I don't think that's what the article was getting at. Feeling guilty is the exact thing that you're supposed to avoid, if you want to help others. Instead, focus on the gratitude and how fortunate you are. From there, because you feel so grateful and compassionate, you want to help others alleviate their suffering.
I think that what you're saying about how skin color doesn't make you immune to adversity is true. I also think that they are trying to say that you shouldn't focus on guilt and instead should focus on gratitude, that relatively speaking and from their perspective, white people are privileged.
I can see how in some ways, some subset of white people have had much better fortunes than others and people of color. There are, like you said, other subsets of white people who've had it worse or suffer similarly.
There certainly are more emotions. To add on to what you're saying, being thankful doesn't mean you're not guilty. However, it also doesn't imply guilt either.
This is what irked and continues to irk me about working in a customer support position. When I was going above and beyond for customers, customers would go out of their way to let my boss and others know that I was their hero. However, what did that get me? A shallow, perfunctory reply that "the [redacted] department was lucky to have me" and to keep doing great work! When I'd meet with my boss or get feedback, they'd basically shit on my numbers.
As a consequence, I eventually gave in and decided to improve my numbers to see how "well" i could do. I was able to cut down my times to about a third of a normal agent, but that also resulted in me being more robotic and much less of a human to the customers.
I think you're on to something. I've been working for as a contractor for a big health insurance company and that seems to be the impression for the purpose of my job: "Get the customer off the phone as soon as you can."
In more polite terms, "Try to escalate the ticket by 15 minutes if you haven't resolved the issue."
Amen, I work in IT support and when I try to provide good customer service that is empathetic and customer-centric, which takes time, I get seen as worse than other agents who get the customer off the phone as soon as possible. After a while, I changed to be more "results-oriented", which does not help for customer focus.
Excellent read! I enrolled in my second bachelors for Computer Science because of Cal Newport's influence on me: Choose something that is valuable and get good at it (competence). Then, use the career capital to get autonomy and relatedness. It also reminds me of why I want to become a part time software developer instead of full time, because I want to have the autonomy associated with being part time!
That’s a great insight. There have been times when I asked myself if I made the right choice by entering CS given the sad state of hiring process and all. Also, time and time again, I have been pushed into situations and circumstances where I don’t get to work on what I want to. All of these forced me to think about how I work and what I work on. Maybe I just need to sail the waters and find something new. The world is big and so are the opportunities. There is no reason to limit ourselves to certain well received means of earning a livelihood.
