemic. Tim is an idiot!
I wasn’t a lonely kid, and I didn’t grow up being a lonely adult. Why? My parents would physically lock me out of the house from like after school to whenever the street lights came on. I was no ‘allowed’ in the house. They forced me to got out and make friends. It’s a learned skill, making friends. They said only one thing, “Go make friends.”
No instructions. No scheduled playgroups. Get your lazy ass outside and make friends. It’s not hard, just don’t be an idiot to the other kids who are were also forced outside. A ‘friend’ is not a social connection. It’s someone you physically talk to, touch, you know what each other’s likes and hates. You know their dreams and fears.
So, here we are in 2017, we can’t find enough talent, we’re struggling to help our leaders manage the performance of our workforce, and now we have to teach adults how to make friends? You have to be freaking kidding me!
A decade ago Gallup found out the ‘trick’ too happy employees is they have a ‘best friend’ at work. Little did we know, then, but apparently we do today, HR would become best friend matchmaker for friendship illiterate millennials who couldn’t look up from their phones for fifteen seconds to say an actual “hello” to Timmy as he walked by.
I give up. We’re all morons. Society is lost. China, please come takeover already…
The only thing idiotic about this article is the fucking WRITER. It has nothing to do with being an idiot. It has 1000% to with trust, ya dumb asshole. So you’re a 40-early 50-something dipshit? Figures. “You’re out of touch”. Remember that Hall and Oates classic, dumbass? Yeah- That tune is definitely for you. I really don’t have the time to spill out the multitudes of different variables, conditions and scenarios for why someone is lonely or shy. You can figure that out on your own just as you would have your poor child and his/her loneliness problem. Lock a kid out of the house? Jeez…Clueless?
Lest they get kidnapped in this ever safe age of 2017? Seriously, whoever wrote this doesn’t need locked out anywhere- they need LOCKED safe in an institution and THINK of how wrong you could be for writing this ignorant nonsense.
This is the single best comment ever in my blog! You called me a “writer”!
Thank you!
Tim
If kids go outside, nobody’s there. You’re gonna have to throw all of the kids outside at the same time, or your advice is worthless.
Tell me how sociable other adults are, the next time somebody staring at his/her phone walks into you in a public place.
And of course if we become “relationship experts” we are also expected to keep the results corralled within the legal limits so as to not create an environment ripe for harassment claims when friends become ex-friends or frienemies. Note to all of my HR compadres: make sure your professional liability coverage is up to date!
I feel your pain, Brother. We have colleges that bring in shrinks to help with the emotional agony of the last election and safe places to deal with everyday life.
I know it isn’t PC, but we’ve become a nation of ‘mental midgets’. My wife wants to have a conversation with our now 9 year old every time he has a conflict with a kid in the neighborhood because they can’t figure out which game to play. Let them figure some stuff out on their own. It is maddening.
Just incredibly accurate perspective. We have to many so called “experts” who are actually idiots. These are the people who are on the fake news every night. I often sit there and listen to someone postulate and realize “that’s not right” And I am not the brightest guy in the world. Too many people just like to hear themselves talk with having any clue what they are talking about.